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The one thing that a tolerant society must not tolerate is intolerance.
Hate speech is prohibited in the UK as a subsidiary of hate crime laws. So using known slurs, for example, is not technically legal here.
So, we have free speech — but free speech with an exclusion of hate speech.
Is that a contradiction in terms? Maybe. But life’s full of contradictions.
This one has an academic philosophical-ilaly name and everything — The Tolerance Paradox (aka The Paradox of Tolerance.)
(…Which sounds like an excellent title for an episode of Dr Who, tbh.)
Defined in a note to Chapter 7 of a book (The Open Society and Its Enemies) by some Austrian-British fella (Karl Popper, aka K. R. Popper,) The Tolerance Paradox is as follows:
‘Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.’
- K. R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies
Put simply? The one thing that a tolerant society must not tolerate is intolerance. Because intolerance destroys tolerance.
Yes, it is a paradox. Clue’s in the name, really.
You can disagree with the Paradox of Tolerance btw — it’s a theory, and I happen to believe a very good one, but it’s not a law of physics or whatever.
(I guess you can disagree with the laws of physics if you really want to, but gravity don’t much care if you believe in it!)
Thankfully, though, I think most people would agree that hatred and bigotry are not things that we can — or should — allow in our societies.
Adapted from this post on my blog, Dora Reads
