And there’s not much of a paradox of tolerance, either. Here, I explain why.
The Paradox of Tolerance was first stated — widely and clearly, at least — by Karl Popper, the philosopher of science whose falsifiability criterion now forms the basis of our understanding for what it means for something to be scientific. In The Open Society and its Enemies, vol. 1, Popper states the paradox:
Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: 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.
Now, even here, despite being one of the leading philosophers of the 20th century, Popper oversteps, because he does not establish that there must be an “onslaught of the intolerant” (of sufficient force), and therefore it is incorrect to conclude that “the tolerant will be destroyed” in the strict logical sense (emphasis mine). However, rephrasing the paradox as a conditional, contingent on a highly plausible event (onslaught of the intolerant), renders it no less of a paradox and no less concerning:
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 if such an onslaught occurs, the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.
That seems like sound reasoning, as long as we define “onslaught” to mean a threat of sufficient scale to accomplish destruction of the tolerant, and it makes a difference whether the tolerant defend themselves or not.
Recently, this paradox has enjoyed new attention, mostly as the more ardent subset of the left seeks to defend its actions. For instance, one writer on Medium concluded:
The one thing that a tolerant society must not tolerate is intolerance. […]
I think most people would agree that hatred and bigotry are not things that we can — or should — allow in our societies.
And one can find in various tweets sentiments such as:
Exactly, it’s the paradox of tolerance all over again, I try to be nice with everyone, but I have a zero tolerance policy for bigotry, and I won’t betray my own values for a twitter follow.
or
Paradox. Of. Tolerance! We need to stop tolerating the unethical, immoral, cruel, sociopathic, hateful, and prejudiced. Continuing to pander to the worst members of our society will effectively destroy our society.
or this fairly widely shared (and modified) graphic, of which I have picked one form:
Seems…right…ish? Maybe? Or is something getting lost?
To figure this out, let’s try an analogy, phrased negatively, the Paradox of Murder:
If we extend unlimited right to life to those who commit murder, those who support right to life will be murdered, and the right to life will die with them. Therefore, as paradoxical is it may seem, we must kill all murderers.
This will come as quite a shock to opponents of capital punishment, if true! Must we really start killing all murderers to avoid dying ourselves?
Of course, this is absolute hogwash. Many modern societies have no death penalty and yet have very low murder rates (Norway, for instance: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/25/despite-recent-shootings-norway-is-a-low-crime-nation/?sh=1ad9ad1e7ace). But what went wrong with our argument? The logic seemed to work before. Why does it work with intolerance but not murder? Or are both arguments flawed?
The problem with the murder example is that murder is not the only way to stop murderers. For instance, prisons also stop murderers!
Let’s try another example, the Paradox of Hatred:
If we extend unlimited love to those who spread hatred, those who love will be destroyed, and love will die with them. Therefore, as paradoxical as it may seem, we must hate haters.
Is…that…right? Taylor Swift disagrees: https://genius.com/Taylor-swift-shake-it-off-lyrics; she’s “just gonna shake it off” when “haters gonna hate”. And in the gravely serious case of the Rwandan genocide, the reconciliation involved people being brought to justice, but also confession and forgiveness: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/why-rwanda-is-held-up-as-a-model-for-reconciliation-26-years-after-genocide-1.5842139. Critically it did not use hatred to combat hatred. Indeed, fighting hatred with hatred makes about as much sense as fighting fire with gasoline: although there might be rare cases where it makes sense (oxygen starvation, backburning), generally it’s just going to make things worse.
There is no paradox of hatred.
Let’s return now to tolerance. I will assume for the sake of the argument that tolerance is a good thing, all else being equal. But given the hatred example, we must ask ourselves: does intolerance combat or accentuate intolerance? And, indeed, we must ask this on a case-by-case basis. Especially since intolerance is emotionally not that distant from hatred. Now, returning to the quotes I picked above:
I think most people would agree that hatred and bigotry are not things that we can — or should — allow in our societies.
What is entailed by“allow”? Do we flat-out forbid hatred and bigotry? Do we hate those who express any signs of hatred or bigotry? Do we imprison them? Will those accused of hatred hate us in return? Is this even remotely stable? In what fashion are we going to not allow it, and will this be effective?
I try to be nice with everyone, but I have a zero tolerance policy for bigotry
Is this effective? Does this reduce bigotry or enhance it? How does the zero tolerance get implemented — expression of revulsion and hatred for the bigot, or expression of appreciation and love for all including those who the bigot is bigoted against?
Are these quotes expressing sentiments that are appropriate reactions to intolerance, or are they also examples of the kind of intolerance we should reject?
The paradox of the paradox of tolerance is that in seeking to resist intolerance, we may exacerbate rather than reduce the problem, and we may become the primary source of the problem ourselves.
Note that in Popper’s formulation, the paradox only arises in case of existential threat. Being the insightful philosopher that he was, he recognized and elaborated upon this point in the very same passage:
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 most unwise.
Thus, the paradox of intolerance is a subtle thing, outside of the situation of gravest threat. As a practical matter, we must ask, firstly: is this a case of existential threat? And secondly: if this is not a case of existential threat, are our measures effective? Are we spreading intolerance and hatred ourselves, just of a different sort, or are we actually bolstering tolerance? Intent is not enough: what are the actual consequences of our actions?
Given the psychology of inter-group hostility, I believe that optimal tolerance is achieved with a significant tolerance of intolerant rhetoric — not acceptance, but gentle rejection, to give time for both rational argumentation and emotional persuasion to move people away from the kind of vicious reactionary attitudes that are prompted when thinking of people as “us” and “them”, and to unify us under the kind of tolerance and benefit of the doubt that we give each other when we are all “us”. I will not here try to make a sound argument for this position — this article is already long enough. But I offer it for your consideration.
Do not fall victim to the paradox of the paradox of intolerance, wherein zeal to abolish intolerance is itself a great driver of intolerance! Instead, recognize that not all things should be tolerated (murder, for instance), and that reasonable people can disagree on what should or should not be tolerated and/or can make mistakes, and through dialog and understanding we have great power to shape our behavior. Only as a last resort, when facing existential threat and all other measures have failed, must we invoke the paradox of tolerance to justify those necessary actions to prevent the eradication of tolerance and victory of intolerance.
And be mindful also that societies and individuals can be remarkably resilient, and underestimation of this may lead us to perceive a threat as existential when it is not. The paradox of hatred is false, and belief in its truth (even in the guise of “the paradox of tolerance”) is dangerous. The paradox of tolerance is true, but its application is limited.
To learn more about tolerance and the Paradox of Tolerance, in addition to reading Popper, one can read articles from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/toleration/, or Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance.