do evil games expect evil prizes, thank you Rainer Forst

edit: this is a pedagogical post, not a philosophical one. i actually fully agree with the paradox of tolerance and its conclusion! i just find that it doesn’t work as well as an educational tool for introducing people to the concept. sorry for any confusion :)

  • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    Because neither does OP. They’re acting as if the paradox of tolerance is framed as an unsolvable problem, but it’s not.

    Poppler formulates the paradox like this: If you try to create a society that tolerates everything, you’ll end up tolerating people who will abuse that freedom to create a society that is deeply intolerant (ie, bigoted, hateful, etc). In other words, if you act as a free speech absolutist, defending the rights of Nazis to be Nazis, they’ll use that freedom to create a Nazi society.

    Poppler formulates this paradox to push back against free speech absolutism. His argument is that the only logical conclusion is that a perfectly tolerant society must - paradoxically - be intolerant of exactly one thing; intolerance.

    He’s not saying “Oh no, what a conundrum.” He’s laying out a simple framework that allows you to determine exactly what it is and is not acceptable to refuse to tolerate.

    The paradox forms the perfect counterargument to the slippery slope justifications used for free speech absolutism. Nazis will say “If you censor us, where does it end? Soon you’ll be censoring everything. Maybe you’re the real fascists because you’re trying to take away our rights.” Poppler refutes this by drawing a clear, explicit line and saying “This is where it ends. Right here.” It shatters their slippery slope argument in one swift stroke.