I have a lot of disorganized thoughts on the subject of tolerance and complicity and how changing ideas around what it means to be complicit are corroding tolerance as a social norm that makes liberal societies possible... in the interest of sharing raw ideas rather than seeking a perfect form I may never find, here we go…
I'm so disappointed and disgusted that what's essentially a marketing scheme ("recognition" as Billy Gates calls it) has influenced our ideas about what social justice looks like these days. When discussing how to make capitalism benefit the poor when profits are not an incentive, Gates says that "recognition" is a proxy that can offer market-based rewards for companies' "good behavior". We know what this looks like: companies chanting mantras, flying flags, and offering products that people can buy that also make them feel like good social justice warriors. It also encourages people to be lazy about their principles and discourages real engagement with the issues. Make your bathrooms "gender neutral" because it's good for the company's image which is good for profits, and you don't have to really examine the issue.
It seems like true tolerance has been replaced by good PR and compliance (with the company/cultural line, policy, or ideology). We've also seen what can happen if we're not compliant (public censure, loss of work, ostracization) and this makes us scared to engage. We fear we may lose our status or livelihood and so we refrain from lively discussion. It appears another type of tolerance has decreased -- frustration tolerance. Our ability to hold the discomfort of disagreement along with respect and maybe even love for our fellow human beings seems in short supply.
What you identify in the second-to-last paragraph holds tremendous gravity I think; that acknowledging standpoints, a phrasing of a certain kind of ignorance, has become an imperative to almost total forfeiture of one’s moral senses.
I remember nearly a decade ago, when I was a sophomoric, inelegant undergraduate student, when I first encountered this modern ethic. I was zealously interested in human evolution and the brain. I discovered mirror neurones reading a book about the brain, seeking some clear biological mechanism for human empathy. (Mirror neurones' existence is disputed, it seems.) Nonetheless, I think that we do feel the pain of others vicariously and keenly. That much is clear.
Yet the Feminist Society I talked to, at the time wholly consumed by illiberal ideologies, all insisted that no one who was a member of the dominant, oppressive class could ever understand the lived experience of the oppressed. It is theoretically and practically utterly impossible: empathy is chimerical. The ethic neutralises empathy, or perhaps privileges a certain docile empathy over any other. I think it's redefining it out of existence by totally subverting our normal understanding of empathy.
I suppose it's never to let people fall into the complacence that they have a firm footing, because inherently it's a battle against human nature.
This is such a complex and important topic! It's closely related to the "paradox of moral tolerance," long debated by philosophers. Here's a summary from the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html) under the entry "Toleration": "If both the reasons for objection and the reasons for acceptance are called 'moral,' the paradox arises that it seems to be morally right or even morally required to tolerate what is morally wrong. The solution of this paradox therefore requires a distinction between various kinds of 'moral' reasons, some of which must be reasons of a higher order that ground and limit toleration."
*Political tolerance* receives a good short treatment in another online philosophy encyclopedia, the *Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy*, at https://iep.utm.edu/tolerati/#H5. Following are a couple of salient excerpts:
"In the 20th Century, the idea of political toleration has developed, especially under the influence of John Rawls (1921-2002) and his books, Theory of Justice (1971) and Political Liberalism (1995). ...
"The idea of political toleration begins from the claim that diverse individuals will come to tolerate one another by developing what Rawls called “overlapping consensus”: individuals and groups with diverse metaphysical views or comprehensive schemes will find reasons to agree about certain principles of justice that will include principles of toleration. ...
"Political liberalism focuses on the problem of diversity without appealing to a larger metaphysical theory. This problem is exacerbated when political liberalism takes up the question of international human rights and the problem of intolerant groups or individual who demand to be tolerated. Political liberalism aims at the creation of a global human rights regime that is supposed to support politically tolerant states and that is sensitive to the issue of group rights. ...
"A further complication arises at the level of group rights (both within national and international politics), where groups and their members claim the right to be tolerated by larger political organizations. Here the idea of tolerating the practices and identities of groups may paradoxically result in toleration for intolerant groups. This is the case for example, when tolerant governments consider groups who advocate violence, discrimination, and other intolerant practices. Such groups can be intolerant toward their own members, toward the tolerant liberal societies in which they subside, and indeed toward those international organizations who support toleration throughout the globe."
I think of these tensions under the general rubric of "limits to tolerance." Somewhat ironically, a tolerant society must impose limits on the tolerance with which it treats various kinds of behavior, in order to preserve the conditions under which tolerance can thrive. The Jan. 6th insurrection at the US Capitol poses some of the questions associated with this issue.
Your essay approaches the topic in a very personal way, which is how most of us experience the paradox of tolerance. Parents must impose limits on their tolerance of misbehavior, without being too severe. We all must accommodate behavior by our friends and relatives that we don't *condone*, but tolerate, as a condition of friendship.
Knowing how to place and navigate these boundaries is surely one of the most challenging and important components of developing a deep and well-grounded personal moral code.
I really appreciate your thoughts.
I'm so disappointed and disgusted that what's essentially a marketing scheme ("recognition" as Billy Gates calls it) has influenced our ideas about what social justice looks like these days. When discussing how to make capitalism benefit the poor when profits are not an incentive, Gates says that "recognition" is a proxy that can offer market-based rewards for companies' "good behavior". We know what this looks like: companies chanting mantras, flying flags, and offering products that people can buy that also make them feel like good social justice warriors. It also encourages people to be lazy about their principles and discourages real engagement with the issues. Make your bathrooms "gender neutral" because it's good for the company's image which is good for profits, and you don't have to really examine the issue.
It seems like true tolerance has been replaced by good PR and compliance (with the company/cultural line, policy, or ideology). We've also seen what can happen if we're not compliant (public censure, loss of work, ostracization) and this makes us scared to engage. We fear we may lose our status or livelihood and so we refrain from lively discussion. It appears another type of tolerance has decreased -- frustration tolerance. Our ability to hold the discomfort of disagreement along with respect and maybe even love for our fellow human beings seems in short supply.
What you identify in the second-to-last paragraph holds tremendous gravity I think; that acknowledging standpoints, a phrasing of a certain kind of ignorance, has become an imperative to almost total forfeiture of one’s moral senses.
I remember nearly a decade ago, when I was a sophomoric, inelegant undergraduate student, when I first encountered this modern ethic. I was zealously interested in human evolution and the brain. I discovered mirror neurones reading a book about the brain, seeking some clear biological mechanism for human empathy. (Mirror neurones' existence is disputed, it seems.) Nonetheless, I think that we do feel the pain of others vicariously and keenly. That much is clear.
Yet the Feminist Society I talked to, at the time wholly consumed by illiberal ideologies, all insisted that no one who was a member of the dominant, oppressive class could ever understand the lived experience of the oppressed. It is theoretically and practically utterly impossible: empathy is chimerical. The ethic neutralises empathy, or perhaps privileges a certain docile empathy over any other. I think it's redefining it out of existence by totally subverting our normal understanding of empathy.
I suppose it's never to let people fall into the complacence that they have a firm footing, because inherently it's a battle against human nature.
This is such a complex and important topic! It's closely related to the "paradox of moral tolerance," long debated by philosophers. Here's a summary from the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html) under the entry "Toleration": "If both the reasons for objection and the reasons for acceptance are called 'moral,' the paradox arises that it seems to be morally right or even morally required to tolerate what is morally wrong. The solution of this paradox therefore requires a distinction between various kinds of 'moral' reasons, some of which must be reasons of a higher order that ground and limit toleration."
*Political tolerance* receives a good short treatment in another online philosophy encyclopedia, the *Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy*, at https://iep.utm.edu/tolerati/#H5. Following are a couple of salient excerpts:
"In the 20th Century, the idea of political toleration has developed, especially under the influence of John Rawls (1921-2002) and his books, Theory of Justice (1971) and Political Liberalism (1995). ...
"The idea of political toleration begins from the claim that diverse individuals will come to tolerate one another by developing what Rawls called “overlapping consensus”: individuals and groups with diverse metaphysical views or comprehensive schemes will find reasons to agree about certain principles of justice that will include principles of toleration. ...
"Political liberalism focuses on the problem of diversity without appealing to a larger metaphysical theory. This problem is exacerbated when political liberalism takes up the question of international human rights and the problem of intolerant groups or individual who demand to be tolerated. Political liberalism aims at the creation of a global human rights regime that is supposed to support politically tolerant states and that is sensitive to the issue of group rights. ...
"A further complication arises at the level of group rights (both within national and international politics), where groups and their members claim the right to be tolerated by larger political organizations. Here the idea of tolerating the practices and identities of groups may paradoxically result in toleration for intolerant groups. This is the case for example, when tolerant governments consider groups who advocate violence, discrimination, and other intolerant practices. Such groups can be intolerant toward their own members, toward the tolerant liberal societies in which they subside, and indeed toward those international organizations who support toleration throughout the globe."
I think of these tensions under the general rubric of "limits to tolerance." Somewhat ironically, a tolerant society must impose limits on the tolerance with which it treats various kinds of behavior, in order to preserve the conditions under which tolerance can thrive. The Jan. 6th insurrection at the US Capitol poses some of the questions associated with this issue.
Your essay approaches the topic in a very personal way, which is how most of us experience the paradox of tolerance. Parents must impose limits on their tolerance of misbehavior, without being too severe. We all must accommodate behavior by our friends and relatives that we don't *condone*, but tolerate, as a condition of friendship.
Knowing how to place and navigate these boundaries is surely one of the most challenging and important components of developing a deep and well-grounded personal moral code.
I agree with your friend in the concept of re-education, because I think anyone advocating trans rights over women's rights desperately needs it.