The Paradox of Tolerance

[Yukle]

14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Yeah, and Constantinople was part of the Christian Empire. Should we revert to the original borders? And just how far back do you want to go?

I've read this and follow-up posts and I don't see the connection.

My point is that Muslims are not a recent addition to European communities, so talk of them "assimilating" or "fitting in" is completely ridiculous. 

[DMC]

I apologize in advance for this digression into a political philosophy grad seminar, but I think it's important to provide some context to this discussion.  Further, unlike 99% of political philosophy seminars, the material below has practical implications that informs the larger conversation on free speech and tolerance.

I think it's useful to start with (JS) Mill's On Liberty, in which he articulated what is known as "the harm principle:"

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The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. [18]

For Mill, this liberty of thought cannot be separated from the "cognate liberty of speaking and of writing," and thus extends to "expressing and publishing opinions" and even the "freedom to unite."  The reason I'm starting here is this is the basis for much of the jurisprudence on the First Amendment over the past century.  Now, it is fair to say Mill's absolutism on the subject is rather out of date - after all, he did not encounter the abject brutality of totalitarian regimes in the 20th century (albeit 19th century Europe wasn't all pixies and fairy dust).  Moreover, the paragraph immediately following the quoted above includes the allowance that "despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement."  So, maybe we don't have to take his words as scripture.

But his more compelling argument is in the second chapter, namely that suppressing offensive and odious arguments and beliefs is detrimental to the "right" arguments themselves.  If the "right" way of thinking is merely taught and not challenged by "wrong" arguments, such beliefs will descend into dogma and lose all meaning - he explicitly relates this to the Catholic Church.  This line of argument is hardly unique to Mill (and is indeed derivative), but he eloquently emphasizes how dissent, even objectively wrong dissent, is essential to maintaining an open society.

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It is illustrated in the experience of almost all ethical doctrines and religious creeds. They are all full of meaning and vitality to those who originate them, and to the direct disciples of the originators. Their meaning continues to be felt in undiminished strength, and is perhaps brought out into even fuller consciousness, so long as the struggle lasts to give the doctrine or creed an ascendency over other creeds. At last it either prevails, and becomes the general opinion, or its progress stops; it keeps possession of the ground it has gained, but ceases to spread further. When either of these results has become apparent, controversy on the subject flags, and gradually dies away. The doctrine has taken its place, if not as a received opinion, as one of the admitted sects or divisions of opinion: those who hold it have generally inherited, not adopted it; and conversion from one of these doctrines to another, being now an exceptional fact, occupies little place in the thoughts of their professors. Instead of being, as at first, constantly on the alert either to defend themselves against the world, or to bring the world over to them, they have subsided into acquiescence, and neither listen, when they can help it, to arguments against their creed, nor trouble dissentients (if there be such) with arguments in its favour. From this time may usually be dated the decline in the living power of the doctrine. [73-74]

This speaks to Mill's conception of utilitarianism throughout his works.  While his father worked for and collaborated with Bentham, Mill's "enlightened" (as I called it in my own grad seminar) utilitarianism has greater depth than Bentham's - the latter of which is almost a mathematical formula of adding up "utiles" to arrive at "the greater good" based on actions.  Mill's utilitarianism is less quantifiable - he was more interested in both the individual and the body politic's intellectual and moral "health."  There has been a lot of discussion in this thread on hate speech and anti-Nazi laws.  It is here that Mill can be reconciled with such measures beyond the banal - although certainly accurate - notion that the assembly of such groups does indeed cause harm.  There are certain ideas that actively harm the polity and discourse; while wrong and extreme arguments are useful and even essential, those purely derived from hate are a toxic cancer to the intellectual and moral health of both individual and state.

Moving on to Popper, it is important to put the quote in the OP in context.  It is from The Open Society and Its Enemies, which assails the totalitarianism and historicism of Plato then later Hegel and Marx.  The quote is actually from a footnote in Chapter 7 ("The Principle of Leadership") which begins a discursive argument against Plato's "Philosopher King" and the latter's criticism of democracy.  The footnote appears after the following sentence in the main text:

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In his criticism of democracy, and in his story of the rise of the tyrant, Plato raises implicitly the following question : What if it is the will of the people that they should not rule, but a tyrant instead ? The free man, Plato suggests, may exercise his absolute freedom, first by defying the laws and ultimately by defying freedom itself, and by clamouring for a tyrant 4 [109]

He is responding to Plato's "paradoxes" of both freedom and democracy that can lead to tyranny with another - the "paradox of intolerance."  However, Popper is hardly advocating intolerance towards intolerant beliefs.  If that's not intuitive simply by reading the work's title, consider the concluding paragraph of the chapter in which that quote emanates from:

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To sum up. Plato's political programme was much more institutional than personalist ; he hoped to arrest political change by the institutional control of succession in leadership. The control was to be educational, based upon an authoritarian view of learning, and upon the authority of the learned expert. This is what Plato made of Socrates' demand that a responsible politician should love truth, and that he should know his limitations. [120]

Like Mill, or virtually every liberal thinker, Popper is just as concerned with preserving open discourse and avoiding dogmatic thought and learning.  This is where I find much of the discussion in this thread alarming.  There is a very important distinction between rendering white supremacist thought out of bounds and rendering anyone advocating policy preferences you believe impede citizens' rights, or health care, or ability to participate (even though you're right) as verboten.  When we start defining 50 percent of this country as intolerable based on intolerant beliefs, it's not only a gross exaggeration, it is the first step to transforming Rousseau's beautiful theory on the "general will" to the Reign of Terror.  In protecting from the tyranny of the majority, it is imperative to not become the tyranny of the majority.

Rawls' A Theory of Justice is based on fairness.  One of his two principles of justice is equal liberty: "Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all" (220).  I mention Rawls' ToJ because there's an oft-cited quote from it that is often the response to the oft-cited Popper quote in the OP:

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While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger [220]

Everyone must make their own determination on when our security and institutions are in danger, but I caution that the standards often espoused here are dangerously at odds with those of Mill, Rawls, and, yes, Popper.

[Kalbear]

11 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

1) Lol, I don't have one. I'm neither educated, clever or patient enough to think up a better system (compared to one we have had for millenia) for the purpose of this discussion I do however think that current system is not the best one, and improving it could include more liberal approach. A bit of (totally insanely wrong) historical perspective:
(snip)

Okay, let's go with this a bit.

The purpose of repressing certain ideas is NOT to make them disappear off the face of the planet. The purpose is to ensure that said ideas are not ever acceptable as mainstream discourse. Germans making Naziism verboten to discuss didn't make nazis disappear, but it made sure that for the last 70 years it has not been something acceptable to regular people in any way. Whereas in the US, we can talk about  and have regular marches of Nazis, and the result has been people actually getting elected as Nazis.

All of the examples you provided are either completely, off-the-wall wrong or don't apply in this case. 

11 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

When you hear some regressive speech being uttered on television, maybe your first visceral reaction is: Shut your mouth, you sexist/nationalistic/rasist piece of shit. I know that mine is. But basic psychology says that this is not the way to persuade anyone to your point of view. If you have large portion of your society believing stuff you don't want them to believe, telling them to shut up isn't gonna change that. Time and time again, history had showed us that smarter approach is needed.

Not really. Point of fact, there are very few historical  examples where a 'smarter' approach is needed and worked. Basic psychology would also tell you otherwise; one of the best ways to get other people to do something or at least not go along with something is, in fact, to tell them that what they're saying is shitty and ostracize them. This doesn't work if you're not anything to them, but it works marvellously if you're friends or family with them. 

And again, the issue is NOT to stop the visceral reaction. The issue is to make sure no one thinks that extremist, dangerous ideologies are acceptable at the normal level. 

11 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

You know how could one solve the problem with aforementioned rasist guy? I'd not criticize him at all, I'd celebrate him and invite him into national television's prime time talk-show. I'd have him express his views to the entire multi-million audience. Next to him, I'd sit most charismatic and most eloquent person who holds the opposite view (lets say Neil deGrasse Tyson) and have two of them discuss the problem for half an hour. Maybe it's a good idea, probably it's a terrible one - but it's different; and by now I think it's obvious some kind of different approach is called for.

We tried it. It doesn't work. People don't believe the person that is most eloquent. Tyson himself has told off Trump; how has that worked out for him?

We've also tried it with intelligent design vs. evolution, we've tried it with climate change vs. deniers, we've tried it with anti-vaccers vs. vaccers. Every single time the extremist viewpoint GAINS more followers.

It's not a different idea, it's a very basic one, and one that nazis LOVE to have, because they want to make their ideas seem reasonable.

11 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

2) I read all the posts here, but I'm still not convinced about whole America-Europe dichotomy. That is, is there is truly a cause-consequence relationship here and not post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy? And if Europeans have one approach based on their history with WWII and America doesn't (and that causes the difference), how do other countries like e.g. Australia or Canada approach this subject? Or how would one explain e.g. France (where Marie Le Pen won 40% of votes in 2nd round of presidential elections), Hungary (where their prime minister is right-wing mini-dictator) or Italy (who elected SIlvio Berlusconi - horribly corrupt clown full of shit - three times)?

There are a couple of counterexamples here and there, but Trump is far and away worse than any of the above save perhaps Hungary (which has been democratic for all of 20 years), and even Berlusconi didn't have majority support. 

11 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

3) I utterly agree here. If one could find e.g. 1000 most intelligent, noble and educated people to write my society's norms, I'd be the first one to enthusiastically support them. The only problem is: how to find them? Who would choose them? And on what criteria?

We literally have a document on how to do this. We stopped following several important parts in it.

11 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

 "You need some democratic principles combined with benevolent censorship and dictatorship. One system isn't nuanced enough for it to work. " sounds great on paper, but how to achieve it is a question yet unanswered by each and every state in the world.

Again, the US had that system. We threw it away. And even it wasn't super awesome.

11 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

4) Fall of communism is a complex problem with many probable causes, far more complex for something that's basically a digression to the main subject of discussion. For the sake of simplicity, I'll say that information flow was, IMO, one of leading causes, though certainly not the only one. Yes, there were better living conditions and money in the West, but how did people learn of it (for commerce of people, ideas and goods was fairly restricted in communism, at least compared to capitalist world)? Radio, TV etc (ergo information flow). Yes, people rose up against their leaders who they realized were full of shit - but how did the organize into meaningful groups - information flow. Etc.

And sure, that's fine - but saying it was ONLY information is bullshit. And it still ignores China, which is thriving and Communist. It ignores Russia, which is doing better than ever after reversing their democratic views and systems. 

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, dmc515 said:

This line of argument is hardly unique to Mill (and is indeed derivative), but he eloquently emphasizes how dissent, even objectively wrong dissent, is essential to maintaining an open society.

This conflicts with a statement you make later. I don't know if you believe it or not, but you're all over the place.

3 hours ago, dmc515 said:

 There has been a lot of discussion in this thread on hate speech and anti-Nazi laws.  It is here that Mill can be reconciled with such measures beyond the banal - although certainly accurate - notion that the assembly of such groups does indeed cause harm.  There are certain ideas that actively harm the polity and discourse; while wrong and extreme arguments are useful and even essential, those purely derived from hate are a toxic cancer to the intellectual and moral health of both individual and state.

So these are the objectively wrong dissenters then? That they are both a toxic cancer and essential to maintaining an open society?

3 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Like Mill, or virtually every liberal thinker, Popper is just as concerned with preserving open discourse and avoiding dogmatic thought and learning.  This is where I find much of the discussion in this thread alarming.  There is a very important distinction between rendering white supremacist thought out of bounds and rendering anyone advocating policy preferences you believe impede citizens' rights, or health care, or ability to participate (even though you're right) as verboten. 

Can you point out where anyone in this thread has done this?

3 hours ago, dmc515 said:

When we start defining 50 percent of this country as intolerable based on intolerant beliefs, it's not only a gross exaggeration, it is the first step to transforming Rousseau's beautiful theory on the "general will" to the Reign of Terror.  In protecting from the tyranny of the majority, it is imperative to not become the tyranny of the majority.

Citation needed as to who actually advocated doing this.

3 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Everyone must make their own determination on when our security and institutions are in danger, but I caution that the standards often espoused here are dangerously at odds with those of Mill, Rawls, and, yes, Popper.

Given that the principles appear to be directly at odds with each other, I think that's probably okay. 

[DMC]

12 hours ago, Rippounet said:

And as Kalbear has pointed out, communism is actually succeeding. Your insistance on using the past tense is ridiculous.

I think it's incredibly facile to describe Russia as communist.  Same goes for China since Deng Xiaoping.  The latter is commonly described as state capitalist.  Russia...not sure what it is at this point, but it does not resemble any of the Soviet regimes.  I prefer to think of both as capitalist dictatorships, but that's just me.

13 hours ago, Kalbear said:

It's certainly shown to be better than the free marketplace of ideas one. If you have a better idea, by all means - but we have a lot of evidence that free market idea sharing leads directly to very bad consequences because humans suck. 

Please demonstrate your evidence.  Among European states, there is plenty of variation in hate speech and anti-Nazi laws, to go with variation in the influence of far-right parties and/or groups.  The data is there to leverage some type of correlation, but I have never seen anyone assert such a relationship exists.  Not trying to be a dick - could totally be wrong and there is something out there that tackles this question - just wondering why you're so certain.

[Kalbear]

7 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

To my knowledge, many sources credited lot of Trump votes to several key groups sorely neglected in previous elections: average workers with jobs insecure from immigrants and factories moving to China/Vietnam etc. , conspiracy theorists and climate change deniers, losers of globalization etc. In short, people who could not voice their opinions because they were politically incorrect or plainly wrong. In a way, these groups constituted "silent majority" (well, maybe not majority - but significant part) of people whose opinions and concerns were systematically brushed of and ignored, with politics instead debating about stuff they couldn't relate to at all. Thus, a big part of Americans were in a way "censored".

Yeah, this is simply incorrect on a whole lot of levels. Trump didn't get particularly more votes than Romney or McCain. His opponent got more votes than any white male in the history of the US. She lost because Trump got the right votes in the right places. You're basically listening to his propaganda, and it's bullshit. 

About 95% of the Republicans who voted for McCain voted for Romney and voted for Trump. His biggest fans are assuredly happy that he makes their racist viewpoints mainstream - but again, if it were for censorship, he would never have been allowed. Trump in other countries would have almost immediately been jailed and fined and condemned by everyone and dropped off the ticket, early on, when he called all Mexicans rapists and criminals. 

7 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

I'm sure the entire problematics of Trump getting elected is way more complex than this - but this simplified version hopefully explains what I meant.

Sure, and it's a great example of how explaining to people what actually happened doesn't matter in the least, because they'll believe whatever bullshit story backs up their pre-held beliefs the best.

7 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

Perhaps some can. Some people respond to cold reason, some to gentle persuasion, some to ridicule, some to other stuff. And some don't respond at all. But my biggest concern would be that by ignoring and "censoring" troublemakers (let's call them that), one achieves nothing other than blinding ourselves to the problem.

Again, there's almost no evidence to this being true and a whole lot of evidence to it being false. I know that it feels like the right story because you want it to be, but maybe consider that you don't actually have evidence.

7 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

But anyway, that was my entire point. No matter how different the appearance is (religious reformator vs reactionary rasist, for example), their essence remains the same: a person who holds opinion contrary to "official" one held by most of his group/nation/society. The fact that their beliefs and radically different isn't relevant to my point.

Again, the topic here is not 'different beliefs'. It is 'different beliefs that fundamentally oppose the existence of others'. Religious reformation looks quite a bit different than racist, and looks SUPER different to someone who believes that my family should be killed.

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I think it's incredibly facile to describe Russia as communist.  Same goes for China since Deng Xiaoping.  The latter is commonly described as state capitalist.  Russia...not sure what it is at this point, but it does not resemble any of the Soviet regimes.  I prefer to think of both as capitalist dictatorships, but that's just me.

China describes themselves as communist, still reveres Mao, and still has a communist party ruling things. Their economic model is certainly different than Soviet Russia or China under Mao, but the notion that they aren't communist is getting into weird definitional arguments that probably don't matter, as the main point is simply they are absolutely not democratic and there is very little sign that their citizenry is demanding that they become democratic any time soon. Despite having massive influx of Western culture, money, and values. 

3 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Please demonstrate your evidence.  Among European states, there is plenty of variation in hate speech and anti-Nazi laws, to go with variation in the influence of far-right parties and/or groups.  The data is there to leverage some type of correlation, but I have never seen anyone assert such a relationship exists.  Not trying to be a dick - could totally be wrong and there is something out there that tackles this question - just wondering why you're so certain.

You yourself said that the US is the least censorious country in the world - this is backed up by other metrics - and yet also has the most right-wing government, and has had the most right-wing government for a while. Even Hungary isn't close. Even Italy under Silvio isn't close. My evidence is that I've not been able to find a single counterexample of a country that had either stronger censorship laws as a democracy AND was more extremist, or a country that had weaker censorship laws than the US, period. Probably the closest is Australia, and as batshit crazy as they can be at times they still have significantly more left-leaning governments and significantly less extremism in their governments.

[Kalbear]

I thought this article had a good counterpoint to mine - namely, liberal democracies should encourage free speech (even if it advocates bad things) and political organization, but with ONE BIG EXCEPTION. 

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 In the case of Golden Dawn the link is the strongest, as state investigators allege that the party actually consists of two separate structures: one open and essentially aimed at contesting elections and one hidden and involved in a violent campaign against political opponents.

To ban an extremist group the violence should be intrinsic to the group. In other words, the character of the group has to change fundamentally once the element of violence is removed.

 

Guess where Nazis fit in?

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

This conflicts with a statement you make later. I don't know if you believe it or not, but you're all over the place.

No it doesn't.  "Wrong" or extreme dissent is distinct from white supremacist thought.  That's the entire point.  

10 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

So these are the objectively wrong dissenters then? That they are both a toxic cancer and essential to maintaining an open society?

Ok.  Let's try this:  A person objects to immigration and believes the Wall should be built.  That is an extreme and wrong belief.  But, on its face, it's not a racist one.  Indeed, before Trump polarized the issue many more Democrats were in favor of building a wall.  Anyway, I find that belief and its implications to be "intolerable."  But it's not the same as a white supremacist describing why they want a border wall.  That's the distinction.

23 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Can you point out where anyone in this thread has done this?

 

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So yes, I can happily tolerate other people's behaviors and issues provided that their behavior isn't 'encourage others to kill me', or 'stop people like me from getting jobs or being able to participate in society'. 

There's a wide latitude of "behavior" that "encourages others to kill me," let alone "stop people like me from getting jobs or being able to participate in society."  Forgive me if I misunderstood, but those sound like policy preferences.

28 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Citation needed as to who actually advocated doing this.

Advocated the Reign of Terror?  No.  As for describing 50 percent of this country as intolerable due to its intolerance:

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And yeah, Europe has had an upsurge of far-right sentiment. That party has 10% of the vote in Germany, and that's scary! The US has 50% of its voters thinking the same thing. 

 

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This opinion is not contiguous with reality, where an openly racist, homophobic, elitist and misogynistic party and president are in power in the United States and is doing everything they can to reverse or at least halt all of the societal progress that has been achieved in the past several decades.

 

31 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Given that the principles appear to be directly at odds with each other, I think that's probably okay. 

What principles are at odds with each other?  Your "benevolent censorship" and basic liberal thought over the past 350 years?  Sure.

[DMC]

22 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

the main point is simply they are absolutely not democratic and there is very little sign that their citizenry is demanding that they become democratic any time soon. Despite having massive influx of Western culture, money, and values. 

Not sure if that's the main point, but agreed.

23 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

You yourself said that the US is the least censorious country in the world - this is backed up by other metrics - and yet also has the most right-wing government, and has had the most right-wing government for a while. Even Hungary isn't close. Even Italy under Silvio isn't close. My evidence is that I've not been able to find a single counterexample of a country that had either stronger censorship laws as a democracy AND was more extremist, or a country that had weaker censorship laws than the US, period. Probably the closest is Australia, and as batshit crazy as they can be at times they still have significantly more left-leaning governments and significantly less extremism in their governments.

So your argument boils down to "The United States?"  That's not actual analysis.  There are a host of factors that fundamentally differentiate the US from any and all European states - from party and electoral system to historical context to demographic makeup - that make a US vs. all of Europe comparison fallacious even before you get to basics of methodology.

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

No it doesn't.  "Wrong" or extreme dissent is distinct from white supremacist thought.  That's the entire point.  

For the rest of us, that's not been the case, and it's very unclear that 'objectively wrong' thought is different in some way from white supremacy. You made the claim; how are the two different?

7 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Ok.  Let's try this:  A person objects to immigration and believes the Wall should be built.  That is an extreme and wrong belief.  But, on its face, it's not a racist one.  Indeed, before Trump polarized the issue many more Democrats were in favor of building a wall.  Anyway, I find that belief and its implications to be "intolerable."  But it's not the same as a white supremacist describing why they want a border wall.  That's the distinction.

So extremist viewpoints are fine as long as they're not racist? You're cool with, say, promoting pizzagate or voter suppression as long as it's not explicitly against one race?

I think that it's perfectly reasonable to suspect a whole lot of Democrats are pretty racist too; that seems a lot more easy to explain the reasoning here. 

7 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

There's a wide latitude of "behavior" that "encourages others to kill me," let alone "stop people like me from getting jobs or being able to participate in society."  Forgive me if I misunderstood, but those sound like policy preferences.

I don't really think there's a whole lot of behavior that encourages others to kill me that is reductive to a policy preference. I guess for very fine definitions of 'me', there is, but that seems like bullshit quibbling. If you think that what I meant by it is that under no circumstances should anyone advocate ever killing me for anything, ever, I think you're arguing from a massive lack of faith. 

7 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Advocated the Reign of Terror?  No.  As for describing 50 percent of this country as intolerable due to its intolerance:

I don't know that 50% of the country is intolerable, but they are accepting or condoning of ideas which are. As you say, there's a difference between people accepting that their ingroup is doing bad things and not liking it but not liking the alternative, and people actively advocating said bad things. I don't think that 50% of the population is in favor of sexual assault, but 50% of the population now is accepting someone who is. 

7 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

What principles are at odds with each other?  Your "benevolent censorship" and basic liberal thought over the past 350 years?  Sure.

Objectively wrong being both acceptable and intolerable are obviously at odds. 

Benevolent censorship has occurred in virtually every single democracy since Greece. The only question is what the price is. 

9 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

So your argument boils down to "The United States?"  That's not actual analysis.  There are a host of factors that fundamentally differentiate the US from any and all European states - from party and electoral system to historical context to demographic makeup - that make a US vs. all of Europe comparison fallacious even before you get to basics of methodology.

Then the problem is impossible, and I'm staking my claim on what evidence I have - which is that the US is both the most rightwing system with the most power in extremist dogma AND happens to be the least censorious Democracy. At the very least this should obviously on its face put a lie to the claim that less censorship makes less extremism or white supremacy or even, after WW2, less naziism. 

 

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

So extremist viewpoints are fine as long as they're not racist? You're cool with, say, promoting pizzagate or voter suppression as long as it's not explicitly against one race?

No, I'm not cool with it, I simply do not think such beliefs should be rendered intolerable due to their intolerance.  I tried to be as clear as possible in the original post above.  If you don't get the distinction, I apologize but I can't do any better right now.

9 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I think that it's perfectly reasonable to suspect a whole lot of Democrats are pretty racist too; that seems a lot more easy to explain the reasoning here.

If you're talking racial resentment, yes.  That's measurable and has been demonstrated in the past.  It's also referred to as implicit racism for a reason.  The problem is first when you say such people are motivated by hate - many of them aren't - and second when you say their concerns are not only wrong but should not be tolerated in public discourse.  When people start deciding their viewpoint is the only acceptable viewpoint, they've perverted what it means to be an open society.

15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I don't really think there's a whole lot of behavior that encourages others to kill me that is reductive to a policy preference. I guess for very fine definitions of 'me', there is, but that seems like bullshit quibbling. If you think that what I meant by it is that under no circumstances should anyone advocate ever killing me for anything, ever, I think you're arguing from a massive lack of faith. 

Ok.  What about not getting jobs or unable to participate in society?  No policy implications there?

17 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

don't know that 50% of the country is intolerable, but they are accepting or condoning of ideas which are. As you say, there's a difference between people accepting that their ingroup is doing bad things and not liking it but not liking the alternative, and people actively advocating said bad things. I don't think that 50% of the population is in favor of sexual assault, but 50% of the population now is accepting someone who is. 

Well, based on the subject of this thread, it sounded like you're saying 50% of the population holds beliefs that are intolerable.  And it still does.

18 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Objectively wrong being both acceptable and intolerable are obviously at odds. 

No, they're not.  You can think a belief is intolerant and still tolerate (accept) it in the realm of public discourse.

20 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Then the problem is impossible, and I'm staking my claim on what evidence I have

The thing is the "problem," in terms of a research question, is not impossible in the slightest.  Anyone could easily construct a research design that exploits variation among states with anti-hate speech/Nazi laws and the variation in far-right groups within Europe.  The fact no one to my, and apparently your, knowledge has done so directly contradicts the "certainty" you expressed.

23 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

which is that the US is both the most rightwing system with the most power in extremist dogma AND happens to be the least censorious Democracy. At the very least this should obviously on its face put a lie to the claim that less censorship makes less extremism or white supremacy or even, after WW2, less naziism. 

First, I don't know if the US is the most rightwing system.  I assume it's up there, but that's ultimately an unfounded assumption.  Second, I've never claimed and don't agree that less censorship leads to less extremism or white supremacy or naziism.  That's not my point in the slightest.  This thread, and my response to it, is about whether states ought to tolerate those with intolerant views.  In my response, I provided a rationale for why white supremacy and naziism are an exception that indeed should not be tolerated. 

What you claimed was that benevolent censorship is better than the "free marketplace of ideas" and that there's "a lot" of evidence that shows it is "certain" that less censorship leads "directly" to bad consequences.  Other than "the US" as a case study, you clearly have no evidence, which not only negates such certainty, but also puts the "directly bad consequences" into question.  Pretty sure the worse consequences of the unchecked far-right (or any extreme ideology) have still thus far transpired in other countries.    

[Yukle]

6 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Moving on to Popper, it is important to put the quote in the OP in context.  It is from The Open Society and Its Enemies, which assails the totalitarianism and historicism of Plato then later Hegel and Marx...

He is responding to Plato's "paradoxes" of both freedom and democracy that can lead to tyranny with another - the "paradox of intolerance."  However, Popper is hardly advocating intolerance towards intolerant beliefs.  If that's not intuitive simply by reading the work's title...

Interesting way of putting it all. As I said in the OP, I don't really have a good solution to the dilemma.

Plato always makes me uncomfortable. I empathise with his distrust of democracy, since it's what killed Socrates, when you think about it. But I also think he was willing to pull it out, root and branch, without really considering that it was more that there were flaws in how the Athenians practised democracy (only free men; it was measured by a judge behind a wall who listened to who yelled louder), rather than it being a problem with the system itself.

My specialty is very humanities focused: history, sociology, palaeontology and anthropology, rather than philosophy, which kind of shows in how I was so open-ended in the OP, without going into much detail beyond the words themselves.

But yeah, I agree that he is not arguing for the suppression of intolerant beliefs. That said, he's not advocating for them either; I've just reread the section and I'm not really sure he comes up with a clear response as such. I suppose he puts faith that the more ethical action eventually wins out in discourse, but it doesn't come across as the definitive solution, more the aspired ideal.

I think his key point is that horrid atrocities committed by what Plato and Hegel would label democracy's propensity for tyranny against minorities as an inherent flaw are an end result, not an immediate step. In short, allowing hate speech doesn't automatically engender something like genocide - but genocide isn't possible without first allowing hate speech. There's a gradient of intolerant actions, which are empowered by discourse, but society has a paradox on its hands trying to preserve the ideals of free thought while also preventing the worst that it can provide.

---

As a separate point I also agree with, I'd say that neither censorship nor freedom of speech is more typical of a left-wing, centrist or right-wing ideology.

[Jo498]

What people should always keep in mind is that despite the title Plato's Republic is not mainly about political philosophy. It may look like that on the surface but the real focus is the ordered state of one's soul (for which the city is only an analogy) and its enlightenment.

As for the US being "rightwing", I think it is very difficult to compare with European right wing parties or groups, apart from the fact that "rightwing" is not very precise. To me many dominant ideological points where the US differs from Europe are neither left nor right in the common sense. E.g. the demand for a "weak" non-interfering state it clearly the opposite of European rw traditions. And to some extent the avoidance of censorship even of crazy and dangerous ideas is one aspect of non-interfering state power. Another very different point: For many European states the idea that a state usually is a fairly homogeneous ethno-state is not really right-wing but used to be "normal" (and it was operative in some progressive movements in the 19th century). The US never was an ethno-state so anything going in that direction looks like white supremacy in the US in a way Polish nationalism does not.
So I tend to agree with dmc515 that in the US there are simply so many things different from most European countries that it is not very informative to compare two features, freedom of speech and "rightwing government" and claim a connection.

[Rippounet]

11 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

To my knowledge, many sources credited lot of Trump votes to several key groups sorely neglected in previous elections: average workers with jobs insecure from immigrants and factories moving to China/Vietnam etc. , conspiracy theorists and climate change deniers, losers of globalization etc. In short, people who could not voice their opinions because they were politically incorrect or plainly wrong.[...]

I'm sure the entire problematics of Trump getting elected is way more complex than this - but this simplified version hopefully explains what I meant.

For starters, yes it's more complex than that.
Most importantly though, these people could voice their opinion. They always could. In fact, many of these ideas were notoriously popular way before the election of Trump. The idea that they couldn't is just another fantasy cooked up by the right (and not the best right, too).

Besides, political correctness and hate speech laws might seem comparable on the surface (both are forms of censorship, I guess), but in actuality, they're really not. Outside the workplace it's very easy to reject political correctness. The rule of law on the other hand cannot be so easily ignored.

One must also be careful of the right's narrative on "political correctness." I don't think of myself as a politically correct person (I can be brutally honest with people in real life) and I would tend to reject some forms of PC, but what was deemed "politically correct" by many on the right was fighting back against what were really derogatory terms for specific groups. For instance, some people were pissed for not being able to use racial slurs anymore. Or worse.

11 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

But my biggest concern would be that by ignoring and "censoring" troublemakers (let's call them that), one achieves nothing other than blinding ourselves to the problem.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this. I think it actually achieves a number of things that make life easier for potential victims of hatred. And no, it's certainly not "blinding" for anyone. I can guarantee you that many hate speech condemnations get media attention in France for instance.

11 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

What grossly influenced my viewpoint is living on the other side of censoring fence. I live in a society which also has some "unquestionable truths" that one is wise not to challenge. For example, some less-than-pleasant or shameful facts from our recent history. Seeing media, politicians and journalists avoiding these sensitive issues and not saying what they really mean - can be really disheartening and disappointing. All around me I see ill society which refuses to stand by it's values, instead almost deifying them and harassing anyone who publicly speaks against them. It kills one's hope of any kind of improvement, really.

And the fact that your "unquestionable truths" and infinitely morally superior and higher than "unquestionable truths" I'm fighting against - mean little on a conceptual level. The merits of censorship don't relate to the quality of values they're trying to protect.

I think the main problem here is your view of freedom of speech in the first place.
Freedom of speech is not absolute. It's only a right as long as it doesn't put others in danger.
What hate speech laws do is assume that preaching hatred eventually puts the targets of that hatred in danger.
And I think we have evidence of that (one can often correlate the political climate of a country with the number of hate crimes).
You have been consistently confusing measures that are really nothing that extraordinary with things that are far more nefarious (like bringing up totalitarianism almost from the start).
The very fact of describing hate speech laws as "censorship" is rather misleading. Hate speech laws technically dont suppress freedom of expression ; what they do is make people accountable for what they say. It's a subtle nuance, but it actually does have real life consequences because the restrictions are not as broad as you might think and condemnation is not that easy.
Generally speaking, I have a problem with the very idea that our societies can't (or shouldn't) agree on limits to freedom of expression. They can and they do. There are actually significant limits to freedom of speech in all developed countries, including the US.
I understand the "slippery slope" argument, but conversely, one shouldn't act as if rights are absolute. The rights of individuals are linked to the social contract within a society. Hate speech laws make sure that members of a society are forced to respect one another. That's hardly an overreach. In fact, many of our societies couldn't last without such limits on individual rights.

11 hours ago, Ran said:

Pew 2017.

Lets take just one example. What non-discursive things happened in 14 years to literally flip opinion? What form of violence, what censorship, was needed to cause that?
The answer is nothing like that was needed to begin defeating bigotry.

That's going a bit fast. This story started with anti-discrimination laws that were passed and which didn't make everyone happy -to say the least. Combined with decades of communication against homophobia that I wouldn't say were always "positive discourse." The idea that homophobia is bad was shoved down some people's throats, and it wasn't easy. The recent recognition of gay marriage is just the cherry on a pie that took a long time to bake.

And that story isn't even over just yet, not under the current administration.

11 hours ago, Ran said:

What was needed was positive discourse, from campaigns among LGBT organizations to portrayals in media to improved education.

Sure. But when these campaigns started they still had to face massive and -sometimes- violent opposition. Congress passed DOMA in 1996, and that was only deemed unconstitutional in 2013. Overall, things really improved once there was legal protection for LGBT people.
And in the end it was once again a legal decision that imposed the recognition of gay marriage, and that was only in 2015.
A majority of the American public started supporting the validity of gay marriage around 2011-2012, but it really became a large majority after the first Supreme Court decision in that directon. And it's still not that high ; you still have about a third of the population opposing it.

So this is a chicken and egg thing. But legal violence (for laws are a form of violence, by the punishment they entail) and various forms of censorship played their part.

Of course I agree that positive discourse and campaigns are essential. Laws need to be supported by the population lest they be seen as oppressive. But the idea that positive discourse and campaigns alone are enough to fight bigotry flies in the face of historical reality. What's more, even if this were the case, it still wouldn't mean that laws against hate speech are necessarily bad. One could argue that in that case they would simply be useless ; that's because I still haven't seen any evidence that they are counter-productive.

Edit: @Dr. Pepper care to weigh in on this? IIRC you are quite knowledgeable about this specific issue

[Seli]

11 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

...

 

Not the good examples. E.g. even before proclaiming himself basically a dictator, Hitler already had the relative majority in German parliament. Nazis weren't space aliens who violently imposed themselves on unsuspecting Germans, they were product of then-culture of German people. Mussolini, likewise, was head of then-popular movement.
...

Oh dear, you might want to read up on the history of that last election. Wikipedia has a nice summary of the violence used to gain that plurality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March_1933

 

[Toth]

Wait, wait, wait, wait... Why the hell are we even talking about "Freedom of Speech"? I thought this whole subject is about denying fucking Nazis the right to call genocide a valid political position!

This is not about denying your bigot grandma to sprout racist remarks, it's not about censoring newspapers or websites the government doesn't like, this is about denying Richard Spencer and his ilk to lead political parties that have the explicit goal of tearing democracy down and murder people for having more melanin! Has anyone here read the sickening things this creature openly suggests in his interviews? That's the kind shit that is unacceptable! He's the kind of shit that shouldn't be allowed to be preach their violent messages under the guise of a sanctioned political movement as if it were in some way a position one can take!

So to everyone who refuses to believe that the US can profit from anti-Nazi laws: Are you seriously thinking that Germany, the country that has without doubt become the leader of the free world ever since you've voted a cartoon villain into office, is in any way an oppressive regime just because we have a law that says Nazis are bad? Seriously? Also don't think that there is some kind of sinister broad censoring at play! We still have Nazi rallies, ones that are gladly drowned out by counter-protestors, and we still have political parties that are made up of bigots and revisionists that manage to wriggle themselves around Nazism and holocaust denial in order to make their messages more marketable. Our judges are careful in their decision-making and do think about where exposing them as what they are is necessary and where public discourse is enough to discredit them. It just gives the police the obligation to end rallies and speeches the moment someone holds up a swastika or proposes genocide, because that shit is unacceptable and people have to know that. That's what an anti-hatespeech law entails, nothing more!

Thing is, ideas are difficult to challenge. People don't like it when other people point out that they are wrong. And ever since the internet has given us a medium in which people can drown out the truth in an echo-chamber of falsehoods, people are ever more harder to convince that their ideas are false. Especially when right-wing media does its best to make their recipients doubt even most basic truths. The most effective way to get rid of toxic ideas is therefore to influence them where they are formed. With education! Democratic values and an obligation to serve the truth needs to be taught in schools, then and only then you can claim that everyone has the tools to challenge Nazis on the street! But look at the US! Look at the current state of your public schools! Come back when they have stopped teaching revisionist fantasies in red states! When home-schooling fanatic parents and bigot teachers have stopped perpetuating hate and distrust against science, only then you can have your open society! God damn it, it's not that hard to see that the US in its current state is a flaming shipwreck! That the public discourse has been poisoned beyond hope and that your stubborn resistance against basic truths has turned you into the laughing stock of the world! You need to fucking change the basis of that discourse, damn it! This is not the time to fall back on technicalities, to argument about a perfect world in which everyone has the tools to fight back against Nazis. Because decades of ever more crazy Republican policies have successfully robbed half of your population of these tools! You need to change the system, you need to return common decency into the conversation. And until you have fixed your broken schools, torn down your revisionist statues and do something about that onslaught of falsehoods, writing down that genocide is not a fucking political standpoint should be the least you can do!

Sorry for the rant, but this subject just frustrates me to no end and this just had to get out...

[Seli]

22 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

...

Sure. But when these campaigns started they still had to face massive and -sometimes- violent opposition. Congress passed DOMA in 1996, and that was only deemed unconstitutional in 2013. Overall, things really improved once there was legal protection for LGBT people.
And in the end it was once again a legal decision that imposed the recognition of gay marriage, and that was only in 2015.
A majority of the American public started supporting the validity of gay marriage around 2011-2012, but it really became a large majority after the first Supreme Court decision in that directon. And it's still not that high ; you still have about a third of the population opposing it.

So this is a chicken and egg thing. But legal violence (for laws are a form of violence, by the punishment they entail) and various forms of censorship played their part....

True, but compared to the other big landmark legally forced change in marriage recognition (Loving vs Virginia in 1967) acceptance is very high. It was only 30 years after that case that a majority of the US population was in favour of mixed race marriage http://news.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-whites.aspx

Or in a direct comparison of the two cases by way of xkcd https://xkcd.com/1431/ .

[Yukle]

The intention of this topic is more broad than the USA. It's philosophical, and meant to be considered in a more theoretical manner. Examples are fine; I'm just trying to avoid this morphing into a pseudo-USA politics thread.

[Ran]

Laws don't get passed without lobbying and voting and other political activity, aka discourse. The positive attitudes towards gay marriage increased despite DOMA, and that trend continued. Between 2013 and 2015, positive opinions grew 5% -- from 2015 to 2017, 7%. These are pretty close numbers, and the trendline is actually pretty consistent from 2004 on.

So, again, no violence or censorship is tied to the increasingly positive attitudes. Those attitudes were on the rise despite missteps in the "violence" that is the law. 

So we come back to the fact that discourse has been the way that positive civil changes have generally happened in the modern era.