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.
this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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I've also heard this, but I think it's still insufficient.
If im intolerant of X, and so you are intolerant of Me, the some third party can be intolerant if you because of your intolerance towards me.
If it's a binary state of coverage, then ultimately everyone exits in a chain reaction.
If SOME people get to apply a reactionary intolerance WHILE remaining themselves tolerable (covered themselves by the contract), you need some arbiter to determine who those people are. And that's actually really bad, because anything short of perfect arbitration actually turns the paradox of oppression into a psedo-intellectual justification to apply coordinated violence... very much like religion is used.
Which, from what I understand from the like 14 pixels in OPs post is the nature of the concern.
From what I'm hearing, it sounds like you're not tolerant of those who aren't tolerant of the intolerant, so I shouldn't tolerate your intolerance of the intolerance-intolerant.
I think the biggest thing is that it isn't a binary.
I would ostracize a Nazi. It's an ideology that's incompatible with civil society. If you came up and said we should destroy them outright because you hate them, I would disagree with you, and quite likely oppose your views.
Reducing it to a binary loses nuance, regardless of which way you split the difference. Retreating to quiet disagreement because more is potentially too much is no better than the opposite where anything short of overt violence is acceptable for any intolerance.
By accepting that it's not binary, you can more easily see that you don't need an authority or arbiter to make that judgement for you: you're your own aribter of who you associate with, protest or argue with.
Right, but once you decide that you are your own arbiter, then everyone is thier own arbiter, and at that point there is NOTHING COMPELLING about the thought experiment AT ALL.
At that point, you're just saying "I can exclude whoever I want for whatever reason I want", and that isn't really anything compelling l.
Remember, it's not a binary. And you are actually allowed to disagree with or socially exclude people for whatever reason you want.
I'm not talking a thought experiment, I'm talking actual morality in real life. If you're a Nazi or similar shit you actually can't come to my house.
A binary needs some coordination for intolerance because disagreement is as strong as violence. Intolerance is intolerance.
If you have nuance most of the spectrum of ways that people can reject each other remain open. I don't need a moral guide to tell me it's okay to not invite someone I think is an asshole to my house.