The origin of “outlaw” didn’t mean someone was a bandit.
It meant they had broken the social contract, and as such were no longer protected under any laws
An outlaw didn’t avoid civilization because they’d be arrested, it was because everyone else could steal from them or even kill them, and face zero consequences for it.
They didn’t abide by the social contract, so others didn’t have to either
Yea, all it took was not paying your taxes.
Don’t pay your share, no protection of the law, seems pretty simple.
I wish it were an option nowadays, honestly. I’d make that bet in a heartbeat. Statistically id be so much safer I could make a case for my life insurance rates to drop. Statistically I am at my highest chance of death in the presence of a police officer, whether they’re in the area because of me or not, so even as a bystander. If I could cut that cord, it’s a no brainer. Also my car is getting 20 extra batteries dropped in it wired up in series for parking and pumping 240vdc to every metal part of the chassis. And my property will have a dozen armed sentry’s that will fire on anything that moves unless you got the optics for it to sense friendly, which I’ll just have implanted inconspicuously into a tattoo.
Certainly one possible lifestyle, however you could just participate in society instead.
I highly doubt you will be safer. If people knew they could do anything to you without any consequences it wont take long for people to rob and kill you. Because why not.
Because it’s not like there’s not a cost, or an inherent danger in attacking someone of being…idk… Attached back? If you watch animal attacks you’ll notice deer or bear can be scared of by a human with a stick and loud voice, not because the animal is in any disadvantage, but bc of the uncertainty of human capabilities and the rising certainty of dying from severity of injury,(bleeding out, predation, infection) makes the cost not worth it.
And you know, most people simply aren’t like that. We are pro-social. Post-apoc there is nothing that has more value than another person. No gun, no tool, no vehicle. Another person expands capabilities and capacities across the board, as well as helping keep your sanity. So, sorry, I’m not afraid of people. I already rape and murder exactly as much now as I want to, and that amount is zero.
Those that say without religion blah blah blah fucking terrifying me and yet I’m glad their chosen book keeps their inner demons at bay.
You know, I kind of wish it were an option too. But mostly just so you guys can suffer the inevitable consequences and come back humbled enough to actually contribute to the society you benefit from.
How would you get those batteries or power those armed sentries without being a part of society?
They require quite a bit of specialization to build and maintain.
Being an outlaw doesn’t mean you don’t participate or become a recluse. It means you are outside the protection of the law, that’s it. Was there some confusion that I missed here?
Honestly let me flip the whole thing back at y’all,
What’s the law (the people that make it up) done for you that shows that it should continue being trusted with that power? The worst injustice done to me in my entire life, by leaps and bounds, was done to me consciously by a fucking evil cop. If he was on fire I’d wait until his lips and eyelids burnt off before pissing on him just so he could survive and feel that pain everyday, and I’d live completely guilt free knowing that still doesn’t add up to it.
Why, in today’s world, would someone denying the ‘offer’ even be seen as controversial and have the onnus turned on them and not the people who made the environment hostile in the first place? Fucking bootlickers. I don’t recall me breaking the public trust, yet I see it in the newspaper on the fucking daily. Every 4 hours a cop kills someone in America, y’all think throwing more money at that’s gonna fix it? Has that worked for ANY system under capitalism?
In Seattle there’s over 50 cops last year that made over $250k. Our national generals make less than that. Shit, our state senators make $60k/yr. I don’t see cops solving crime, do you? You’d be lucky if they even show up when you call. Fuck the police.
So, becoming an outlaw would change nothing for the better. Quite contrary actually. Police could go even worse on you without any consequences but now you would also have to worry about everyone else being able to fuck you over with zero consequences for them.
And yes, being an outlaw would mean you don’t participate. Why would society grant you benefits like providing service that cost a lot of money (e.g. infrastructure) while you sit back and say “fuck you, give me your shit”
So the benefits of society are inextricable linked with accepting their protection racket? Just being clear here, this isn’t you know, textbook extortion? If I criticize capitalism, does that mean I’m criticizing America as a whole or is there more to America and life inside it than the economic laws we passed? One can exist without the other…we see capitalism in other countries… Does that mean other countries are America…? Or maybe that that’s a stupid conflagration. Stupidly common too.
There’s nothing stopping police from actively ruining and derailing your entire life now. They’ll do it just for the lolz. It’s overpaid institutionalized malice granted immunity. And what do they do with this honor? Wanton murder and subjugation and have become the largest mob stealing the most from the citizens that the countries ever seen or known.
Ask me how I know
I’d happily pay the estimated $75 per person a year for the military. Since that’s half the congressional budget I’ll just attach the other $75 in a blank check. In fact in my preferred world we’d be able to sign off or on and single line item of the budget individually. But that works be government by persuasion not coercion.
And we should have to go thru the motions of paying our own taxes. If you believe in personal property, y’know, just straight up ownership, then no one, and I mean no one, has the right to your money unless it’s thru you. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I simply think that respectful society should act respectfully.
And yes, thank you for such concerns but I really do feel much safer taking my own security into my own hands, utilizing and practicing my own agency, probably because it’s the only security any of us actually have, or will likely know. The police aren’t our protectors. Ask the kids in Uvalde. The police protect private property of those that donate to them and abuse the application of the law to such a degree that respecting it doesn’t even REGISTER in the brain. No one respects the law. Some FEAR the law, but that is not respect. More so, the law is openly flaunted on national TV by corporations and by politicians. A fine not as big as the illicit gains? Cost of business, rinse, repeat. As much freedom as you can afford, just pad every pocket on the way. Corruption=the American way.
You want to be rich? Mimic their behavior. Lovely society we live in, huh? And who would’ve thought, that breaking the public trust, with no accountability, would just pave the way for Blade Runner. There’s your psychotic motherfuckers that need religion to not rape. Punch up, fools, before you cant anymore. Look to this post. THEY BROKE THE SOCIAL CONTRACT, my allegiance to their, to ANY fucking cause isn’t unconditional. Life itself, IS CONDITIONAL.
Huh, I didn’t know Ted Kaczynski is on Lemmy
Well, with the difference that Kaczynski wasn’t a moron even though he has some weird ideas
Why would society grant you benefits like providing service that cost a lot of money (e.g. infrastructure) while you sit back and say “fuck you, give me your shit”
Society doesn’t mind doing this for refugees who not only said fuck you to their own country, but also yours.
But of course, it would be quite intolerant to tell refugees to go back and fix their shitty country instead of leeching from yours.
Actually, society treats refugees quite harshly in almost any country. It’s really only right wing propaganda that pushes the concept that any country just accepts refugees with open arms while they pillage a new country.
Guess we know where you get your information from
idpol concern trolling
You can find how many jobless refugees are in Germany right now on Google. Is Google a right-wing propaganda machine now?
In Seattle there’s over 50 cops last year that made over $250k.
That can’t be true, right? You’re probably talking about senior management, and not the ‘cop on the beat’, yes?
Or, you know, you could just shower and learn to get along with people.
I’m drawing the line at showering. If society doesn’t want me at my stankiest it does not deserve me clean.
I work in manufacturing so at first read this as machined tolerances are a paradox. Confused for a second but I got there.
I was half way through before I realized they weren’t talking about making sure parts fit together…
Remarkably it works there too. If a part is out of tolerance then it doesn’t meet the specifications in the contract and is discarded.
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For real… It’s always astounded me in the first place. I’ve only ever looked at it like a social contract. Quebec here in Canada has had a few times in the past where they’ve voted to leave the country. When asked about all the services that the Canadian government provides and who would provide them now, a huge amount of people repeatedly blanked. For some reason no one ever thought that “If I’m not part of the group, I don’t get the benefits of the group.”
Apparently that shit applies to idiots as well. “I hate fascists! Fuck them! They’re horrible people! They must be treated the same as us and be kind to them! Tolerate their beliefs even though those beliefs are actively calling for the death and extermination of entire groups of people!”
There isn’t enough off on this planet for them to fuck.
Nazis always want their beliefs to be heard in the marketplace of ideas right? So that we all can debate them. I generally do the opposite of what Nazis want to do.
The only way to be anti-fascist is to be fascist against fascists you don’t like.
That’s the irony of these things, including tolerance, it clearly doesn’t work, and that’s why in 2023 we still have around 200 countries and each of us still wants to live on their own property and not with a massive group of people.
I don’t have to tolerate anyone outside my property, and this has been proven to work for entire human history. Even countries that officially don’t like eachother and spam propaganda to their own citizens keep trading weapons and other things, so there’s 0 benefit in kissing anyone’s ass except to look better in front of others.
Translation:
I’m an intolerant asshole and I don’t like tolerance because then I might not get to be intolerant
Again, nobody is making you abide the social contract. You’re mad about an invented problem
Try being tolerant for once and see how long you last.
You sound like someone who tried to be nice to someone once and swore it off entirely when they weren’t nice back.
According to your own logic, I can do exactly as I want and you can fuck off. So what’s the point in being here arguing with people? Like, do you think you’re going to change some minds? Or are you just here to insist that people listen to you about your right to not have to listen to them?
My very first post started off with the fact that I won’t try to be nice to anyone, so I’m now unironically concerned for your mental health.
Well now, that’s not consistent at all. That position might actually reflect a little tolerance and empathy. But I thought you said you don’t do those things?
Or is it, like I originally pointed out, that you don’t actually understand the concept of tolerance, and what you’re fighting against is just the buzz word that you’ve learned?
It is perfectly consistent. Indifference doesn’t reflect neither tolerance nor empathy because unlike those two it’s actually real and in fact worked for many humans for entire human history. For 99.99% of people globally, all they want from me is to not give a fuck just like they don’t, then of course there’s you who thinks himself special.
My very first post started off with the fact that I won’t try to be nice to anyone
I’ve got another little bit of irony for you. The guy that said this is trying to call someone out for calling him an asshole like it’s attacking his character and not directly commenting on this thing where he said he was going to be an asshole. Funny right?
Why did she apologize for agreeing?
Some kind of advanced rhetorical technique, probably.
She could be Canadian
Somebody who teaches rhetoric sat through multiple debates about the so-called paradox of tolerance without thinking about the social contract once? Maybe I should just teach, I’m also incompetent at everything I do.
Having worked in public education for nearly a decade now, I absolutely hate your response and how much it validates those entitled parents who call my coworkers overpaid babysitters.
On the other hand, I hate even more the fact that your comment perfectly represents the career choices of about 7-10% of the teachers I know. That’s far too high a number of people who decided to influence the life-path of children because they figured it’s easy if you’re complacent and callous enough.
I have nothing but respect for teachers that actually want to help kids learn and grow, and it sucks really bad for them but it needs to be harder to become qualified to teach, and also it needs to be an extremely well paid profession. Like 120k minimum
Agreed, but the words you’re looking for are “more rigorous,” not “harder.” Becoming a teacher is already relatively hard, unless you’re willing to accept lifelong debt, take tons of meaningless tests, pay for your own trainings, and learn how to trade your ambitions for potentially oppressive discipline.
Obviously the parents you deal with are morons who won’t raise their little shits properly, that’s not in question at all, but your comment comes across as “I hate your response because it’s offensive, but also because it’s accurate”. Was it ever in doubt? Teaching has been deliberately underfunded into being an objectively terrible career path, you get treated like shit and paid like it too. The only people who will do that job now are:
- Incompetent morons who are willing to work for peanuts after being fired from half a dozen hospitality industry jobs, because school districts will hire anyone with a pulse who’s willing to take abuse (Indiana will let you teach with a fucking Business degree now, cosmetology certifications for teaching math can’t be far away)
- Sociopathic sadists who just want to be bullies but aren’t willing to be correctional officers
- Miserable, jaded cynics who don’t care at all and phone it in every day
- Idealistic lifers who actually believe in idealistically Helping The Children, 100% of whom will be beaten down into becoming number 3 within 10 years, except for the ones who quit for a job where they’ll make more money and get treated better, such as waiting tables or driving a forklift
Is it any surprise I trashed the teacher in the OP? If anything I was being charitable in assuming incompetence, since we’re rapidly approaching the point where malicious conduct will be statistically the most likely and will have to be assumed. Some MAGA-infested districts are already there.
My wife is a middle school public English teacher. She was one of the idealists who got into it to help kids. She has been so beat down by her pants on head retarded administration, shit pay, awful students and parents that she has gone from the idealist that wants to help the next generation to the miserable jaded teacher that just gets through the day as quickly as possible while looking for another career.
That’s the modern system working as intended right there. And the people who ensure this is done have their kids in private religious schools, so they’re well pleased.
Stop it! Get out of my head! I’ve had this exact conversation with many of my peers. I’ve told a number of very good teachers that I’ll never hang out with them in a private setting because the fact that they choose to do what they do for what they’re paid shows that they’re mentally unstable.
It honestly reads like everybody is going to stand up and clap or something.
Don’t like to bash on teachers, but I have to agree.
Who thinks in terms of social contracts except social philosophers?
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Teachers who instruct social philosophies, ideally.
The paradox of tolerance is just a description of how a virtue can at limit become a vice in practice. It’s not a math problem for the oh so smart folks in this thread to resolve. One cannot be unbound from the social contract because someone else breaks it. This is why for instance even when we go to war we try to limit harm and when we punish someone, even a murderer, they are entitled to process and law even while we are punishing them.
You are always bound to ethics and law based on who YOU are not who they are. This is nearly the most fundamental fact of ethics.
One cannot be unbound from the social contract because someone else breaks it.
That’s what “self-defense” is. Someone breaks the social contract and tries to harm you so you are allowed to also break the social contract and harm them.
It’s not what self defense is. For instance in most civilized spaces you can’t respond out of proportion, you are usually required to retreat if its safe to do so from public spaces, you can’t continue attacking while your opponent flees, you can’t instigate or cause the conflict and then claim the protection of self defense.
Responding in proportion by harming someone in self defense would be crossing the standard of not harming others, but is acceptable.
And if you go further than is needed you would void your own social contract status.
He’s talking about apples and you’re talking about apple pie. You kind of asserted a lot of extra to what entails self defense.
He and about everyone in this thread including the originator are talking shit about things they don’t even slightly understand and then trying to scramble to justify.
That’s what “self-defense” is. Someone breaks the social contract and tries to harm you so you are allowed to also break the social contract and harm them.
This just isn’t correct your social contract didn’t magically change. You aren’t excused from it by someone’s actions. It is rooted in who you are not who they are. It can be described in this case by a sentence. Just because a clause doesn’t apply to a particular situation doesn’t mean the fuckin rule changed.
Don’t cause people to come to harm by action or inaction wherein your actions are themselves justifiable to reasonable people while protecting yourself by doing the least harm possible while preserving your justifiable interests. We end up needing a lot more words to describe what reasonable is because people are stupid assholes but it is what it is.
You apply the same rule to someone trying to attack you as someone making change at the fucking grocery store. The attacker is part of the same social contract even if you end up bloodying the one person and thanking the other.
your honor, he violated my social contract!
where is this contract written and who signed it?
castle doctrine!
castle doctrine isn’t law in this jurisdiction.
muh social contract!!
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I’ve never seen anything of any substance in the (so-called) “Paradox Of Tolerance.”
“Tolerance” is of no use to me or anyone else - we don’t owe people “tolerance,” we owe each other mutual respect. If you are dead-set on proving yourself unwilling of giving mutual respect (such as, for instance, fascists or capitalists) you disqualify yourself from that paradigm - zero “paradoxes” required.
You just used different words to describe exactly the same thing as the OP.
No, actually. They rephrased it in a way that results in the opposite meaning. First they lowered the stakes from “we will not tolerate you in our society” to “mutual respect” which is very weak and vague language. Mutual respect is something fascists love both giving and receiving. Superficial civility is how they play the game. While they gain influence in a government they use police power to protect themselves from and later actively suppress protestors and activists while extolling the virtues of civility and the ‘marketplace of ideas’.
What @masquenox@lemmy.ml said is exactly what I would expect a fascist would.
Where I’d say the term “tolerance” matters is that some people will take negative actions against others in their lifetime - the question is how much leeway you give them on it.
Say a guy you’ve never met steps into a shop you own, and immediately tells you to “Back the hell off, dipshit.” Ostensibly, he’s broken the rule of respect, and should receive none - but tolerance would suggest that if, a minute later, he says to you “…Look, I’m sorry for yelling. Everyone I’ve met today has treated me terribly and I lashed out.” then the social contract is preserved.
Tolerance acknowledges people are not perfect, and will make mistakes. The paradox of tolerance helps us recognize when they’re not mistakes.
That definition of tolerance isn’t the one that’s being used in this thread and I don’t think it’s particularly useful to substitute it into a phrase it’s not intended in
No. I didn’t.
Why do you think we owe one thing but not the other?
You do understand the difference between toleration and respect, right?
What do you see as the difference between tolerance and mutual respect?
I differ between respect for people as human beings and respect (tolerance, if you will) for their ideas and actions
Sure, it’s possible to respect someone at a baseline human level while also not agreeing with their actions. That doesn’t encompass tolerance as I understand it, so let me run these by ya:
If you don’t respect someone’s ideas or actions, what would you intervene and prevent them from doing, if anything? What decisions would you trust them to make for themselves? How much effort would you put into empathizing with them?
This might be fine sentiment in an idealistic way but step outside and see where we’re at.
idealistic way
There’s absolutely nothing idealistic about it… you literally entrust your fate to it every damn time you drive your car.
It’s not that easy. Social contact theory can work when there’s a relatively objective standard like “physical violence” but you’ll often believe that the people you disagree with are being intolerant, and they’ll believe that you’re being intolerant. If the general rule is “I’ll only tolerate people if I’m convinced that they’re tolerant” then very soon no one will be tolerating anyone else.
With that said, I don’t think there’s a “paradox of tolerance” simply because tolerance is hard. The people talking about a paradox want to get credit for “tolerating” just the people they don’t mind having around, but you have to tolerate the people you hate, the people you think are a threat to you. Otherwise you’re not tolerant.
We get muddy when we move from “physical violence” to “the threat of physical violence”. It runs us into the “I’m not touching you” game on one end and Nextdoor paranoia on the other.
Is someone tolerant if they come right up to the line of what defines tolerance and acts like an asshole within the strict bounds of the law? Is someone intolerant when they violate (often unwittingly) some local rule of decorum or social taboo? Is someone intolerant if they are startled into a panic? What if they conspire to sow panic without actually getting their hands dirty inflicting harm? If we’re the victim of violence from an unknown source, what then? If we’re the victim of violence that we falsely attribute, are we intolerant? Is the falsely accused subject now flagged as intolerant?
The people talking about a paradox want to get credit for “tolerating” just the people they don’t mind having around, but you have to tolerate the people you hate, the people you think are a threat to you. Otherwise you’re not tolerant.
More broadly, how do you tolerate someone or something you don’t know or understand? How do you deal with perception bias?
I’m reminded of growing up in the 90s and having people freak out over “loud rap music”. The media bias against young black men and their taste in music is very clearly an example of intolerance. But the dialogue of the era framed playing this music (particularly the edgy stuff like NWA or Biggy) as itself an act of intolerance.
How do you square that contradiction? Who gets to adjudicate the offender and the offended? What gets defined as tolerable?
OP’s image doesn’t really set that out.
This all makes sense when you remember that the underlying topic here is bigotry. Ergo, tolerance is defined in those terms. Not in the more general terms.
The right uses the “paradox of tolerance” to hide what this is ultimately about, a common tactic.
It isn’t about tolerating all ideas. It is about tolerating groups of people different from yourself.
Put another way, if society has a rule “don’t be a bigot” and then someone is a bigot and gets in trouble, is society bigoted against bigots? No. Of course not. Thinking that would be asinine. Society is enforcing rules against bigotry.
Bigotry is not a synonym for Racism. Bigotry is maintaining a personal opinion or prejudice even when holding that opinion or prejudice is unreasonable.
Can “Bigotry” include someones belief that a group of people are inferior because of their race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference ? Yes it can but it’s so much broader than that.
Someone can also be a Bigot by holding the opinion that only Apple MacBooks should be allowed on Airplanes because they are the only ones with safe enough batteries and then refusing to change that opinion when presented with contrary evidence.
Bigotry isn’t about people, it’s about ideas, opinions, and prejudices all of which can be positive or negative on literally anything at all.
We have the “Paradox of Tolerance” because if we tolerate anything, including intolerance, then we have intolerance. If won’t tolerate intolerance then we also have intolerance. It’s that simple and it’s also vastly over blown.
What we need to do is reject the unspoken implication that we must have a perfectly tolerant Society. Some amount of intolerance needs to exist but only so far as it has a positive outcome. Intolerance of racism is a good example, intolerance of non-defensive violence is another.
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this is where the old concept of an outlaw came from. the idea was that the law was something we all voluntarily agreed to follow. let it limit your behavior toward others, and others would limit their behavior toward you as well. an outlaw was someone who had, through their actions, opted out of the law. there was no prescribed punishment for doing so, it’s just that once you became an outlaw the law no longer applied to you, nor did apply to others in their dealings with you.
It’s only a paradox if you’re a mentally handicapped bigot. It makes perfect sense to everyone else.
It’s formally designated as a paradox because of the way it is originally worded. Those who you mention will abuse it to make it non-logical andnnon-sensic; those who understand realize it is formally a paradox but to all practical matters it is a contract, as we have expressed here.
Who’s in charge of formally designating paradoxes?
A paradox doesn’t need a body of certification.
It’s far from a formal system, but here’s a video I like that this thread reminded me of: “the five kinds of paradox”
Or you could be like the teacher in the post, who loves the concept but never happened to think of it…
Nah, I don’t need to think about it. It’s an astoundingly easy concept to grasp. And it’s not a paradox unless you’re a pedantic knob. In a civilized society, you don’t tolerate outright hatred. Very very very simple. I don’t care if Nazis and bigots and transphobes don’t understand, because I don’t respect them.
This is how I’ve always described it.
Its not a paradox, its a contract.
And those that do not abide by it, universally, share a very specific end goal that is not good for society, countries, or the species.
The surprise here is that the paradox confuses people so much. Paradox doesn’t mean bad or broken
Exactly! My uncle had a paradox. One was dachshund and the other was some mutt. The wiener dog was kinda an asshole but not necessarily a bad dog, and the mutt was kinda stupid but certainly not broken. Anyway, both of them eventually got old and died and he never really got anymore so I guess now he has nodox?
Yeah, I like dags.
Maybe uncle can taxidermy them and cherish their memory forever alive. Even the one named Theseus, or was it the name of the uncle?
“Yeah, this was my uncle’s dog, but we’ve cut off and replaced so many parts on it that it’s now my uncle’s end table.”
Also this kind of thinking opens the way for torturing prisoners, revenge killings and stuff. It’s not nearly as neat a “solution” as they think.
I agree. We should not tolerate the lactose intolerant.
There’s only two things in this world I cannot stand. Intolerance, and the Dutch.
Creating a society of clenched buttcheeks?
Tolerance is a moral or ethic, not a contract. Like other aspects of morality, it continues to apply to people who violate it, otherwise it would be legitimate to, e.g., lie to a liar, steal from a thief or, indeed, to murder a murderer.
If you don’t believe those responses are legitimate, you have to construct an argument as to why tolerance is a special case among the other morals.
If someone steals my bike I would totally steal it back, and depending on where you live they execute murderers. I don’t think it needs to be a special case.
Neither of your counter examples works. ‘Stealing’ your bike back isn’t stealing; execution isn’t murder, even if you agree with it.
The only difference between them is society is ok with one and dislikes the other. That’s the whole point. If “stealing” your own bike isn’t stealing, then rejecting the intolerant isn’t intolerance.
No, stealing your own bike just is not stealing. It’s yours. By definition, you cannot steal something that belongs to you.
That’s what I said. You are trying to be confusing, but only confusing yourself.
No, the equivalent to your suggestion would be to argue that, by stealing, you waive your own property rights. Manifestly, this is not the case.
I’d be happy to continue this conversation with you if you can do so politely.
What counts aa morals seem to fall into two categories. Spiritually enforced dogma or morality sourced from a central premise of what behaviours we adhere to in making a society better to live in. Spiritual dogma is difficult to argue with because you have something supposedly above society that straight up dictates something that must be followed. The consideration places those morals in an untouchable space for those who believe… The second form often is more flexible and covers a lot of smaller infractions and changes with society, technology and so on.
Take littering. Littering is something I argue our modern society considers immoral. If you’ve ever witnessed someone throw something on the ground deliberately and walk away your reaction might be disgust because it violates an idea of mutual responsibility to make society a nicer place to be and it is a disrespect toward that social construct. A majority of persons sign onto that that is an unacceptable behaviour and shows a lack of morals.
Social contract when violated isn’t always responded to in exact kind because reciprocating often undermines the idea that those behaviours make things worse for everyone. Hence if someone litters, steals or murders someone we either fine them or lock them up as punishment because they voided a social contract which has been further codified into law.
For things that the law cannot be used as a tool to stop it’s more of a wild west. If someone dumps all the leaves they rake up in their yard over your fence then people won’t object if you do the same or slightly worse back to them. The initial slight is considered the immoral one that we click our tongues in disgust over but the equal response to it might elicit a laugh and a clap on the back.
You’re confusing at least three things: law, social contract and morality. They’re related but they’re not the same.
Not all crimes violate the social contract but, where they do, punishing them fulfils the social contract. At the same time, either the crime or the punishment may be immoral, but also may not be. They interact, but they’re not identical.
I don’t believe I have those confused but it seems to me you did. Morality is the concept of right and wrong along with a kind of focus about a person’s " goodness" or “badness” of character that underlies their behavior. Law is at some level meant to enforce the spirit of this by codifying it into a structure of deterrent and reciprocation that a society (or the powerful within society) agree is fair. Laws however are made by controlling interests which themselves may not be paragons and may weild the law in ways that quite frankly are immoral to benefit certain segments of society. Laws are just tools and “what exactly is the law” is it’s own rabbit hole.
The social contract is the nebulous bit in between. Because law at some level requires some level of enforcement it’s kind of patchy in its application. The social contract is the sort of web of what is considered moral and what is acceptable to deter or reciprocate immoral behaviour on an interpersonal level.
But the question of “why is it okay to be nasty to bigots” is a social contract question. “Why don’t we steal from theives or murder murderers” is more of a culture and law question. If you go back 200 years law officials killed people for stealing things because deterrent was over favored over something more like our modern concept of proportional punishment. People generally don’t have to concern themselves with social contract questions when they have an authority to call on to do the punishment for them provided they ageee authority’s punishment is considered fair.
So then those that tolerate the intolerance are also excluded from the contract, right?
Edit: this is a genuine question.
If 9 people are dining at a table with 1 Nazi, how many Nazis are sitting at the table?
- Unless they poisoned the Nazi’s food and are just waiting to see the waterworks.
Ten,
Unless they poisoned the Nazi’s food and are just waiting to see the waterworks.
Then 1
Then that answers your question.
If you have nine apples and one banana, how many bananas do you have?
Fruits are not sentient beings
Kind of irrelevant to the overall narrative, but have it your way.
If I have nine Red Sox Fans and one White Sox Fans, how many White Sox Fans do I have?
… sigh 🙄
It’s not really an eye roll moment.
This is where you come in with your (certainly) broad base of knowledge that definitely knows so much more than me and explain why I’m incorrect.
Also, what do you have to be willing to tolerate?
Do you have to tolerate people who are lobbying the government to lower the age of consent to 8 years old? Do you have to tolerate people who insist on having violent sex in public places? How about the local cannibal society that openly eats human flesh, but only from people who are willing to donate their bodies after they die, or who are willing to have limbs surgically removed to donate to the cause? What about the modern-day gladiator arena where volunteers battle to gruesome deaths in pursuit of fame and prizes?
It seems like if you’re intolerant of any of those things, you’re an intolerant, have broken the terms of the contract, and nobody has to tolerate you. But, while that might “solve the paradox”, it doesn’t seem like a very good place to live.
- No, because there’s a good argument to be made many 18 year olds are not mature enough yet to consent to life decisions, let alone 8. We just have to draw the line somewhere.
- If they have consent from everybody in that place, sure.
- See #2
- See #2. Though that might bring up other issues like encouraging violence, etc.
For #2, if you aren’t involved in the act, but don’t consent to witnessing it, then aren’t you just being intolerant?
We just have to draw the line somewhere.
So, you’re intolerant of people who draw the line in a different place from you?
If they have consent from everybody in that place, sure
Who gets to weigh in? How public does the sex have to be? How violent? Do they have to actually be in the public place, or can it be someone who might think of going to that public place?
Did everyone involved give their informed consent with valid alternatives? Then yeah, go right ahead!
Wanted to reply saying that the consent giver must be able to fully understand what they are consenting to - which children (or animals) are not. but I think this is what you mean by informed consent.
Still posting this, because I think this is an important aspect and it’s worth hammering it home
So, that’s the kind of world you want to live in?
Having the option is not being forced. Just because some people like spicy food doesn’t mean everyone is forced to eat it.
But everyone is required to tolerate people who want to have sex with children, people who want to have sex in public, people who want to eat human meat, etc. You couldn’t have laws against those things because that would be intolerant.
It’s reasonable to conclude that some people cannot consent to some things, particularly things they don’t understand. Sex with children, animals, and adults under some kinds of intoxication fall into this category.
Sex in public can work, if that public consents. Indeed there are some publics that do consent, usually small communities, but it does happen.
Consumption of human flesh is theoretically A-OK, it’s the obtaining of that flesh that is difficult. The dealing of human material outside of controlled channels can lead to the killing of people for money or power, which is why it’s illegal to buy or sell organs for transplants or research. With stakes this high, any compensation can be twisted into coercion. This, plus the risk of bioaccumulation and parasites, has led the consumption of human flesh to be a taboo, although exceptions do get made in extreme circumstances. As such, if the origin of such flesh can be confirmed to be uncoerced and not used for long-term sustenence, and this can be rigorously enforced, then I have no problem with it.
The allowing of things which may lead to disallowed things does depend on the ability of a community to understand the risks and adapt to reduce them. For example, Canada recently began practicing medically assisted dying for those who choose it, yet some doctors have already been criticised for pushing it unprompted instead of recommending treatment. I shudder to think what could happen if insurance companies could legally consider it a valid alternative.
The issue here is that some things can create an intolerance for some rights, without violating those rights to begin with. Where the line is drawn should depend on how strictly the line can be enforced, so while historically many lines were drawn very broadly, we have stronger social technology now, and we can free up areas near those lines. Should we spend the effort to have those thinner lines is another question, and usually depends on how useful that area is; for example stem cell testing could teach us a lot, but eating human flesh is very inefficient and possibly dangerous long-term.
If something causes intolerance, then we certainly should create laws against that intolerance. It’s usually simple to make the laws against the thing itself, but laws could be made that allow more things without allowing the intolerance. It can be a complicated matter, but one worth pursuing, otherwise everything would eventually end up outlawed.
some people cannot consent to some things, particularly things they don’t understand
But, where do you draw the line? Historically the age of consent has changed a lot. Maybe it should be that nobody under 30 can consent because their minds are still developing.
Sex in public can work, if that public consents
How do you determine if the public consents? What if some of the public consents and other public doesn’t?
Consumption of human flesh is theoretically A-OK,
According to whom?
If something causes intolerance, then we certainly should create laws against that intolerance
The point is, it’s all going to come down to lines a community decides based on a variety of things from religious influence, to culture, to infectious diseases, to healthcare systems, to population density, to all kinds of influences. It will be absolutely fine to be intolerant of someone who crosses one of those lines, because the community has decided that that’s where the lines are. On the other hand, it won’t be fine to be intolerant of someone who crosses what is a line for another society.
When you tolerate the intolerant what generally happens is you drive those who they target to need to leave to find other places of safety. Hosting intolerance means they are given new avenues to harass, select targets and make people miserable or afraid.
A lot of people have this idea that intolerant people are just people who want in their heart of hearts to be good and should be given that opportunity if you can only wheedle them into realizing what they are doing is bad. But when you try to include them in a mixed space all that serves to do is impress upon those persecuted that the intolerant person is the one who will be catered and adapted to their wellbeing is favored over that of their victims who are made to feel selfish or needy for just not wanting to be picked on. Apologists for intolerance give them secondary access to their victims
Even though it comes from a good place it is not ethical to host the intolerant in the same space as their victims and you can absolutely become a jerk for trying too hard to reform someone at the cost of sanity of everybody else in the room. The social contract isn’t a straight forward thing. There’s some gray area where you have contested coverage.
Yes. If you aren’t actively condemning intolerance you implicitly condoning it.
Phew, lucky that there’s no disagreement in this society about what right and wrong is and what should and shouldn’t be tolerated. Otherwise we might devolve into two antagonistic political factions mutually condemning each other.
When one faction is calling for the extermination of people based on the way they were born I think it becomes easy to decide which group is in the right.
If it were easy, there wouldn’t be this much disagreement.
Easy doesn’t stop ignorance. Oh my, I didn’t realize we had an enlightened centrist on our hands. You can straight fuck off with that both sides bull shit.
Lol, ironic in thread about tolerance
It makes perfect sense in the context of the discussion we are having. Go pearl clutch about how poorly we are treating fascists elsewhere.
I think it’s pretty simple: Are you actively trying to put one group down to further your own interests? If “yes”, then you’re wrong and should stop that.
Pretty sure both groups are doing that to each other…
People who are advocating for tolerance are trying to put the intolerant group down to further their own interests.
The intolerant are not covered by the contract, so putting them down is fine.
Yeah, killing people is fine as long as you don’t like them, I agree.
Easy to twist something into something it’s not. Actually try and argue against their point, instead of twisting yourself in knots.
