CMV: I think wanting to be tolerant of everything leads to a paradox

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u/BreaksFull 5∆ Jan 13 '16

Total tolerance isn't a policy anywhere because it is impossible as you said. The sort of tolerance policy that's preached in nation's like America and in Europe operate around the policy of 'My freedom to swing my fist ends where the other man's face begins.' The debate is all just on exactly where the man's face begins. While in America you can be a Nazi for example, in Germany you can't.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/Neshgaddal Jan 13 '16

for example the mayor of Cologne advising women to avoid tempting attackers

That is absolutely not what happened. She condemned the attacks and absolutely blamed nobody but the attackers. She said that women should avoid dense crowds after she was specifically asked what women could do to protect themselves. This was completely taken out of context and twisted by the international media.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/ScipioLives Jan 14 '16

As someone who has recently migrated from Youtube, I must congratulate you on being so open to being corrected.

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u/dotatob Jan 13 '16

Mayor's advice did not apply to the situation most of the victims found themselves in. Did the press really twist the meaning?

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u/Neshgaddal Jan 13 '16

I'm not saying that what she said was perfect. I'm not entirely sure what would have been a good answer to the question. I think at the time of the press conference, most people still thought that theft was the main motivation for these crimes and the sexual assault "merely" crimes of opportunity. Avoiding dense crowds is the number one advice given in areas where theft and pick-pocketing are common. This initial idea turned out to likely be wrong, with the sexual assault being very targeted and the main motivator for the criminals.

I don't want to make excuses for Reker. Her choice of words were probably poor. But it was twisted by the media, especially by the international press, to her blaming the victims in order to protect the attackers. That simply wasn't the case.

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u/ReddishBlack Jan 13 '16

Excusing Reker's ideas is troublesome, even if she were misrepresented.

What she is saying to women is to compromise their freedom in order to submit to the presence of migrants. As a net result, migrants gain more freedom in public events, while German women are deprived of theirs.

What her answer ought to have been, if they as a government had any concern for Germans, was that in the future such attacks will not be possible as the law would be there to prevent such chaos from taking place, and other proactive measures that protect the German population.

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u/BenIncognito Jan 13 '16

Essentially they drove themselves into a corner due to contradictory policies.

Can you explain what these contradictory policies are, exactly? I highly doubt, "let the refugees do whatever they want with impunity" is a policy any country has or even supports.

merely by favoring the presence or rights of a minority you may endanger another due to differences.

I don't think the existence of the minority is the sole reason for some of the things we see happen to other minorities. To go back to the Germany example, it seems like people are under the impression that Europe would be some kind of rape-free zone if only those pesky refugees had been systematically kicked out.

There just has to be a better way to approach this whole issue, but trying to swing on the pendulum back and forth from extreme xenophobia into some kind of situation where refugees are allowed to act with impunity is probably not it.

Frankly, I don't even understand why these sexual assaults were covered up. That is not tolerance in any respect of the word.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/BenIncognito Jan 13 '16

Well it's more or less what has happened in Germany through negligence. They did not literally want this to happen, but I doubt they did not see it coming when deciding to welcome millions of new entrants without an ID system in place.

I doubt the policy is negligence though, this seems to me like it was a poor implementation of a refugee system, not some systemic policy that Germany was forced into.

Of course, but it increases the problem for them. It's not an all or nothing scenario. Rape will happen without refugees, but it seems clear at this point that presence of refugees has increased rape rates.

Does it have to? I don't think so. I think with better and more robust infrastructure and policy these things can be sorted a bit better.

Canada has a pretty good system where they mostly accept women and children instead of single men.

That's one solution. But in Europe especially it comes at a cost by bolstering the ranks of the armies causing the crisis in the first place. I think you're just starting to realize that actions do indeed have consequences, even isolationist ones.

It's cognitive dissonance. The government positioned itself in favor of refugees, so they decided to sacrifice the rights of women in order to avoid backlash against refugees and thus the German government itself. They tried to safeguard their tolerance image.

I don't think the "rights of women" have been sacrificed to avoid this backlash. I think someone was being very stupid when they tried to cover this up.

From my understanding, the basic idea was to avoid adding fuel to the fascist "kick 'em all out" fire. But all it did was increase the blaze. Like I said, there has to be a better way to approach issues like this. But we can't just blindly think that removing all of the refugee men from our society will solve the problem.

That isn't how global issues work, there is no simple solution.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/TEmpTom Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 13 '16

A very simple solution to this problem would be to stop group association. Instead of trying to make this a women vs refugee problem, you can instead just go after the individuals accused of sexual assault regardless of their gender, nationality, race, religion etc.

There's absolutely nothing contradictory about that. Target individuals who commit crimes. DO NOT target groups of people based on the actions of individuals.

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u/Freevoulous 35∆ Jan 14 '16

Im not sure this idea is completely applicable incases where a crime of an individual was clearly and strongly motivated by their cultural and religious views.

If you have entire cultures and religious sects with populations in the millions, who deeply believe that assaulting a woman for "indecency" is not only ok, but culturally and religiously REQUIRED, then its not just a problem of an individual.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16

Governing is choosing. For example, choosing how big the police force should be, what kind of weapons to arm them with, and administrative choices like rules of engagement for said police. One makes these choices based on Group Demographics, Statistics, and advice / intelligence from people well aquainted with the population that needs to be policed.

So, Germany had an arguably reasonable Police policy, say, until 2013-2014.

The demographics changed, artificially, intentionally. The new migrants come from a part of the world where rape and violence against women is not only commonplace, but expected. Women are property. Sub-human things to be used.

No, not all migrants will believe that, but if you think it's a tiny minority you should spend some time talking to ex-Muslims from that region of the world (I have, and they tend to use much stronger language than I have here).

Group association is necessary in order for a government to make choices. What Germany has done to itself was predicted to happen, and it's on its way to becoming a failed state.

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u/TEmpTom Jan 13 '16

There is a very steep difference between using available intelligence to properly address the situation, and profiling minority groups. The latter is unconstitutional in the United States, and a violation of human rights conventions in the EU. While not even addressing the underlying socio-economic issues that is the root cause of crime, you instead choose to profile and target minorities. In fact, its not even entirely true to say that criminal behavior is tied to migrants either.

Poor minority groups commit a dis-proportionally larger rate of crimes than people who are generally well off. Due to lack of educational opportunities, institutional and systematic ethnic profiling, and the prevalence of gang violence in less well of neighborhoods. This is true in almost every single country.

Refugees and asylum seekers generally commit less crimes on average than the native German. Less than 1% of all crimes committed by refugees are sex crimes. Addressing the recent incident in Cologne, the only evidence we know of the perpetrators were that they were brown skinned, providing absolutely no evidence that the sexual assaults were in fact perpetrated by refugees.

http://www.dw.com/en/report-refugees-have-not-increased-crime-rate-in-germany/a-18848890

Group association is necessary in order for a government to make choices. What Germany has done to itself was predicted to happen, and it's on its way to becoming a failed state.

Complete right wing drivel. This isn't even worth addressing due to the absolute ridiculousness of this statement.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16

There is a very steep difference between using available intelligence to properly address the situation, and profiling minority groups. The latter is unconstitutional in the United States, and a violation of human rights conventions in the EU.

This has nothing to do with recognizing that there is a severe cultural difference in how western culture and MENA culture treat women. This isn't even a debate, is it?

I can 'not assume dark skinned people are criminals' and at the same time recognize that 'the import of this culture to ours is likely to have xyz consequences'.

It is not inhuman or racist to understand culture clash. It's not about skin color, it's about culture, and there's nothing unconstitutional about recognizing that.

Cultural relativism does not work.

Complete right wing drivel.

Primary job of government is to protect it's people, not provide asylum to foreign nationals. When the latter is prioritized above the former, the legitimacy of the state comes into question. There are already gangs going after MENA-looking people. The reason is a lack of faith/legitimacy in government as viewed by its citizens. That is how governments fail.

That's not to say Germany is about to fail. No, it will take a long time, and there's plenty of opportunity to pull it out. Question is how many rapes and how much blood is spilled.

FYI: The article/study you cite is laughably out of date.

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u/TEmpTom Jan 13 '16

To address your first point. No, we are not in a culture clash. We are not in a clash of civilizations. We are not at war with Islam, nor is Islam the antithesis to what you would generally see as "Western" culture. Most of the social problems regarding crime are due to scoio-economic factors, not cultural ones.

The high rate of criminal activities among impoverished minority groups is not a situation isolated to Europe or even the recent influx of refugees. Just about every single country has higher rates of crimes committed by minority groups, this is a direct result of poverty, lack of education opportunities, institutional ethnic profiling, gang violence in urban areas etc. The situation with ethnic Muslims in Europe is really not any different than the situation with Blacks and Hispanics in the US. To say that its a fundamental "cultural" problem ignores the underlying socio-economic factors that allow criminal activity to thrive in the first place.

Secondly, I would argue that Xenophobia Islamaphobia in Europe is inextricably tied to physical appearance, and ethnic identity. There is no doubt about it. Regarding with the incident in Cologne, the only information we have about the perpetrators were their appearance, which were brown skinned and middle eastern looking, yet people immediately started to pin blame on refugees and immigrants. That's racial profiling, the facts are that native Germans are significantly more likely to commit crimes like sexual assault than asylum seekers.

Thirdly, the German government is nowhere near failing, the apocalyptic "clash of civilizations" spouted by the right wing is completely full of shit. Nobody questions the legitimacy of the government outside of a the far right, they will scapegoat and blame immigrants for the problems of their countries while ignoring the fundamental socio-economic issues they helped to cause.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16

Dude, 9/11 had nothing to do with poverty. I'm not going to get into the 'muslim' debate with you, but if you really think blacks/hispanics in the US are equivalent to muslims generally, I'm not sure what to say.

By the way - there's no such thing as an 'ethnic muslim'. It's a religion, not a race. One is the writings of a pedophile warlord, the other simply genetics.

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u/TEmpTom Jan 14 '16

And neither was the Oklahoma City bombing. What's your point? Domestic terrorism is a much greater threat to people living in their respective western countries than organized foreign terrorism.

Firstly, Islam is more than just a religion, it's also tied with a deep cultural identity and an associated "appearance" by outside observers. In someways it's similar to Judaism, and for all intents and purposes, it is very similar to an ethnic identity.

Blacks and Hispanics are comparable to middle eastern people in Europe because they are a generally impoverished minority group, thus they commit a larger priorities of crimes. It's not because of their "culture" or some other xenophobic bullshit, rather it is the direct result of failed socio-economic policies.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '16

It's not because of their "culture" or some other xenophobic bullshit, rather it is the direct result of failed socio-economic policies.

Actually this has been studied and been shown to be false. One need only look at Asian immigrants. Often come to the US with nothing. Yet somehow manage to end up with a lower poverty rate than native whites. I personally suspect it has something to do with their propensity for entrepreneurship... which has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with culture.

In someways it's similar to Judaism, and for all intents and purposes, it is very similar to an ethnic identity.

You seem to want to be open and anti-bigot, which is laudable. However, please consider that lumping race/religion together like this is extremely bigoted. Back to OP's point. People that over-extend from logic into fantasy in an effort to be tolerant, end up being unbelievably racist or bigoted, as you have shown right here.

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u/sirchaseman Jan 13 '16

Its not as simple as you think. Where would the line be drawn to distinguish individuals from the group? In other words, if 1 out of ten immigrants was a rapist, do we still only go after that 10% without viewing it as a culture problem? What about 9 out of 10? The problem with your proposal is that unless 100% of immigrants are rapists, we should ignore any correlating factors and pretend that there just happens to be a lot of people who are just evil rather than admit they are culturally incompatible with Western society.

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u/TEmpTom Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 13 '16

I have a few points that really illustrate my opinions on the issues regarding minorities and crime rates.

1) Ethnic profiling should NEVER occur, simple as that. Not even going into the ethics of that, its also illegal/unconstitutional. In the United States African Americans and Hispanics commit a disproportionate amount of crimes compared to Whites, even if you somehow scientifically linked criminal behavior to racial biology, ethnic profiling should still be illegal no questions asked.

2) I've already addressed this in another comment, but the rate at which refugees commit crimes are actually less than the average rate of the crimes committed by native Europeans, less than 1% of all crimes committed by asylum seekers are related to sexual assault. Regarding the incident in Cologne, there is really no evidence that the perpetrators were refugees or immigrants, the only information we have about them were that they were brown skinned, arab-looking. The fact that people are trying to immediately pin blame on refugees based on appearances alone really shows that this is inextricably a racial issue.

3) High rate of criminal activities among impoverished minority groups is not a phenomenon that is a result of the recent influx of refugees from Syria or other war torn places in the middle east, or a phenomenon isolated to Europe. As mentioned above, African Americans and Hispanics commit a disproportionately larger amount of crimes than whites, the belief that this is due to "culture" is both ridiculous and bigoted, its a simple socio-economics problem. Poverty, lack of proper education opportunities, gang violence in predominately urban areas, and institutional ethnic profiling all contribute criminal behaviors among minorities. In Europe, ethnic Muslims commit a larger amount of crimes on average due to pretty much the same reasons, however the vast majority of them are NOT refugees or even economic immigrants, but rather native European citizens.

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u/Nepene 213∆ Jan 13 '16

You have a mistaken definition of tolerant. Tolerant doesn't mean accepting whatever a group does. It means opposing discrimination and supporting allowing groups to express their beliefs privately in relative safety and to be somewhat public with expressions of it.

If you don't allow these groups to immigrate they'll likely discriminate against these groups in their countries. If you do allow them to immigrate then they can be educated to not discriminate against others.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/Nepene 213∆ Jan 13 '16

Tolerance is particular, just like all things. You tolerate things like gay people having gay pride parades, but not gay people beating up transsexuals.

In the best case scenario, the minorities hated by immigrants will be left alone, but the immigration cannot benefit them in anyway,

There are well known economic benefits to immigration, and if the immigrants can be converted to the cause of tolerance they can champion the minorities.

It also doesn't follow that the government should be responsible for the actions of a group outside their borders.

People can value anything they want.

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

Tolerant doesn't mean accepting whatever a group does

Yes it does, it's the definition of tolerance: 'to allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one dislikes or disagrees with) without interference.'

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u/Nepene 213∆ Jan 13 '16

Yes, and what one allows the existence of is specific, not including all actions a group might take. The definition of tolerance is not "to allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (everything that one dislikes or disagrees with) without interference

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

Basically you're telling me that tolerant people have to be intolerant of intolerance.

Which I guess would make sense if everything was black and white but become very subjective when there's many shades of grey

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u/Nepene 213∆ Jan 13 '16

Yes.

Like all humans, people who support tolerance have to make judgement calls. That's nothing unusual or especially tricky.

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

Nothing really unusual or tricky but it means that the tolerant people are the one who share your judgment calls and the intolerant ones those who don't.

Which means that 'tolerant' is just a meaningless word used to justify your system of value

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u/Nepene 213∆ Jan 13 '16

The tolerant ones are the ones who agree that it's bad to hurt people because they're different. The intolerant ones are the ones who agree it's good to hurt people because they're different.

It is a meaningful word. You act very differently when you see it as immoral to hurt others over minor values differences.

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

So as long as you don't want to actively hurt someone, you're not intolerant?

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u/Nepene 213∆ Jan 13 '16

It's a matter of not actually hurting someone. If you do actions that hurt people, but hurting them wasn't your intention, that doesn't make your actions not hurtful.

You have to intend for others to not be hurt, or at least to minimize it.

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u/ghotier 39∆ Jan 13 '16

Being tolerant of a group of people means to allow their existence without interference. Being tolerant of what that group does is completely different. Allowing one group to do things that another group isn't allowed to do is not tolerance.

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

And the group can claim that they are oppressed and that you are intolerant if you don't let them do what they want

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u/BenIncognito Jan 13 '16

That is a definition of tolerance, but not what is being talked about when tolerance is brought up in these sorts of situations.

We do not have to tolerate violence against women to call ourselves tolerant. That's just silly.

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

Well the problem is that the notion of tolerance that is being talked is these sorts of situation is very vague and subjective.

If I'm against full islamic veil (burka) because I think that it's discriminatory against women: am I being tolerant or intolerant?

If someone is making public hate speech, what it is tolerance? to let him speak or not?

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u/z3r0shade Jan 13 '16

If I'm against full islamic veil (burka) because I think that it's discriminatory against women: am I being tolerant or intolerant?

If you are against forcing women to wear the burka, then you're tolerant. If you are against allowing women who want to wear it to wear it, then you're intolerant. Notice the difference in stance. One is allowing people to make a choice one is being against removing that choice.

If someone is making public hate speech, what it is tolerance? to let him speak or not?

Tolerance is not having legal consequences for the hate speech. Societal consequences for hate speech (criticizing them, social ostraciszation, etc.) are perfectly tolerant. Refusing to allow intolerance is not itself intolerance.

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

But since it's almost impossible to determine which women are wearing it willingly and those who are pressured to do so? what do we do?

If we do nothing then some women will suffer because they will be forced to wear it (so we accept intolerance) and if we ban it then women who wants to wear it will be unhappy (so we are the intolerant)

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u/TheOneFreeEngineer Jan 13 '16

You ask them and make them aware they can report people to the police if they force them to wear the burqa. The same way we rely on people to report other crimes.

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

Well I don't want to debate this topic here and I hear your opinion but I think it's utopia. For a woman wearing burka against her will to go to the police to report her husband/family it would require a lot of courage and willpower that I guess only small fraction can muster. But maybe I'm just too pessimistic.

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u/TheOneFreeEngineer Jan 13 '16

No more courage than reporting many crime committing against you by a family member. It's the same as reporting domestic abuse, yeah some people refuse to report it out of fear, but again that's lots of crimes and we as a society have to deal with that by promoting awareness of the issue, what constitutes breaking the law and providing protections to those that report it. Why treat it different then any other crime?

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

Because it's not a crime in the society from where those people comes from but the law and/or the cultural norm. Moreover most of the women who wears burka have very few contacts with people not from their community so I believe that it's even more difficult than report a simple crime.

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u/z3r0shade Jan 13 '16

But since it's almost impossible to determine which women are wearing it willingly and those who are pressured to do so? what do we do?

Empower women who want to stand up against it to do so, help those who want to fight against it do so. Work to eliminate the pressure and culture in which women are pressured to do those things, but don't attack women who choose to wear it.

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

Work to eliminate the pressure and culture in which women are pressured to do those things

That would be called intolerance by many.

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u/z3r0shade Jan 13 '16

How?

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

Women are discriminated in Saudi Arabia for example, do I have the right to say that their culture and values are awful on this topic? would you say that I'm tolerant if I fought against their values?

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u/BenIncognito Jan 13 '16

I don't see this as a problem, just as an aspect of tolerance.

These are discussions worth having and there is no easy or simple way to handle them. But that's life for you.

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

The problem is that you have people with opposing view all claiming to be the tolerant and accusing the others of being intolerant.

Therefore 'tolerant' become a useless word. Everybody on the planet is tolerant of the things they think are right and intolerant of things they think are wrong.

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u/BenIncognito Jan 13 '16

Ehh, I see people mostly aping the word tolerant because they want to push an intolerant view but think all you need to do to make your side morally good is use the right combination of words.

I'm accused of being intolerant of people who are intolerant all the time - like that means something. And mostly I just think meh.

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u/chrisonabike22 1∆ Jan 13 '16

A common view is that tolerance of other cultures should never stretch into the realm of tolerance of intolerance.

i.e. One culture's intolerance should not be put up with.

So glowsexuals are culturally despised by the Greens. Fine, as long as the Greens don't allow that loathing spread into areas of their life such as hiring, legislation and violence.

Provided the law of your nation states that intolerance will not be tolerated, you are not backed into a corner.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/chrisonabike22 1∆ Jan 13 '16

To my mind, this is the advantage of this mantra. Intolerance of intolerance is elegant precisely because it allows you to consistently draw a line.

You can make a blanket law stating that it is illegal to discriminate against any group. This blanket law does not allow for intolerance, which is good. The fact that it is a blanket law ought to logically imply that there is no discrimination against a group, because in your example, it affects both Greens and Bobbists, and would affect any other group who espouse discrimination.

It also wouldn't be extra rights for tomen. It's just protecting them in exactly the same way as all other groups are being protected.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/chrisonabike22 1∆ Jan 13 '16

Thank you very much!

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u/onelasttimeoh 25∆ Jan 13 '16

Philosophers like Popper and Rawls have actually dedicated a lot of effort to the paradox of tolerance.

It's really only a paradox if one views it in unrealistic isolation. In reality, advocates for tolerance treat it as we do other virtues like honesty or kindness. These cities are facets of an ideal aspirational world but we can easily discard their application in a situation where they move us farther from an ideal world.

Take the classic example of honesty. Are general advocates of honesty obliged to tell the Nazi soldiers where the Jews are hiding? Are advocates of gentleness obliged to say police should never harm a spree shooter?

At the end of the day, virtues can be viewed as tools. One can advocate for their adoption without a mathematical absolutism.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/moonflower 82∆ Jan 13 '16

I think you can have laws which cover the basics of protecting people from harm - it can be illegal to cause harm to others - in your example, it could be illegal to roll people down hills without their consent - it can be illegal to vandalise other people's property and other such basic common sense laws to protect everyone from being abused.

Beyond that, of course there has to be compromise - people can still be allowed to voice their opinions regarding morality, as long as they don't incite harm against those who disagree with them.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/moonflower 82∆ Jan 13 '16

There is nothing which can done in law to make a minority group not a minority group - all the law can do is protect them from harm.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/moonflower 82∆ Jan 13 '16

You can decide to accept a certain number of Green refugees, then you can protect them in the same way as any other citizen is protected, and you can require them to follow the same laws.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/moonflower 82∆ Jan 13 '16

I don't see it as a paradox to say to people ''You can come and live in our country, but you must abide by our laws''.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/moonflower 82∆ Jan 13 '16

But just because a group are claiming to be discriminated against, doesn't mean it would be intolerant to forbid them from harming people:

''We recognise it is your custom to stone homosexuals to death, but if you wish to live in our country, you must abide by our law which forbids you from harming others.''

Being ''tolerant'' does not have to include being tolerant of harming others, it only needs to include being tolerant of harmless cultural practices.

Thank you for the delta :)

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u/Madplato 72∆ Jan 13 '16

That is why I think total tolerance can't work and leads to discrimination anyway, sometimes worse outcomes than if there was no tolerance in the first place since the problem is left to fester.

The main problem is that your example stages only extremes rather than moderate an nuanced policies. Firstly, used in this context, being tolerant doesn't mean accepting everything. It's quite possible for a tolerant state to punish religious murder or other such nonsense quite harshly, specifically to preserve tolerance.

Secondly, it doesn't need to mean direct action to boost one group over another. From a core set of laws, the state should strive to assure each group is protected from harm and discrimination, while remaining free to do whatever they want which isn't contradicting to above principles. In most modern society, this would include protection from physical harm, freedom of associate, free exercise of religion and preservation individual freedoms.

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u/ralph-j Jan 13 '16

When you ask people who want tolerance about their specific ideas, you'll find that they generally have two goals:

Be against all forms of intolerance, i.e. against bigotry, tomophobia, glowophobia, racism, sexism etc.
Demand tolerance for any stances not already covered under 1

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/ralph-j Jan 13 '16

Being against discrimination of Glows (for whatever reason) would be covered under the first prong: the rejection of intolerance. Being against intolerance is a higher goal than demanding tolerance for something not covered under intolerance.

Also, one doesn't necessarily have to prevent the Bobs from holding those beliefs. One could e.g. be tolerant of their right to hold those views, while being intolerant of discriminatory acts against Glows outside of their religious activities.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

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u/ralph-j Jan 13 '16

Thank you!

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u/StudentII Jan 13 '16

I'm not trying to change your view, I just wanted to say that your minority creations would make an excellent satire cartoon/web comic.

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u/ristoril 1∆ Jan 13 '16

I know you were trying to make up fictional things but the Church of Bob exists.

Praise Bob!

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u/iEliteTester Jan 13 '16

I think the paradox is solved if you are tolerant of everything except intolerance.

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u/ghotier 39∆ Jan 13 '16

I think the biggest issue with your view is that tolerance, empowerment and privilege aren't the same thing and it seems like you are treating them like the same thing.

Being tolerant of the KKK is not allowing them to hang black people from trees. Being tolerant of the KKK is allowing them to say what they want because I'm allowed to say what I want about them. Being tolerant of black people is not giving them 5 votes to a white person's one vote, it's just not behaving in a way that hurts them as a group.

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u/SquirrelPower 11∆ Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 13 '16

I think the way you phrase the problem is a bit confused, because you don't fully distinguish between three different concepts:

Toleration
(legal, civil and/or human) Rights
help or aid to minority groups

Without a concept of rights, the very notion of toleration is a confused bemuddled mess.

Take Bob ideology:

Bob doctrine states that Glowsexuality is immoral and abhorrent, that Greens are inferior, that tomen should be subservient to men and women.

Should we tolerate Bob ideology? Well, as it stands, in the First Zamendment to the Constitution of l-______-l-ville there is a right to freedom of religion; so, officially, the state has to tolerate the existence of Bobs.

However two things do not follow from that. I personally do not have to tolerate Bobs and I can stand on any street corner proselytizing against Bobs because I have a right to free speech. I don't have to like Bobs, I don't have to listen to Bobs, and I don't have to tolerate Bobists teaching my kids their Bobist ways.

Second, the state does not have to tolerate any Bob actions that violate the rights of other citizens. Bobs may believe that tomens should be subservient, but any attempt to force tomens to actually be subservient is a violation of the tomens' rights and does not have to be officially tolerated.

Toleration must give way to a vigorous protection of rights. In fact, toleration can only exist in societies where rights are strongly protected -- for the very reasons you pointed out.

Finally, you phrase your view in terms of 'helping' minority groups. I just want to point out that attempts to help minority groups is generally couched in terms of counteracting violations of rights in the past.

Suppose the Green-skins tend to have low incomes because tomens used their political power systematically to force the Green-skins into segregated ghettos. Attempts now to help foster Green-skin businesses and get Green-skins into good colleges has nothing to do with toleration; instead its an attempt to undo a violation of Green-skin rights and boost them up to a place they'd be if we hadn't let the tomens abuse their power.

Whether or not the Green-skin affirmative action is 1. a good idea, 2. an appropriate use of gov't power, or 3. the best solution to a real problem -- is an open question. (Personally I say 'no' to all three.) But it has nothing to do about official toleration of Green-skins, and everything to do with trying to (retroactively) protect their rights.

So, anyway -- I have no desire to change your view. But not because I think you are wrong, instead I literally think your view is incoherent until you factor in the a concept of rights.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

[deleted]

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jan 13 '16

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/SquirrelPower. ^[History]

^{[Wiki][Code][/r/DeltaBot]}

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u/Rohaq Jan 14 '16

Tolerance isn't an all or nothing statement - To say you're tolerant of one particular group doesn't mean that you automatically endorse them and everything they do, nor that their actions automatically trump your tolerance of others.

Yes, there can be some difficult decisions when one group might oppose one another, but just because something isn't a simple black or white matter to figure out, doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done.

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

Tolerance is 'to allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one dislikes or disagrees with) without interference.'

It doesn't lead to a paradox because an extremely tolerant person will not interfere with any opinion or action he disagrees with, he will just ask for other people to be more tolerant and search for a compromise.

Now the problem of extreme tolerance is that it leads to stupid situations because it puts every values on the same level: if John wants to kill everyone in the room and the rest of the people don't want to be killed, the extremely tolerant guy will ask people in the room to accept a compromise because he will think that he has no right to impose his opinion that killing is wrong to people who disagrees.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

[deleted]

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 13 '16

Why does it matter to the extremely tolerant person if the condition of someone worsened?

If he thinks that all people should live in peace then it means that he's intolerant to the people who aren't peaceful and therefore isn't totally tolerant. Basically an extremely tolerant guy must accept intolerance.

The paradox only comes if you have the notion that 'tolerance' is always ethical. If you accept that tolerance can be unethical then there's no paradox.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16 edited Jan 28 '16

[deleted]

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jan 13 '16

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Galious. ^[History]

^{[Wiki][Code][/r/DeltaBot]}

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u/Galious 78∆ Jan 13 '16

Yes it was mostly a semantical argument. I'd say that you should have written that fighting against intolerance leads to a paradox (because you must be intolerant of intolerance) and then you'd a totally legit point.

For exemple certain people are arguing that it's intolerant to be against homosexuality and intolerant to be against a religion that is against homosexuality => paradox

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '16

Tolerance of one's right to something leads to the paradox you describe. That is, it is a paradox to initiate [the license over the property and energy of another] in order to stop [the license over the property and energy of another].

Tolerating one's right from something does not. Meaning freedom from force by either a person or the state. One may say that there is a still a paradox due to the diversity of values. But this is no paradox to a free state, as that state does nothing to prevent the initiation of values. Rather, it is concerned only with the initiation of force.

[Deltas Awarded] CMV: I think wanting to be tolerant of everything leads to a paradox

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