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powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works

Are they purposefully misconstruing Popper's Paradox of Tolerance? (infosec.pub)

submitted 1 day ago by powerstruggle@sh.itjust.works to c/stupidpol@sh.itjust.works

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https://redlib.catsarch.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1s8o0uq/are_they_purposefully_misconstruing_poppers/

In my time pretty much everybody knew what Popper's Paradox of Tolerance meant. (probably due to the amount of Germans who lived through part of this, or had parents who lived through this)

It's basically you can't be so tolerant that you'd "tolerate" nazis coming to every meeting or protest you had and killing - severely beating anyone there who disagreed with them. Which did happen in Germany in the 30's. Basically once violence starts challenging the state itself, you step in and stomp. However you let it get to that point because otherwise it's a game of saying who is the nazi. It's pretty clear in popper's open society, especially when you consider when he wrote it.

It's now meant to many young folks that you have to be intolerant of what they define as intolerance altogether - this is nuts, because you can include anything under this rubric. And including "any" violence. So you have a few shootings, oops that intolerance and violence and we need to censor everyone with this view. (hence stochastic terrorism and using that as a cudgel to shut up anyone with an honest view. or today using violence against a few random synagogues to shut up anyone criticising israel)

Is this a purposeful mistranslation of Popper, or what am I missing here? And do kids actually buy this, or is this just redditor-speak? The arrogance in the former, not to mention that assumption that one is "right" is ironically the mentality Popper was speaking of.

I know this is a marxist forum who probably doesn't even respect Popper, however I don't think his original thesis is a bad idea to have.

Pictured: carton 1 that's wrong versus cartoon 2.

I still can't believe that folks actually buy into #1. No wonder why they are so censor-heavy.

If this can't even be gotten right we're fucked.

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[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago

The quote in that image seems to characterize his words differently than the full context would imply.

"[...] But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."

The fists or pistols component was a consequence of tolerating the intolerant, not a precondition for intolerable tolerance.

It could very well be that you simply don't agree with Popper.

In my time pretty much everybody knew what Popper's Paradox of Tolerance meant. (probably due to the amount of Germans who lived through part of this, or had parents who lived through this)

Germany is sort of the exact opposite of what you describe though, so this is a bit confusing. The Nazi ideology is criminalized. This is inline with the described behavior of the first comic.

You might look into Rawls, who seems to have a belief more inline with what you describe.