So much for the tolerant left

I like this but I'm not even sure it's such a paradox - if you are tolerating people who do not follow that social contract then can you call yourself a part of the tolerant group yourself? It is a necessary part of being tolerant to reject the intolerant.
- It's not a paradox because nobody says that absolutely anything anyone does is fine. There are always rules to acceptable behavior in society. The "paradox of tolerance" is a strawman.
- If one tolerates all actions other than those causing harm to non-consenting others (basically "adults can do whatever they want with themselves and with other consenting adults") which is sort of the traditional maximum tolerance boundary, one will tolerate many practices which, whilst not amounting to causing harm to non-consenting others, do spread intolerance.
  
  From where rises the Paradox that such choice of putting one's boundary of Tolerance at the maximum level possible actually ends up in aggregate reducing Tolerance.
  
  Making it a social contract reduces the boundaries of tolerance by the minimum amount possible that's needed to just stop Tolerance from allowing the very tools of its destruction to work.
  
  Under "social contract rules", at a personal level those who are NOT tolerant of intolerance are, very strictly speaking, being less tolerant, but at a Systemic Level they are actually making there be more Tolerance in aggregate than if they had tolerated the intolerant.
  
  PS: I actually work in Systems Design (amongst other things) and it's actually quite common for certain ways of doing things which are perfect at the individual level will in aggregate cause systemic problems making the whole function worse, so the optimal choice for the whole is actually to use a less optimal individual choice. Thinking about it, I would say that pretty much all Tragedy Of The Commons situations are good examples of that kind of thing.
- I think there's a subvariety of "paradox" which aren't actually paradoxes, but we call them that because at some point, the name stuck
This doesn't eliminate the paradox. Why does the contract exist in the first place?

It's a moral standard. If moral people didn't decide that tolerance was a good thing for society, the contract wouldn't exist.

So yes, thinking about it as a contract sidesteps the paradox, but the paradox still exists.

So Karl Popper was still right and society shouldn't tolerate the intolerant.
- There's no paradox. Although, Karl Popper's words are as good as any.
  
  My point is, no one said "the left have to tolerate everything." In fact, not tolerating capitalism is the defining feature of all left leaning ideologies. More so, where you are on the scale of leftism is based almost entirely on the extent to which you won't tolerate capitalism. Rhetorically, for what possible reason would the left ever have to tolerate nazis, in the first place? Who said they did? Where are they? Of course, no one said they did.
  
  I found it's best to, rightly, just reject the false premise of it being a paradox out of hand. The type who use it know its BS too.
- Basically, I want my various types of weirdness tolerated by others. Others want their weirdness tolerated. We mutually agree that it's beneficial to each of us to tolerate each other. This gets expanded to other forms of weirdness. So long as it doesn't significantly impinge on others who dont want it, we have no reason not to be tolerant of others. This is the social contract.
  
  Intolerance inherently impinges on others. While it might not impinge on my personal weirdness, I will still fight against it. I know it could be me next, and I would hope others would stand with me then. In turn, I will do that for others, both because it is right (in my mind) and because I don't want to be targeted next.
  
  I will default to assuming people are happy with the contract. If they demonstrate disagreement, or contempt for the contract, then I withdraw its protections.
- You just need to tolerate their life and continued living, don’t need to give them anything more.

The left doesn't even tolerate the left.

Damn Leftists! They ruined the Left!

If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing

~ Malcolm X

Tolerant left? Leftists barely tolerate other Leftists!

Damn Leftists! They ruined the Left!
Splitters!
other 'leftists' post legally blonde dialogue as 'lefty meme' content..
- Yeah, exactly like that! ^

Honestly real talk for all my inclusion and belonging folks: we really gotta work on our vocab.

Was the term “tolerance” ever anything but confusing? In my lifetime I’ve only ever heard it used by conservatives dragging out this straw-man. Did “tolerance” once connote open-mindedness, graciousness, charitable judgment, acceptance/inclusion, or anything other than “weary endurance of something unpleasant?” Legit curious.

Similar examples include “consent” (sexual). Why are we pretending its primary non-figurative meaning isn’t legal or contractual when literally trying to say it’s the opposite? It has a strongly passive connotation, to acquiesce to a request, allow an event to occur, or go along with a plan — as in “tacit consent,” “consent form,” “consent to search,” and so forth. So it sounds gross, like “fine I guess you can do sex to me.” I know we tried to fix it with “enthusiastic consent” but seriously has anyone ever filled out a consent form with enthusiasm? What we really mean is active, reciprocal desire. The point is to give someone what they want if what they want is you, not to secure their consent to get what you want from them, so why the fuck do we insist on still using a word that’s in so many ways the opposite of what we mean?

I even think Crenshaw’s identity is confusing, because most people want to think of personal identity as something discovered or self-actualized, but intersectionality’s dependence on lived experience implies that to some extent it’s always something that happens to you. It’s how other people perceive you and the labels they give you that furnish these identities. But that probably sounds like a good thing if wearing those labels helped you bond with others similarly labeled, offering you a community or roots. Otherwise, calling these labels “identities” might sound like letting others define who you are instead of deciding for yourself. Gender identity for example is usually approached as an outward expression of one’s true self which can entirely reject the labels others give. But to ask someone “how do you identify” concerning something like ethnicity or race is not treated the same at all. To an outsider, these theoretical constructs might sound preposterous simply because we insisted on using the wrong words for our ideas, then overloading or bending their definitions to the point that a person needs a graduate seminar to actually parse the intended meaning.

Edit: to be clear, I’m only against the word choices, not the ideas. It’s because it feels like our messaging is hamstrung by insisting on using the wrong words as jargon with wildly different in-group definitions that to outsiders can make us sound inconsistent, confused, or at least difficult to understand. /rant

No, it was never confusing, the right's propaganda engine ceased on it, called it confusing.

Whatever message we put out will be "mired" in confusion as long as the right media factory deems that a useful statement to make and their undereducated masses will just blindly agree.
- For sure they seize on these terms constantly, but these pundits are opportunistic brawlers. They tend to pick words and phrases they know are easily misconstrued then just amplify the confusion.
  
  Consider the reason why a bunch of Americans literally never understood the slogan “black lives matter.” Its punchiness as a chant at rallies was the juxtaposition of an extreme understatement with police brutality everyone was intimately aware of. The blunder was trying to use it to spread awareness of the violence (because without awareness of the violence its meaning is lost) so all the pundits had to do to discredit the movement was just… pan away from the violence.
tolerance /tŏl′ər-əns/ noun

The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.

Leeway for variation from a standard.

The permissible deviation from a specified value of a structural dimension, often expressed as a percent.

consent /kən-sĕnt′/ intransitive verb

To give assent, as to the proposal of another; agree: synonym: assent.
"consent to medical treatment; consent to going on a business trip; consent to see someone on short notice." Similar: assent

To be of the same mind or opinion.

To agree in opinion or sentiment; to be of the same mind; to accord; to concur. Similar: consented
- Dictionary definitions are nice but rarely capture the full meaning of the word. Connotations of the word are pretty important.
  
  If I say "I tolerate that behavior," you can probably infer that I don't like that behavior based on the connotations of the word tolerate. It invokes a negativity toward the subject.
  
  Similarly for consent. The examples bear this out: medical treatments, business trips, and short notice are generally not pleasant things.
They steal our vocab and twist it.

The whole idea that Tolerance is a Social Contract seems to be what works best: One is Tolerant towards others who are Tolerant and those who are not Tolerant are breaking the Social Contract of Tolerance and thus are not entitled to be the recipients of Tolerance from others.

Tolerance as a Principle doesn't work well exactly because of the Paradox Of Tolerance which is that by Tolerating the Intolerant one is causing there to be less Tolerance since the Intolerant when their actions are tolerated will spread Intolerance (as painfully demonstrated in Present day America, especially with Trump).

I never liked the analogy of a social contract. A contract is something that people agree on. Most of society is just people going through life fairly passively, and inheriting the values of those around them.

A lot of hate comes from ignorance, whether taught or absorbed from someone's surroundings. Not because they are opting out of some kind of previously agreed upon contract. I think that's an important thing to recognise.

The paradox of tolerance is a hypothetical idea of complete tolerance, which I'm not sure ever exists in humans in the real world.
The concept of a "social contract" is regularly used to deny rights to prisoners.

It's not necessary, even to address the "paradox of tolerance", it's actively harmful, and it's erroneous anyway (contracts are necessarily consensual[^1], but exceptionally few people get to make a choice about the society they live in)

[^1]: Yes, this criteria invalidates a lot of modern contracts in the US especially around tech, but this is largely a failure of the judicial system. Legislation still makes it clear that contracts must be consensual in the US and other western countries, and it often goes further in that they must be reciprocal.

Tolerating intolerance isn't tolerance. It's bigotry.

Every time I hear or read that phrase, all I can think is "BITCH I NEVER SAID I WAS TOLERANT OF YOUR SHIT"

Fuck tolerance.

See? It's that easy. No paradoxes required.

Normally when I hear this, good things follow.

We tolerate the shitty uncle who gets drunk and says stupid shit at thanksgiving.

We punch Nazis in the face.

I don’t tolerate maga folks. I just kind of ignore them, and don’t allow them to be a part of my life.

I do have republican and conservative friends. I do not have any maga friends.

I do have republican and conservative friends.

So you'll tolerate a little bigotry, as a treat.. 🙄
- Yes. Outreach is an important part of helping people change their minds.
  
  It's the same reason you shouldn't fuck with Jehovah's Witnesses. By treating them badly, you increase the feeling of isolation they have towards broader society and shove them further into the clutches of the cult.
- You don't get it. They are just voting for fascism, but they are not fascists themselves. It's totally cool. Nothing to worry about.
- For what it's worth, a non zero amount of republicans and conservatives didn't vote for Trump, probably in no small part due to the people in their life who remind them of their humanity. You might not be surprised to hear of estranged family becoming more radicalized by the right once they've been cut off. I have people in my life who are conservative and will never believe that abortion is acceptable, but I have been able to share stories of where it was medically necessary and they have changed their mind on supporting a total ban. Is that great? No, not really, but it's certainly something. I don't know that I'd call these people "friends" because I don't really like them or share with them in the way I would my actual friends, but I have had them in my home. Unfortunately, changing hearts and minds requires a little buy in. It's not always safe for everyone to do, and I get that, but people love to show stories of people becoming deradicalized while hating on people engaging in deradicalization. There are people out there who say "conservatives are good people they're just misguided", and I don't really believe that, but I do believe they can BECOME good people. Obviously, some are a lost cause, but some can be pulled back to reality. I had a Hollywood is all trans/they're hiding the true science (not a flat earther, just not a believer in the globe??) coworker I eventually turned into a socialist. That doesn't happen overnight, and if they don't at least consider you friendly, you're not gonna see any movement.
- You can disengage from political debate and only engage in infighting with your own party or what not, good for you.
  
  Considering most peoples get their politics from their parents and it’s more a football team mentality, I think you’re a little off.
- That's pretty reductionist and also untrue.
  
  It's hard to reconcile, but here are actually Republicans and conservatives that aren't bigots.
  
  They're a minority, and a quickly fading one, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
  
  Remember, the Republican party of today was formed post civil rights. People cling to their identity and ideas long after reality has left them behind.
  
  Does that make them stupid? No more or less than anyone that clings to any party affiliation past when the party changes.
  
  But there is movement away from the Republican party by those that weren't bigots that bought into the whole idea (falsely claimed) of reduced government control and free market ideals.
  
  While I tend to think those stances are pretty fucking dumb to begin with, it isn't bigotry.
  
  The other problem is that as those leave, even more bigots pull off their masks and some of the extremist bigots that weren't previously engaged in the political structure jump on board.
  
  People are very stupid. We all are in some way or another, usually multiple some ways. One of those forms of stupidity is thinking that change from the inside is the only choice. Another is that you have to pick someone to vote for. Another is that you can resist bigots by engaging with them. And all of those are common among the non bigot Republicans.
  
  I keep running into Republicans and ex Republicans and having to remind them that the party as it exists is not the party they thought it was, that it has used dog whistling and other tools of the so called southern strategy so long and so well that it has transformed into something even worse than the left thought possible.
  
  But they are not all bigots.
  
  That being said, there's also a good bit of ACAB present too. Those non bigots are still part of the problem, they're just as responsible for it happening. I would call it ARAB, but that's a pretty horrible initialism lol. But that's why identity politics is a horrible thing.

The best solution I found for the Paradox of Tolerance (or, more accurately, for a bigger class of problems that contain that problem) is https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/24/nominating-oneself-for-the-short-end-of-a-tradeoff/

The gist of it is that we decide on the following maxim: in conflicts of interest we should favor that cannot easily back off over the side who can.

For example - we want to tolerate a black person existing and we also want to tolerate[^1] a racist person being racist. These two toleration are conflicting. The black person can't stop being black - they were born that way - but the racist person can choose to stop being racist. So we favor the black person's existence, and do not tolerate the racist person's racism.

[^1]: You may argue that we should not tolerate racism at all to begin with, to which I'd say the reason we should not tolerate racism is that there are people who get hurt from it, which is what this maxim is all about.

This maxim is not perfect, of course. It does not apply to all cases, and it does leave up to debate the question of who is forced into the conflict and who is doing it out of choice (e.g. - a conservative may claim that LBGT people are willingly choosing to be so while they are forced, by word of God, to hate them). But I still think it's an improvement:

It's morally arguable. As long as we don't go into the details, it's easy to defend as a principle.
The question of who if forced into the conflict and who is willingly entering it can be discussed more objectively than the question of what should be tolerated and what shouldn't (I'm not saying it's always easy to agree - just that the discussion is more objective)
Even in cases where both sides are forced or cases where both sides are willing, looking at it through the lens of this maxim allows to point at the true perpetrators and/or the true victims, instead of arbitrarily picking one side to blindly side with.

The farther left I lean, the less tolerant I become.

This misrepresents what tolerance is

We tolerate people that hold those beliefs in that they are allowed to exist in open society where they can be called out

We realize that hiding those people away doesn’t get rid of them, it just lets their views grow unchallenged

Lol, nope. You actually have it entirely backward.

Nazis can never win arguments. They can't. Their ideology is not based on reality. It's not based on material conditions. It's not based on convincing others to join them with hard data or well reasoned positions. Nazis win people over by talking to them. They win people over because people who are privileged are opposed to any recognition of that, and above else want to continue to be privileged.

You will never lose a rational debate with a Nazi. It's not really possible, because the nazi will never make rational arguments with you. Nazis instead will allude to conspiracies. They will allude to secret shadow societies that control everyone and that have the explicit goal of upending class hierarchy to take away privilege. Pay attention next time you see a Nazi argue something. See the language they use and see the way they position reality. Nazis lose rational debates. So they never have them to begin with.

Nazis will instead reach for the nearest loudest microphone and will scream their bigotry as loud as possible. They print newspapers, they do interviews, they famously were highly intertwined with radio networks, and so on. The method by which their ideology spreads is by subversion. It's by creating fear of a secret other controlling everyone. The sad fact of the reality is that you cannot argue against that subversion. The argument isn't rational to begin with, rationality cannot disprove it in the minds of those who believe it. A core part of the conspiracies are actually that anyone who argues against them is a part of the conspiracy. Any opposition to Nazism comes from those secret shadow society elements, and so any argument against it can be immediately dismissed.

Simply put, no. The marketplace of ideas is actually perfect for Nazis. If Nazis can't create mass subversive fear of minorities then they cannot recruit. The KKK has largely been expelled from society for the past century (not entirely). You'd think that in a hundred years if, recruiting from the shadows was better for them, membership would be most of the country. Say what you will about American fascism the average voter definitely doesn't think positively about the KKK.

Speaking with a Nazi posits that their ideology has the same value as yours. By engaging in a debate with a Nazi, which they won't win but will instead use the opportunity to further spread Nazi ideology, you legitimate Nazism as a valid position to take. Now someone can be a Nazi, it's okay to be one you can be a Nazi and still deserve the respect of an audience.

Nazis should be expelled from society in their entirety. Neoliberal propaganda has convinced you that all ideas have value. They do not. Killing minorities is inherently wrong. Spreading ideology that advocates the genocide of minorities is inherently wrong. Nazis should be met with a fist. Their media should be dismantled, and they should be imprisoned or expelled from society. Time and time again we arrive at this same place. When I wonder will anyone actually learn?
You're wrong, and all you have to do to realise it is look around (hint: when you allow bigotry to exist in open society, aka, tolerate it, it will keep growing like the fucking cancer that it is).
- The problem with current society is that many of those places are closed
  
  Social media can filter out being called out (look at what elon did with twitter) or qanon
  
  Fox News doesn’t have labels calling their propaganda false
We tolerate people that hold those beliefs in that they are allowed to exist in open society where they can be called out

This point is hugely important, but not for the reason that you intended.

You are mistaken on an essential aspect of your argument: calling out bigoted or discriminatory views out is the definition of not tolerating them. At the same time, the bigotry you’re describing - not permitting people to exist in open society - is exactly the reason we cannot tolerate those kind of views.

The essence of bigotry is that entire categories of individuals don’t deserve the same rights as others. People who hold those views aren’t interested in debating the issue because they believe that their opponents don’t deserve the right to be part of the discussion.

One side is saying that we cannot tolerate these views. The other side is saying that they will not tolerate our humanity.

This isn’t a perspective that is subject to change by reason.
- No, that’s an incorrect summation of one part of my argument.
  
  The response to your comment is in my second sentence.
- People who hold those views aren’t interested in debating the issue
  
  It’s not for them, it’s for other people that they would otherwise convince

Being intolerant of society destroying behaviors seems exceptionally reasonable.

I dunno, society isn't necessarily good. Sometimes it must be destroyed so something better can be built.

The problem is that 'society' is a nebulous concept which can and does condition people into behaviours which are truly awful and reprehensible but seen by 'society' as good, or needed to protect itself instead of the people it supposedly exists for.

It is often built on the backs of the opressed etc too, important to remember.

So yes, I am for destroying society if it nets positive change.