It’s like when I hear people claim that I have to “respect their beliefs”. No I don’t. If you want to believe an ancient fairy tale over reason, logic, and science, that’s your business— and I certainly respect (and will fight to defend) your right to your beliefs, as they are also my rights to my non-belief.
But do I respect your beliefs? Only if they deserve respect. And it’s beliefs like these for which I hold my… discerning position regarding the beliefs of others.
“Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.”
I’ve found that folks with beliefs that aren’t respectable, like believing that minorities don’t deserve rights, tend to need to be reminded to respect other people’s beliefs. Many times those beliefs hurt no one, like belief in astrology.
So they just weaponize and twist the lessons they were given to silence others so they can continue harming others.
Also the “traditional family values” people never seem to realize that no one pressures them to do liberal stuff. They can still be traditional.
I have to assume they project their own authoritarianism onto us liberal people.
What they want is control. With their religion they get to be right because they read the book the hardest. Except everyone else gives zero shits about their book so they piss their pants crying.
There’s also the social contract resolution to the tolerance paradox. Essentially, the tolerance paradox is that tolerating intolerance erodes tolerance. This means eventually if you allow intolerance to fester, they will seize control and you lose that tolerance.
The social contract resolution is that by being intolerant, you lose your right to be tolerated. This avoids that paradox, but superficially can look like intolerance.
I hope this didn’t end up too much like word salad.
I was able understand it pre-coffee so it made enough sense so hopefully mine won’t be a word salad too
TLDR a long winded version of what you said about the social contract
But to add on, like you said tolerance is a contract that only protects the parties that follow its terms
Example: (pick a group of your choice)
“Hey _____ person, I’ll respect you if you respect me”
Yay everyone’s happy we’re all chilling together even tho I’m 100% certain we have different beliefs down to the core
But when that contract is broken apply that to the blank above, “Hey Nazi, I’ll respect you if you respect me”. They won’t hold up their end of the deal so why should I hold up mine
Yeah, absolutely, that’s a much more readable summation than what I wrote.
As an aside, I really like the social contract theory. It’s a pretty clean philosophical summation of how the majority of people in tolerant democracies see the world and provides the foundation for it, even if they don’t think about it in formal philosophical terms. That essentially we are implicitly bound by the rules established by previous generations, those that set the rules (both cultural and legal), until such time as we form a political or cultural movement to change those rules. Then, anyone who comes after us is bound by those rules we set until and unless they in turn change them.
EDIT: I guess I should add that in the context of this thread, “be tolerant” is a cultural rule that has developed over the recent past, and thus if you aren’t tolerant there are social repercussions (and in countries with hate speech laws, even legal repercussions) as that is the current rule.
It’s like when I hear people claim that I have to “respect their beliefs”. No I don’t. If you want to believe an ancient fairy tale over reason, logic, and science, that’s your business— and I certainly respect (and will fight to defend) your right to your beliefs, as they are also my rights to my non-belief.
But do I respect your beliefs? Only if they deserve respect. And it’s beliefs like these for which I hold my… discerning position regarding the beliefs of others.
“Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.”
Also I find those are people who rarely respect others’s beliefs
I’ve found that folks with beliefs that aren’t respectable, like believing that minorities don’t deserve rights, tend to need to be reminded to respect other people’s beliefs. Many times those beliefs hurt no one, like belief in astrology.
So they just weaponize and twist the lessons they were given to silence others so they can continue harming others.
I respect people, not beliefs.
Also the “traditional family values” people never seem to realize that no one pressures them to do liberal stuff. They can still be traditional.
I have to assume they project their own authoritarianism onto us liberal people.
The lament of the white conservative
If I’m not allowed to force my favorite things on everybody, I’m being oppressed.
If I’m not allowed to force the Others to not do their favorite things, I’m being oppressed.
If people who look and think like me own and control everything and the Others criticize that, I’m being oppressed.
What they want is control. With their religion they get to be right because they read the book the hardest. Except everyone else gives zero shits about their book so they piss their pants crying.
There’s also the social contract resolution to the tolerance paradox. Essentially, the tolerance paradox is that tolerating intolerance erodes tolerance. This means eventually if you allow intolerance to fester, they will seize control and you lose that tolerance.
The social contract resolution is that by being intolerant, you lose your right to be tolerated. This avoids that paradox, but superficially can look like intolerance.
I hope this didn’t end up too much like word salad.
I was able understand it pre-coffee so it made enough sense so hopefully mine won’t be a word salad too
TLDR a long winded version of what you said about the social contract
But to add on, like you said tolerance is a contract that only protects the parties that follow its terms
Example: (pick a group of your choice) “Hey _____ person, I’ll respect you if you respect me” Yay everyone’s happy we’re all chilling together even tho I’m 100% certain we have different beliefs down to the core
But when that contract is broken apply that to the blank above, “Hey Nazi, I’ll respect you if you respect me”. They won’t hold up their end of the deal so why should I hold up mine
Yeah, absolutely, that’s a much more readable summation than what I wrote.
As an aside, I really like the social contract theory. It’s a pretty clean philosophical summation of how the majority of people in tolerant democracies see the world and provides the foundation for it, even if they don’t think about it in formal philosophical terms. That essentially we are implicitly bound by the rules established by previous generations, those that set the rules (both cultural and legal), until such time as we form a political or cultural movement to change those rules. Then, anyone who comes after us is bound by those rules we set until and unless they in turn change them.
EDIT: I guess I should add that in the context of this thread, “be tolerant” is a cultural rule that has developed over the recent past, and thus if you aren’t tolerant there are social repercussions (and in countries with hate speech laws, even legal repercussions) as that is the current rule.
They need to respect my belief that they’re assholes. I made it my religion in some way. My holy tradition.