Subject:
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Re: Tolerance...Dave Schuler are you out there?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 25 Jan 2005 19:05:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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812 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Justin Pankey wrote:
> Hi Dave,
>
> Long ago I gave up responding to off-topic debate as I simply don't have the
> time to respond to all the tangents, etc. However, I still ocassionally get
> sucked into reading some of the threads.
>
> Somehow I've found myself dragged into a debate thread from back in October that
> eventually became a discussion of tolerance. In that discussion you said this:
> "Additionally, the rejection of intolerance is not, in itself, intolerant."
>
> I find that a fascinating position...can you explain it a little further?
Hi Justin!
Bruce has already given a good answer, but since your question stems from
something that I wrote, I'll take a shot, too.
Here's my original post, for those readers joining us late:
http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=26170
Anyway, there are several ways to look at it. For all of the following
examples, PersonA will speak for intolerance, while PersonB will speak for
tolerance.
The easiest answer is based in simple logic. It is not reasonable to require a
thing to entail its incompatible opposite. That would be like saying:
"PersonB can't be taller than anyone unless PersonB is also taller than the guy
who is taller than PersonB."
That's clearly a non sequitur.
Another way to look at it is in terms of scale. Under the formulation at
hand, PersonA can be said to be "intolerant" if and only if he is intolerant of
*at least one* behavior/thing/person/etc., while PersonB can be said to be
"tolerant" if and only if he is tolerant of *all* behaviors/things/people/etc.
That's not an equitable requirement for PersonA to make of PersonB.
Additionally, PersonB could just as rightly say to PersonA: "Because you are
intolerant of ThingX, you must therefore also be intolerant of ThingY."
We're dealing with a spectrum, of course, in which everyone falls somewhere
between Absolute Intolerance and Absolute Tolerance. If we require each person
to be all-or-nothing in terms of tolerance, then no one can qualify as either;
Bruce has correctly identified this as a game to neutralize any opposition.
PersonA will say to PersonB something like "because you don't tolerate my
intolerance, you're just as intolerant as I am."
At this point PersonA will often say something like "PersonB's choice not to
tolerate intolerance is a value judgment, no different from my choice not to
tolerate ThingX." In that case, it's up to PersonA to demonstrate that this is
the case, and this comes back to that non sequitur.
Here's a formulation of PersonB's position:
PersonB is tolerant of a thing if and only if that thing is not
logically inconsistent with tolerance (i.e., its incompatible opposite)
If PersonB can demonstrate that his lack of tolerance of a thing (based on
aesthetics, preference, values, etc.) is no different from PersonB's lack of
tolerance of a thing logically inconsistent with tolerance, then PersonA will
have made his case. Otherwise, he must logically abandon this objection as
untenable.
Well, that should be enough to get the ball rolling. Thoughts?
Thanks for your question in any case!
Dave!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Tolerance...Dave Schuler are you out there?
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| Hi Dave, Long ago I gave up responding to off-topic debate as I simply don't have the time to respond to all the tangents, etc. However, I still ocassionally get sucked into reading some of the threads. Somehow I've found myself dragged into a (...) (20 years ago, 25-Jan-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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