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Comment by nonethewiser | Hacker News Reader

> It is, of course, morally just to be intolerant towards intolerance.

This is non-sensical because this morally just thing you describe (intolerant of intolerance) should not be tolerated. By your definition.

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Tolerance is not a moral position, so reasoning about it in moral terms is nonsense.

Tolerance is a social compact and it requires mutuality. "My preference is to punch you in the face, if you claim to be tolerant you must accept that" is obviously foolish, no matter how much you dress it up.

To be clear, I wasnt the one who framed it in moral terms. And you are exactly right - intolerance isnt always bad, nor good. Which is another reason why this is non-sensical:

> It is, of course, morally just to be intolerant towards intolerance

"Tolerance of intolerance" just kicks the can down the road.

A Conservative might argue that Muslims are intolerant and thus should not be allowed in the country or that trans people are intolerant of people using the correct pronouns for them.

You can phrase pretty much any side of a political question as being either tolerant or intolerant with a bit of work.

> You can phrase pretty much any side of a political question as being either tolerant or intolerant with a bit of work.

And we determine who is right and who isn't through the power of reason and evidence.

I don’t quite agree on the principle. Maybe Eich isn’t beyond the pale but I think there are very few people who can’t think of ANY a belief someone would have where they wouldn’t be willing to associate with them (say, neo-Nazism or advocating for a return of chattel slavery). I don’t think this is necessarily contradictory with the notion of being “tolerant” since some of these views would essentially make other forms of tolerance impossible if they were adapted by a majority. “I’m equally tolerant of minorities and people who believe those same minorities should be enslaved” seems like a muddled and nonsensical position.

If we can't debate against nazism or slavery and win in the eyes of the audience, on democratic terms, I guess it is to late to be "intolerant of intolerance" and democracy has already failed.

So what if one in a thousand (or whatever the number is) want to reinstate slavery?

It seems like a nonsensical position to limit freedom of expression of everyone to quench a hypothetical Nazi takeover.

As I recall democracy did fail to settle both of these questions and instead they were settled by force of arms.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that the "out group" would have been abolitionists in the 1700s. I also didn't say that a democracy can't fail.

That kind of depended where you where. In Pennsylvania among the Quakers not necessarily. But antebellum history can easily be viewed as a long, unsuccessful attempt to settle this question democratically at a national level.

> If we can't debate against nazism or slavery and win in the eyes of the audience, on democratic terms, I guess it is to late to be "intolerant of intolerance" and democracy has already failed.

Probably, yes. Democracy is bad at edge cases (Hitler was democratically elected) and undemocratic means must sometimes be used. Deplatforming is pretty mild as far as undemocratic means go.

Such is life.

The idea you're looking for is the paradox of tolerance, and a solution to it is that by engaging in intolerance, one has broken a social contract, and thus no longer benefits from it, and others can be intolerant to them without violating this social contract.

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