ID: A scene from Legally Blonde of a conversation between Warner and Elle in the corridor at Harvard, in 4 panels:
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Warner asks “What happened to the tolerant left?”
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Elle replies, smiling “Who said we were tolerant?”
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Warner continues “I thought you were supposed to be tolerant of all beliefs!”
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Elle looks confused “Why would we tolerate bigotry, inequity, or oppression?”
The left doesn’t even tolerate the left.
Damn Leftists! They ruined the Left!
I thought that was millennials. What’s the latest thing MSM claims they’ve ruined now?
What is bigotry, inequality, and oppression? Whatever we say it is.
You are!
Honestly was that buzzword ever anything but confusing? In my lifetime I’ve only ever heard it used by older conservatives all working from the same joke book. Never heard it used sincerely, only this tired straw-man.
Like did “tolerance” once connote open-mindedness, graciousness, charitable judgment, acceptance/inclusion, or anything other than weary endurance of something unpleasant? Legit curious about this one.
P.S. — I’m similarly curious about the term “consent” (sexual). Why are we still pretending its primary non-figurative meaning isn’t legal/contractual? Does “enthusiastic” really fix the confusing choice of word? Bah!
No, it was never confusing, the right’s propaganda engine ceased on it, called it confusing.
Whatever message we put out will be “mired” in confusion as long as the right media factory deems that a useful statement to make and their undereducated masses will just blindly agree.
For sure they seize on these terms constantly, but these pundits are opportunistic brawlers. They tend to pick words and phrases they know are easily misconstrued then just amplify the confusion.
Consider the reason why a bunch of Americans literally never understood the slogan “black lives matter.” Its punchiness as a chant at rallies was the juxtaposition of an extreme understatement with police brutality everyone was intimately aware of. The blunder was trying to use it to spread awareness of the violence (because without awareness of the violence its meaning is lost) so all the pundits had to do to discredit the movement was just… pan away from the violence.
I totally get ya. I don’t think any slogan is ever safe, well, Cops Disproportionately Kill Black People and nobody cares might have worked. but it lacks that je ne sais quoi.
Yeah I’m with you. Just want the downtrodden to prevail the way a footballer wants his team to win. Sorry for yelling in the locker room.
Ehhh it’s a good locker room to be in, and we are all in good company.
Cheers!
tolerance /tŏl′ər-əns/ noun
- The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.
- Leeway for variation from a standard.
- The permissible deviation from a specified value of a structural dimension, often expressed as a percent.
consent /kən-sĕnt′/ intransitive verb
- To give assent, as to the proposal of another; agree: synonym: assent.
“consent to medical treatment; consent to going on a business trip; consent to see someone on short notice.” Similar: assent - To be of the same mind or opinion.
- To agree in opinion or sentiment; to be of the same mind; to accord; to concur. Similar: consented
Dictionary definitions are nice but rarely capture the full meaning of the word. Connotations of the word are pretty important.
If I say “I tolerate that behavior,” you can probably infer that I don’t like that behavior based on the connotations of the word tolerate. It invokes a negativity toward the subject.
Similarly for consent. The examples bear this out: medical treatments, business trips, and short notice are generally not pleasant things.
Fuck tolerance.
See? It’s that easy. No paradoxes required.
Normally when I hear this, good things follow.
bigotry, inequity, and oppression
That’s the literal opposite of DEI… Is this where they got it from? 🤯
No Elons allowed
The problem I found with the American left this past year as an outsider looking in, is that they all splintered into groups and started seeing the other group on the left as “just as bad as trump”, nobody was “left” enough to be an ally for anyone’s rigid tastes. The left fought among itself for labels, while the conservatives on the right were united.
I understand a lot of it for the younger left had to do with gaza but to anyone else, it’s clear Netanyahu and Musk and other oligarchs planned this out and the American left bought it and let Trump win.
All you can do is unify and strengthen and cut out fascists and fix your country, stop trying to be world police if you can’t even fix yourself.
ah right, its not that genocide is wrong in all cases, its that the dumb left was the victim of propoganda, which you are clearly too smart to be influenced by. Which is why you voted for genocide.
Makes perfect sense.
If only the dumb left had voted for genocide, Biden the hyper zionist would have been reelected and he for sure would have stopped the genocide, right?
And then you go on to say:
stop trying to be world police
How is funding a genocide “being the police”? oh… wait I see. You mean the US police go around doing crimes with impunity and no accountability. OK, you’re right on that one.
You can hate the Biden/Harris stance on Gaza as much as you like (and there’s good reason to). But if you failed to vote for the obviously less bad option, you are partially responsible for the actions of the obviously even worse option.
You could go into all manner of discussions about how being all but forced to vote for the lesser evil because of a broken and corrupt electoral system is terrible and a major systematic issue. And there’s a lot of merit there as well. But at the end of the day, those systems were not on the ballot.
You actively failed to do the bare minimum for the people of Gaza, along with many other groups of people inside and outside the US just so you could watch the suffering from a slightly higher horse.
As a leftist I cannot stand most leftests. Typically ones from blue states because they tend to have a very warped view of why some of these red areas are the way they are. When you grow up isolated from the rest of the country and your only connection is the internet and the one racist uncle who lives near one of the bigger cities of the state you are going to have some fucked up views.
Honestly, I have no idea how I did not end up being a republican.
Grew up in a conservative religious household, ended up a lefty because people who understood how to talk to outsiders without being fucking assholes about it made me question my beliefs.
I see the same problem as you with many lefties today: they have no ability to understand conservatives, and seemingly no desire either. They will choose the dumbest fucking hills to die on (drag queen story hour for example) instead of attempting an ounce of empathy.
You could talk to conservatives about corporate welfare or how inequality causes the economy to slow down rather than grow, leading to discussions about taxation, unionization, maybe even shorter workweeks! Nope gotta focus on some obscure identity shit: putting gender neutral bathrooms in city hall while your city’s homelessness doubles is a sign your priorities are stupid. Focus on material, actionable things and actually talk to people: conservatives will respond to that.
This is a direct result of the same propoganda networks that fed trumpism. Primarily, youtube and tiktok because they feed the populate with video after video that the algorithm chooses for them. It amplifies any divisiveness we have to split us into factions.
Yeah, I’ve started watching some YouTube lately for the first time ever, and it certainly seems to want me to be conservative incel.
Previously I never watched YouTube because the ads were so intrusive and annoying, now I’m about ready to give up because most of what the algorithm shows me is offensive. Whether it truly thinks I’m conservative, such as based on demographics it shouldn’t have, or knows I’m not but thinks stirring up outrage will keep me coming back, they might be wrong
‘But being world police is the only thing that helps us forget about our problems!’
-People who consume too much propaganda
Because the working class base without which we electorally eat shit ala 2016 and 2024 didn’t attend an elite liberal arts college?
I mean, Warner just doesn’t understand tolerance.
Capacity implies there is a limit. Well, asshole, they have reached the limit.
If you can only tolerate your own perspective that makes you a bigot though.
That would be no tolerance. The absence of tolerance. Intolerant.
So bigots can’t tolerate their own perspectives? White supremacists are therefor very tolerant people.
Tolerant left? Leftists barely tolerate other Leftists!
Damn Leftists! They ruined the Left!
Splitters!
other ‘leftists’ post legally blonde dialogue as ‘lefty meme’ content…
Yeah, exactly like that! ^
Is Legally Blonde not left enough for you?
its more an aversion to cliquey identity memes in general, but yeah, legally blonde is part of it
Legally Blonde taught me that attractive people are able to do the type of things that regular people can do.
I hold it very near and dear to my heart.
Did you also get the part about how people with stereotypical high fem gender expression who are often described as “ditzy” by a misogynistic society can be intelligent even though they like “girly” things?
That wanting to dress a certain way and naturally having a certain personality or way of speaking doesn’t define who you are or what you can do or how good at your job you are?
That in a male dominated field you should be able to express yourself even though the industry wants you to conform and “tone it down” and “not be so emotional” and also smile less but not too much less or else you’re “bitchy”? That diversity is good and helps bring in new ideas/perspectives?
No that part went over my head.
The whole idea that Tolerance is a Social Contract seems to be what works best: One is Tolerant towards others who are Tolerant and those who are not Tolerant are breaking the Social Contract of Tolerance and thus are not entitled to be the recipients of Tolerance from others.
Tolerance as a Principle doesn’t work well exactly because of the Paradox Of Tolerance which is that by Tolerating the Intolerant one is causing there to be less Tolerance since the Intolerant when their actions are tolerated will spread Intolerance (as painfully demonstrated in Present day America, especially with Trump).
The paradox of tolerance doesn’t lead to a unique conclusion. Philosophers drew all kinds of conclusions. I favor John Rawls’:
Either way, philosopher John Rawls concludes differently in his 1971 A Theory of Justice, stating that a just society must tolerate the intolerant, for otherwise, the society would then itself be intolerant, and thus unjust. However, Rawls qualifies this assertion, conceding that under extraordinary circumstances, if constitutional safeguards do not suffice to ensure the security of the tolerant and the institutions of liberty, a tolerant society has a reasonable right to self-preservation to act against intolerance if it would limit the liberty of others under a just constitution. Rawls emphasizes that the liberties of the intolerant should be constrained only insofar as they demonstrably affect the liberties of others: “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.”
Accordingly, constraining some liberties such as freedom of speech is unnecessary for self-preservation in extraordinary circumstances as speaking one’s mind is not an act that directly & demonstrably harms/threatens security or liberty. However, violence or violations of rights & regulations could justifiably be constrained.
I was talking only about the individual tolerating or not the intolerant (in ways such as speaking or not against them).
As soon as Force is also thrown into the equation (which what a Society would use to stop the intolerant) it’s a whole different thing because Force itself has its own much more complex moral framework.
It’s easy to see the conundrum that one gets around using Force against intolerance by considering that it wouldn’t be acceptable to kill somebody (an extreme use of Force) for merely saying something deemed racist. If there’s an unacceptable use of Force against the intolerant, then is there one which is acceptable and if there is, were does the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable lie in the use of Force against intolerance and who gets to set it?
Add Force into the equation and it’s just not the same thing as an individual’s moral guidance for nonviolent reactions against nonviolent intolerance.
If there’s an unacceptable use of Force against the intolerant, then is there one which is acceptable and if there is
I don’t see how that follows: spell out the logic?
use of Force against intolerance
I’m mostly confused, because I was thinking of violence/force used by the intolerant for intolerant acts: that can be justifiably constrained.
Legal constraint implies force by legal authorities: violators go to jail or get legal penalties.
I never liked the analogy of a social contract. A contract is something that people agree on. Most of society is just people going through life fairly passively, and inheriting the values of those around them.
A lot of hate comes from ignorance, whether taught or absorbed from someone’s surroundings. Not because they are opting out of some kind of previously agreed upon contract. I think that’s an important thing to recognise.
The paradox of tolerance is a hypothetical idea of complete tolerance, which I’m not sure ever exists in humans in the real world.
The concept of a “social contract” is regularly used to deny rights to prisoners.
It’s not necessary, even to address the “paradox of tolerance”, it’s actively harmful, and it’s erroneous anyway (contracts are necessarily consensual[1], but exceptionally few people get to make a choice about the society they live in)
Yes, this criteria invalidates a lot of modern contracts in the US especially around tech, but this is largely a failure of the judicial system. Legislation still makes it clear that contracts must be consensual in the US and other western countries, and it often goes further in that they must be reciprocal. ↩︎
tolerance is a contract not a gift
If you aren’t independently wealthy, you’re being taken advantage of.
This misrepresents what tolerance is
We tolerate people that hold those beliefs in that they are allowed to exist in open society where they can be called out
We realize that hiding those people away doesn’t get rid of them, it just lets their views grow unchallenged
We tolerate people that hold those beliefs in that they are allowed to exist in open society where they can be called out
This point is hugely important, but not for the reason that you intended.
You are mistaken on an essential aspect of your argument: calling out bigoted or discriminatory views out is the definition of not tolerating them. At the same time, the bigotry you’re describing - not permitting people to exist in open society - is exactly the reason we cannot tolerate those kind of views.
The essence of bigotry is that entire categories of individuals don’t deserve the same rights as others. People who hold those views aren’t interested in debating the issue because they believe that their opponents don’t deserve the right to be part of the discussion.
One side is saying that we cannot tolerate these views. The other side is saying that they will not tolerate our humanity.
This isn’t a perspective that is subject to change by reason.
No, that’s an incorrect summation of one part of my argument.
The response to your comment is in my second sentence.
People who hold those views aren’t interested in debating the issue
It’s not for them, it’s for other people that they would otherwise convince
I think you missed my point entirely.
Lol, nope. You actually have it entirely backward.
Nazis can never win arguments. They can’t. Their ideology is not based on reality. It’s not based on material conditions. It’s not based on convincing others to join them with hard data or well reasoned positions. Nazis win people over by talking to them. They win people over because people who are privileged are opposed to any recognition of that, and above else want to continue to be privileged.
You will never lose a rational debate with a Nazi. It’s not really possible, because the nazi will never make rational arguments with you. Nazis instead will allude to conspiracies. They will allude to secret shadow societies that control everyone and that have the explicit goal of upending class hierarchy to take away privilege. Pay attention next time you see a Nazi argue something. See the language they use and see the way they position reality. Nazis lose rational debates. So they never have them to begin with.
Nazis will instead reach for the nearest loudest microphone and will scream their bigotry as loud as possible. They print newspapers, they do interviews, they famously were highly intertwined with radio networks, and so on. The method by which their ideology spreads is by subversion. It’s by creating fear of a secret other controlling everyone. The sad fact of the reality is that you cannot argue against that subversion. The argument isn’t rational to begin with, rationality cannot disprove it in the minds of those who believe it. A core part of the conspiracies are actually that anyone who argues against them is a part of the conspiracy. Any opposition to Nazism comes from those secret shadow society elements, and so any argument against it can be immediately dismissed.
Simply put, no. The marketplace of ideas is actually perfect for Nazis. If Nazis can’t create mass subversive fear of minorities then they cannot recruit. The KKK has largely been expelled from society for the past century (not entirely). You’d think that in a hundred years if, recruiting from the shadows was better for them, membership would be most of the country. Say what you will about American fascism the average voter definitely doesn’t think positively about the KKK.
Speaking with a Nazi posits that their ideology has the same value as yours. By engaging in a debate with a Nazi, which they won’t win but will instead use the opportunity to further spread Nazi ideology, you legitimate Nazism as a valid position to take. Now someone can be a Nazi, it’s okay to be one you can be a Nazi and still deserve the respect of an audience.
Nazis should be expelled from society in their entirety. Neoliberal propaganda has convinced you that all ideas have value. They do not. Killing minorities is inherently wrong. Spreading ideology that advocates the genocide of minorities is inherently wrong. Nazis should be met with a fist. Their media should be dismantled, and they should be imprisoned or expelled from society. Time and time again we arrive at this same place. When I wonder will anyone actually learn?
You’re wrong, and all you have to do to realise it is look around (hint: when you allow bigotry to exist in open society, aka, tolerate it, it will keep growing like the fucking cancer that it is).
The problem with current society is that many of those places are closed
Social media can filter out being called out (look at what elon did with twitter) or qanon
Fox News doesn’t have labels calling their propaganda false
Literally had this same chat with an old redpilled friend.
