On The Paradox of Tolerance

Drawing the line between what should be tolerated and what shouldn’t be isn’t always easy. A question that immediately arises is whether intolerant ideas should be tolerated. In 1945, [as a response to the rise of authoritarianism in the late 1930s and early 1940s], Karl Popper, an Austrian philosopher, gave this challenge a name: The Paradox of Tolerance. It goes like this:

1. A tolerant society should be tolerant by default,

2. With one exception: it should not tolerate intolerance itself.

A common rebuttal to accusations of hate speech or discrimination is that calling out intolerant behavior is itself an act of intolerance. The implication being that a society that calls out and rejects intolerant behavior is, itself, intolerant. As such, it can be argued that a tolerant society should tolerate intolerance. However, Popper believed that, if welcomed without judgment, intolerant groups would take advantage of the lack of restrictions placed on them and begin to practice intolerance and persecution openly.

For example, a tolerant society should tolerate protests in general, but it shouldn’t tolerate a white supremacist march advocating for the oppression of people of color – like the 2017 march in Charlottesville, Virginia that ended with white supremacists beating and killing people who opposed their message of intolerance. Here, the Paradox of Tolerance would acknowledge that some speech shouldn’t be protected because its protection would promote the destruction of the basis of free speech – in this case, it reduced free speech overall by intimidating and silencing people of color and their advocates.

A tolerant society must protect its own existence. If tolerating intolerance results in the destruction of a tolerant society, then that tolerant society has a right to self-protection – in the form of refusing to tolerate intolerance. Hence the term paradox.

To be clear, acknowledging and applying the Paradox of Tolerance doesn’t mean that we should completely suppress or silence every single intolerant opinion. If an intolerant opinion is unlikely to endanger the existence of a tolerant society, more regular forms of defense (think private criticism, disgust, and natural consequences) are a better way of protecting tolerance. Tolerance is endurance not acceptance.

The Paradox of Tolerance [comes into play] when a society that either prides itself on its tolerance or is actively working towards being more tolerant begins to favor bigoted and intolerant ideas.  

It’s difficult to talk in “ifs”, so let’s bring this into the real world. Though the Paradox of Tolerance may not apply when a relative or friend makes a bigoted comment or two (here you can just go with everyday forms of defense), it definitely applies when, let’s say, an institution that prides itself on diversity and inclusion defends people who support an openly white supremacist president (who was elected with 46% of the vote) that uses presidential power to enforce racist government policies in a country with a long record of white supremacy in the name of (million-dollar word!) tolerance. A tolerant institution that refuses to publicly criticize intolerance will inevitably alienate the truly tolerant individuals within it and put itself in danger of becoming the antithesis of what it stands for. This scope can be applied on institutional, national, or even global levels--- [overly tolerant communities tend to threaten to tip themselves in a vast and inevitable increase in intolerance].

“Your heart knows when unlimited tolerance is the wrong answer. Listen to your heart. And then memorize the Paradox of Tolerance, so your head and your heart can act in concert.”