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This week we’re FINALLY getting to the crux of the conversation: The Tolerance Paradox.  We wanted to jump right into it last week but we realized that we had some foundation work to do on the concept of tolerance itself, so we spent some time defining what we mean when we talk about tolerance, and why (as a collective, and especially Americans) even value it.  This included some pretty… wonky philosophy about the nature of human discourse and what drives it. You may recall the phrases “classical” and “fortress” being mentioned.  

 

Then, because so much of our context around tolerance comes down to what people say, AND because of the perception that the Constitution gives us the right to say whatever we want to, we also spent some time breaking down what counts as speech under the Constitution - as defined the the First Amendment and SCOTUS, noting what kinds of speech and expression are and aren’t actually protected under Federal Law. 

 

So now we’ve given you all the background we think is necessary, and we’re ready to solve this thing.Yes? No. The answer is no. But we are definitely ready to have an intelligent conversation about these ideas, and hopefully help us all come to a place of greater understanding. Because that is always the goal of these episodes. 

The Tolerance Paradox 

It’s at this point that we need to start talking about the Paradox of Tolerance. And here we enter the maze of philosophy carrying with us the tangled nature of a paradox. This section is going to include a lot of opining, a lot of feeling, and a lot of the phrases, “I just don’t know…” , and “there’s just so much to unpack here”.  We’re going to bounce back and forth from research, to the opinions of philosophers, to our own opinions. And, we’re going to do our best to tell you which is which.  

 

Let’s begin by defining the paradox first, shall we? The paradox of tolerance was first noted by a political philosopher named Karl Popper during World War II.  At that time (and let’s be honest, for most of time since) the Nazis were considered the epitome of intolerance. And, like many around the world, Popper opposed their intolerance. But, as he theorized tolerance (remember, that’s coexisting with ideas that you don’t approve of without seeking to change them) as a rejection of intolerance, he surmised that complete tolerance - even of intolerant ideas and behaviors - would lead to the overwhelming of the tolerant by the intolerant (AP). One of the most famous snippets of his theory reads: 

 

“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

 

But then right after that, he says:

 

In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. (popper)

 

In other words, Popper is asserting that we should be tolerant of everything except intolerance, but we shouldn’t seek to suppress intolerance as long as it can be kept under control by tolerant people.  And you can clearly and easily see the sticky wicket that is this concept we’ve decided to try to unpack for all of you. 

 

A small interjection:

 

The next part of the conversation gets real deep, so before we get there, I think it’s important to acknowledge that much of what we’re going to talk about in this next section is predicated on the “ideal” of infinite tolerance.  There is this presumption that a person’s status as tolerant is only valid if they are tolerant of anything and everything they disagree with. It’s where the snarky comments about the “tolerant left” or Christians “loving their neighbors” comes from.  

 

But the reality of the matter is that none of us is truly tolerant of everything. Every individual or in-group has set limits for what is tolerable, what we should seek to gently change, and what must be actively opposed. Those grow and change over time (for a variety of reasons), and often stand in contradiction to the limits of other in-groups. 

 

In one of the articles we discussed last week, Barbara Pasamonik talks about the popular perception that there’s this moral tipping point - that we should be tolerant of everything until it shows the potential for violating “liberal order” or “the common good.” But in reality, even that is a moving target as what society comes to accept or reject changes. 

 

So as we talk about whether or not a tolerant society should tolerate intolerant views and behaviors, keep in mind that this is a paradox in truly philosophical terms. The idea of a tolerant society is, in practical terms, undefinable. Our collective tolerance is really just a loose coalition of in-groups with overlapping behaviors and views, and whose opposing views we can tolerate… until we can’t.

 

So when we talk about “society” as a whole, feel free to imagine what society means to you - that might be your family, your ethnic group, your neighborhood, your religious group, or any combination of groups you belong to. 

 

Ok, back to contemplating this paradox.   

Does A Tolerant Society Have to Accept Intolerant Speech

We’re living in very different times than Karl Popper was when he philosophized this issue, but at the same time we’re not living in conditions too dissimilar to his. 

 

In the run up to WWII, intolerance had progressed from an undertone of ideas to political policy, and was embodied in Germany for all the world to see as direct action against the Jews, the Romani people, the handicapped, and all who would tolerate those groups. The government itself was mandating this intolerance, so it was inherently pervasive. Talk about people and policies either happened in very public spaces or in the privacy of one’s home - one could (usually) clearly see the degree to which his or her neighbor was complicit in the action. And there were known and active subversive groups and individuals working to counter the oppression every day. 

 

But our current American government functions more closely to mandated tolerance than intolerance.  Many of us - especially those of us who consider ourselves to be a part of the younger, more tolerant, generations - barely know our neighbors, let alone where they stand on others’ behaviors and ideas (5 Facts). And our perception of the pervasiveness of intolerant views or behaviors comes almost solely from the media we consume - television and internet news, social media, podcasts, etc.

 

Another quick interjection, this is why representation matters. Regular listeners will recall that we talked about this a couple months ago. One of the avenues of normalization for society is normalization through our entertainment. What we consume gets heaped onto the pile of “normal” in our brain, which is used to create the frame through which we view the world. Art reflects culture, which reflects the art. It’s a reflective relationship.

 

According to the Pew Research Center, half of Americans polled get at least some of their news from social media, and 36% say Facebook is a regular news source for them - even though we know that what we see is heavily manipulated by complex algorithms, and that the news we see on these sites is often inaccurate (59% of people who use social media as a news source said they know it can be largely inaccurate).  We’re steeped in the information we choose to consume, but able to remain largely separated from what we don’t want to know. 

 

Today, we hear the rumblings of unrest and intolerance in similar tones, but they seem to come from many sides. Every in-group can name at least one out-group they believe is intolerant of them or their beliefs. And sometimes, intolerant speech gains a very large platform. 

 

To go back the origin of this conversation, this is the concept under which many anti-fascist groups operate - if those rumblings of intolerance had been silenced in pre-war Germany, the world could have avoided one if its greatest tragedies.  If we can silence them now, we can avoid the same mistake. 

 

So the question Popper’s paradox poses is very relevant to us. Should we, as a society - as Americans - tolerate intolerant speech? Well, there are only three answers to that question… yes, no, and the never-sexy-but-usually-the-right-answer sometimes. So let's explore each of those paths and see where it takes us. 

 

Remember: Speech that is intolerant expresses intent to overcome, change, or eliminate views or behaviors that the speaker disapproves of. And, in this context, we are considering “expressive conduct” - behaviors related to expressing one's beliefs or ideas in a way that would be protected by law.

 

Argument: Yes, we should tolerate intolerant speech indefinitely.

Tolerating intolerant speech may seem inherently worthless, given that we’ve already presented the idea that unlimited tolerance of intolerance would eventually destroy tolerance. But there may be arguments to be made. One of them goes back to the classical model of the reason for free speech that we discussed last week. Remember, that model stated that the primary driver or goal of democracy was everyone in a given community participating in the decision making process with equal respect for the process and power in the process.

 

If you believe this is the ideal, or what we should be aiming to achieve in society, then whether or not you believe intolerant or extremist speech should be tolerated comes down to what you think is the most important foundation of this model. Specifically, is the most important part of the classic model an adherence to democracy and democratic institutions, or to the social contract?

 

If you think we should allow intolerant speech, then you likely think that the social contract is the most important aspect. Social contract theory covers a lot of ground, but for our purposes, it means that the only just society is one where our fundamental political and societal institutions are the product of either a literal or hypothetical agreement among all members of society. Everybody must agree on the best way forward, otherwise, the institutions holding power over every citizen are unjust. They ignore the will of some.

Knowing this, we know that intolerant speech must be allowed. It must be protected speech. If we are to reach an agreement on the best way forward for all of us, then every idea on a way to proceed (or govern) must be given its chance to be weighed. If those ideas are not allowed to be voiced, then a fully rational and considered agreement cannot be justly made by the participants.

Imagine you were given the choice of either vanilla or chocolate ice cream. You don’t really like either of them, but given that those are the only two choices, you say, “Eh, fine. I guess I’ll go with vanilla.” But what you don’t know is that the ice cream man had strawberry the whole time as well. He just isn’t allowed to tell you about strawberry because a bunch of people decided strawberry ice cream was gross, and threatened to send him to jail if he sold it. You, the person who doesn’t like vanilla or chocolate, but digs strawberry, weren’t allowed to make a just decision, because the ice cream man wasn’t allowed to present you with every option.

The social contract theory argues that no decision can be made justly without knowing all of the options, and therefore, intolerant speech must be protected.

 

There’s also a theory that we haven’t really covered yet. It’s called the self-restraint theory, and it was suggested in 1986 by (then Professor) now President of Columbia University Lee Bollinger in his book “The Tolerant Society.” Bollinger argues that extreme speech must be protected not because it is inherently valuable, but because it helps promote self-restraint.

 

If I’m speaking frankly, I think the self restraint model is too detached from reality to stand on its own. However, for the purposes of this argument, I want to present why it argues for tolerating extreme speech. In this model, the importance of speech is actually subordinate to tolerance. Instead, the principles of self-control, self-discipline, and self-restraint are the most important virtues in society. Intolerant speech, by its very nature, is likely to provoke an intolerant response. When someone is calling for the death of a group, you can expect members of that group to maybe be a little upset about that.

Therefore, intolerant speech should not be protected for what it is, but rather, for what it can do to further the pursuit of self-restraint. By exercising self control in responding to extremist speech, one builds up the capacity for tolerance. Ultimately, society would, I suppose, reach a critical mass of tolerance, and intolerance would eventually fade away.

I’m not going to critique the theory on this podcast. Suffice it to say, this views intolerance as a way to better ourselves through training our self-control.

Side story: This reminds me a lot of an anecdote my pastor told at church growing up. It was kinda a joke. We were talking about cultivating virtuous habits, and one of them was patience. And he was like, “A lot of people say God doesn’t answer prayers directly anymore. But how many of you have prayed for patience? Yeah, a lot of us. And we always kinda envision God just making us magically more patient. But that’s not how God works (there were a lot of assumptions about how God works made in my church, I realize now). No. You know how I know God answers prayers? Because I once prayed for patience. And for the next month, every line I had to stand in made the DMV look fast! That’s how you learn patience. You practice it. You pray to God for patience? Be prepared for lines.”

Must have been a good anecdote, I guess. I mean, I never prayed to God for patience after that. I hate lines.

But if we’re going for unlimited tolerance of intolerant speech - allowing members of our society to express ideas that seek to dominate or eliminate others’ beliefs, behaviors, or even existence - what do we do when those expressions cause direct harm to others? Let’s look at transgender and nonbinary youth for a minute, shall we? They are part of a group that is often the target of intolerant speech. The Human Rights Campaign reminds us that many of these young people experience family rejection, bullying and harassment, or feel unsafe for simply being who they are. And, according to the HRC, more than half of transgender male teens who participated in their 2018 survey reported attempting suicide in their lifetime. 29.9 percent of transgender female teens said they attempted suicide. Among non-binary youth, 41.8 percent of respondents stated that they had attempted suicide at some point in their lives (HRC).

 

There is an argument to be made here that intolerant speech caused direct or indirect harm to these young people. But then again, we shouldn’t be surprised, right? As we’ve already pointed out, several times, unlimited tolerance of intolerance could ultimately snowball into an intolerant society. Which leads us to our second option:

Argument: No, we should never tolerate intolerance speech.

We absolutely should not tolerate intolerance. It would lead to the destruction of society, so we must clearly not be tolerant of intolerance ever. THE PARADOX ANSWER.

 

One of the key arguments against tolerating intolerance comes from the fortress theory… or rather, a critique of the fortress theory. You will remember that the fortress theory states that we cannot ever be sure that any of our ideas are right. We are inherently uncertain, and that uncertainty means we must be tolerant, even if the ideas seem nonsensical. Because without absolute certainty, once we start censoring bad ideas, it is far too easy to begin censoring the good ideas along with it.

Hang with me, I know we’re arguing against tolerating intolerance right now. Just needed to set the groundwork.

So, let’s carry this idea to its logical conclusion. If we must allow all views to continue uncensored, then we must therefore allow the arguments of the intolerant person who wishes to censor almost all views, including the views of the people wishing to tolerate all views. If all vows are equal in their uncertainty, that is, we cannot fairly say any one view has more merit or “truthiness” than another, then I have no way to say that using the powers of the state to defend a free marketplace of ideas is any better an idea than using extreme censorship to ensure the stability of the state.

Taking that a step further, if my political opponent were to gather more support for his equally viable option of extreme censorship, then application of those ideas would rob me of my power, thus destroying the fortress theory and the freedom of speech in one fell swoop. Essentially, the theory itself presupposes that we cannot have unlimited tolerance of intolerance, or it collapses.

That may be a bit esoteric. So let’s look at a real world example of the dangers of allowing intolerance to flourish in American politics. We actually have a ton of examples to choose from, but let’s look at one that we haven’t discussed much: Senator McCarthy and the Red Scare.

The Red Scare was essentially a mass panic caused by the perceived threat posed by Communists (*gasp*) in the US during the Cold War. This panic had numerous effects on American life: federal employees were tested to see if they were sufficiently loyal to the US government, neighbors spied on each other and reported suspected secret communists to the authorities, and Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) infamously investigated suspected spies in the government and Hollywood. (History.com, 2010)

 

The investigations led by HUAC were responsible for putting countless American citizens out of work. Even so much as being suspected of being a radical would land you on a blacklist, rendering you unhirable for fear of being a communist and bringing trouble down on the company. McCarthy used this opportunity to accumulate power for himself, becoming both powerful and feared. He would wield accusations of disloyalty and radical sympathies at anyone and everyone who disagreed with him, from celebrities, to scientists, to political opponents, destroying careers and reputations. (History.com, 2010)

 

McCarthy’s claims grew increasingly wild, starting with claiming to have a list of 205 communists who had infiltrated the State Department. He never produced this list, but named one Owen Lattimore as a “top Russian spy” in America. Lattimore was an expert on Chinese culture and affairs who had advised the State Department. The magnitude of this revelation spurred an investigation (which found nothing to substantiate the claim) and rocketed McCarthy into prominence in the American public. He was appointed chairman of the Committee on Government Operations and its Subcommittee on Investigations, which would broadcast its questioning of suspected communists. McCarthy “bullied defendants under cross-examination with unlawful and damaging accusations, destroying the reputations of hundreds of innocent officials and citizens.” (History.com, 2010)

 

Thankfully, McCarthy overreached when accused several US Army officers of communist subversion, causing Eisenhower to push for an investigation of McCarthy’s charges. The subsequent hearing exposed McCarthy for a fraud and a tyrant who never produced documentation for any of his claims. (History.com, 2010) But McCarthy had left an impression on the American mentality in this time, coining the term McCarthyism, and forever standing as a monument to abuse of power and intolerance in the American psyche.

 

Now, I think it fair to admit that McCarthy may have been driven more by a desire for power than actual intolerance of communists, but I hardly think that distinction matters at this point. The end effect was the same: a mad witch hunt for anyone who dared to hold ideas that were against what he, the intolerant, deemed were unacceptable. History is full of other examples, with Nazis being the obvious examples, but we could also look at the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uighurs over the course of the past several years. If you haven’t heard, there is a… more than credible case to be made that the Chinese are in the midst of a genocide of the Uighur people. In fact, the Chinese government's actions in Xinjiang have violated every single act prohibited by the United Nations Genocide Convention according to a new independent report drafted by dozens of experts in human rights, international law and genocide studies. (Jones, 2021)

 

Okay, so we’ve made it pretty clear that allowing intolerance to run unchecked is the opposite of good. But the assertion that we should never be tolerant of intolerant speech also poses some very tricky practical questions like, “how do we determine who gets to decide when speech crosses the line into intolerant?”; “what exactly is that line anyway?”, and “what is the consequence for intolerant speech?”.   And then we have to descend that slippery slope to the precipice where our militant pursuit of tolerance leads to complete intolerance of ideas that run counter to popular opinion, or even legislated definitions, of what “tolerant” looks like, and we find ourselves in a cycle of unchecked intolerance…  

Compromise: Our tolerance of intolerance should be conditional.

And now we find ourselves in a situation not unlike the cup scene in Princess Bride. We are Vezzini sitting at that small table with the Man in Black, trying to determine just which glass holds the Iocane powder.  We clearly can not choose the wine in front of him, but we can just as clearly not choose the wine in front of us.  But the reality is, both glasses are poisoned. Both lead to an end undesirable to a majority of people. 

 

That leads us to what is generally the least exciting option on any table - compromise. Our tolerance of intolerance should be conditional. 

 

This train of thought tracks closely the work of another political philosopher and contemporary of Karl Popper named John Rawls.  Rawls outlined what he called his Theory of Justice, which is comprised of two basic principles that he believes should guide decision-making, only one of which is especially relevant to this conversation. 

 

He asserted that each person should have access to the same, permanent, and fully-adequate set of liberties.  In his list of liberties, Rawls included most of the liberties in the U.S. Bill of Rights, such as freedom of speech and due process of law as well as some liberties from the broader area of human rights, like freedom of travel. BUT, he held that these rights could be limited “for the sake of liberty” - which would mean that the freedoms of intolerant individuals or groups (under Rawls’ theory) could be limited if they infringed on the liberties of others. (CRF) 

 

It’s like that saying, “your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.” When allowance of intolerant speech poses a direct threat to someone else’s rights or their well-being, whether that’s through violence, discrimination, or even legislation, then a just society should intervene. 

 

And this is pretty much where we find ourselves legally right now in the US.  There are laws on the books federally and in states that prevent harm to others based on many criteria that would fall under the umbrella of tolerance: race, religion, sex/gender identity/sexual orientation, etc. But what of the private spaces, or the places where intolerance seems to be subconscious?  One might argue that’s where groups like The Baldies or Rose City Antifa, or even Black Lives Matter come in. They were and are active in the non-regulated gaps, pointing out and fighting against a kind of intolerance they believe threatens the liberties of others.   

 

But that brings us back to what I think is one of the sticking points with this paradox, one that we covered earlier in this episode: the idea of anything like a cohesive “tolerant” - or even just - society. I don’t know that we’ll ever come to a place where we will agree on who is and isn’t intolerant, and what words or actions are threatening enough to another’s liberty to warrant intervention. We will likely never even agree on how to determine whether or not we agree!  And that means that we can never collectively tolerate, or not tolerate, anything. 

 

Remember the “Hitler Question” we posed back in our first episode on antifa - there is no one right answer to that question because it’s not objective - and neither is tolerance.  What we CAN do, though, is determine what we are and are not willing to tolerate as individuals, or in the smaller groups we belong to. And we CAN decide to what lengths we are willing to go to fight against intolerance.  And we MUST take responsibility for our individual choice on that front - only we can decide what can and will do to prevent harm to others caused by intolerance.

 

Plug

Good News/Women’s History Month

 Our good news for today comes from the Women's History Museum. They’ve recently launched Women Writing History Project, which invites women, girls, and gender non-binary people to journal their daily thoughts and experiences during the COVID pandemic and share them for inclusion in this mega anthology.  

The idea behind this project is that women bear a disproportionate amount of the burden from this pandemic - from childcare, to job loss, to filling roles previously held by men (who are statistically more susceptible to severe COVID). And, they don’t want the stories of those experiences to be lost to history! So, if you’d like to learn more about this project, head over to WomensHistory.org and learn all about it!

Bibliography

Constitutional Rights Foundation. (n.d.). Justice as Fairness: John Rawls and His Theory of Justice. Constitutional Rights Foundation. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-23-3-c-justice-as-fairness-john-rawls-and-his-theory-of-justice

Davis, L., & Parker, K. (2019, August 15). 5 Facts About Neighbors in the US. Pew Research Center. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/15/facts-about-neighbors-in-u-s/

History.com. (2010, February 9). Joseph McCarthy condemned by Senate. History.com. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mccarthy-condemned-by-senate

History.com. (2010, June 1). Red Scare. History.com. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/red-scare

HRC Staff. (2018, September 12). New Study Reveals Shocking Rates of Attempted Suicide Among Trans Adolescents. Human Rights Campaign. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.hrc.org/news/new-study-reveals-shocking-rates-of-attempted-suicide-among-trans-adolescen

Jones, R. P. (2021, March 9). Chinese government responsible for genocide in Xinjiang, says independent report. CBC News. Retrieved March 11, 2020, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/china-responsible-genocide-independent-report-1.5942289