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The paradox of tolerance
(lemmy.nz)
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this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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I have conflicting thoughts about this.
More often than not this explanation is just used as a excuse to hate whatever group you want while labeling yourself as the good one. But applied to the ultimate consequences most people would still be intolerant.
The classical example of not tolerating nazis because they are intolerant to others, is used because it's a flawless example. The definition of a nazi is a person who wants to eliminate other groups from society just because what they are. A tolerant society cannot exist with them, so they have to go. Perfect.
But we have real life problems when we move from the perfect example to practical cases.
1The "everyone I don't like is a nazi" problem. Someone who wants to be a good intolerant just have to label their opponents as nazis, no matter if they are or not. Just the label is good enough.
While Nazis are used as a classical example. The more pure definition is, that tolerant society should not tolerate people who are intolerant. Thus, only allowed intolerance is the intolerance to the intolerant, any other type of intolerance should then make you a valid target for intolerance.
And here is when I see the biggest problem. That society doesn't usually fit most people values. I would give you several examples. Take billionaires, take robbers, take whatever kind of person you don't like, not only don't like but you don't want anyone like that in your society, for reasons different to them being intolerant. There are other undesirable values in a person that sometimes are worse than intolerance. The lack of tolerance to those people really puts you in the same spot as the Nazi in the paradox of intolerance. As you are hating on people for reasons different than they not being tolerant.
I see two honest solutions and one dishonest one.
The first honest solution is to strictly adhere to the idea of being tolerant everyone but the intolerant idea. Which will imply a higher effort to accept people in the society that you currently don't want to accept. Embrace that tolerance is the ultimate goal and just reject the intolerant, accepting everyone else, no matter what.
The second honest solution is to reject complete unconditional tolerance to everyone but the intolerant. Create a more strict set of values of what the society should tolerate. And embrace the idea that complete unconditional tolerance is a not the goal.
The dishonest solution is just lie about it. Seek excuses, loopholes or overcomplicated cherry picking reasonings on why the people you don't want to tolerate are actually intolerants and then covered by the paradox of intolerance and be happy with it.
To each their own. In the later years I'm feeling myself leaning more for the second honest solution. Unconditional tolerance is not a goal per se. I try to create a developed moral system that could actually be universal and that everyone and anyone could and should follow. And think that maybe I should not tolerate anyone that breaks this ethical rules. Basically instead of saying that the "golden rule" is to be tolerant and that's the only rule that people is not allowed to break. My golden rule is more on the lines of "be a good person", which is harder to define but I think it's more solid, and that's the only rule that should not be broken.
And here ends my TED talk.
Nobody says "everyone I don't like is a Nazi". But a lot of Nazis, who are rightly disliked by most people for being Nazis seem the see things that way.
Never heard "they call anyone with a different opinion a Nazi!" where the opinion in question didn't turn out to be some real Nazi shit.
everyone says that the people thry don't like are nazis
Example: "Unless you’re a republican or other type of nazi. Then you can absolutely go all the way to hell.
Tolerance got us here."
this person, comment copy on lemmy, is actually implying that every republican is a nazi. Their use of the world "tolerance" makes me think that they are actually an example of what I say that people use the paradox of intolerance as an excuse to feel vindicated about their thoughts rather than as a moral theory to follow. It's the first example I found, but I think is hard to deny that a non negligible number of people think that one of the two major parties in the US country is a nazi party. Giving that the US is a two party system saying that the only other side are all nazis, is almost equivalent to saying that everyone that doesn't think like me are nazis.
I've also seen a lot of the time the argument "if you have a table of 10 people sitting with 1 nazi, you have 10 nazis". It's a common argument, that's not even related to those other 9 people ideologies, just that they shared a space with a nazi they automatically get counted as nazis.
As an exercise to these people I would like to ask what "constitutes a nazi" by their thoughts. And afterwards calculate what many people in their country falls under that definition. If the number is high enough I think is more likely that the person is calling nazi to every person who doesn't think like them rather than such a big chunk of the population actually beliefs and follows the national-socialism ideology of Adolf Hitler.
The Republican party is currently openly supporting the idea of masked secret police disappearing people off the streets and sending them to concentration camps based on their race.
Yes, Republicans are Nazis. Yes, that includes the ones you're friendly with.
I have beef with both parties, so if that's what I were doing, I'd be saying it about a lot more than the third of the country that's openly decided to support Nazism. As far as everyone else, your argument still fails to persuade, because the statement "Republicans are a subtype of Nazi" is factually correct by any reasonable analysis. So no, even at that scale it isn't "everyone who doesn't think like me" it's "everyone supporting this plainly Nazi shit we're seeing daily in real time".
That's the crux of the paradox of tolerance. People who are tolerant of Nazis have the same net effect on society as Nazis themselves. Making no distinction between someone who openly supports throwing people into camps based only on their race and people who don't actually support it but are fine enough with it to have a friendly dinner with someone who does is again, the objectively correct position.
It sounds to me like you're either the Republican variety of Nazi or the "apolitical go-along-with-it" style of Nazi and you're looking for validation that you aren't a Nazi. You won't find that here. It's not because I disagree with you, it's because you're openly arguing for tolerance of Nazis.
Using your example, that means the Democrats are also Nazis; they've also used ICE (with masks) to deport millions of people at gunpoint for concentration camps and/or deportment.
Exact same organization. Same masks. Same camps. Millions of times.
So... if you're a Democrat, per your own example you are a variety of Nazi... in which case I agree with you.
No argument here, but that wasn't the point under discussion.
You are kind of proving my point by wildly missing my point.
First here we are with the "you are a nazi" argument. You disagree with me, I'm automatically a nazi.
Second of all. If you read my comment again you'll clearly read that I advocate that tolerance is not the goal. I'm not saying we should "tolerate" nazis. I'm actually advocating for not tolerating not only nazis but a whole bunch of other people as well (I just don't feel the need to call them nazis for not tolerating them), because I think tolerance by itself is not the supreme golden rule that will make the society we live into the utopia we deserve.
But the point is that once you are true about this you should construct a more robust moral code that "nazis bad and everyone I don't like is a nazi", because that's just not going to get us anywhere. We need good people in our society. Not just thugs flying your favourite flag. And for that the definition of who stays and who don't shouldn't be a political tag. But the adherence to a robust moral code.
But obviously bad people who think they are good only because their political tag doesn't find this a very pleasant idea.
No, I disagree with almost everyone.
You argue that people supporting masked secret police disappearing people based on race doesn't necessarily make them a Nazi, and that argument makes you a Nazi. It really is that simple.
You want to define "Nazi" as meaning only people following the exact political philosophy of the 1930s NSDAP, which is exactly how neonazis and other Nazi subtypes want it defined, as it keeps them from being banned for being Nazis.
"Nazi" to most people means anyone supporting a militarized ethnonationalism, and especially anyone supporting the use of state violence against designated out groups. For the most part that means Republicans and their supporters, along with Zionists and their supporters, plus assorted independent neonazi factions that don't have those kinds of numbers. But yes, it also includes anyone looking at what those groups are doing and arguing they aren't Nazis, or ignoring that they're Nazis for social or business reasons.
My definition of Nazi in the modern sense of the world, (a neonazi we could say). Is that of a person who wants the state to have absolute power to enforce a reactionary society that will embrace a glorious past, exterminating every group of population that doesn't fit into this objective.
By that definition, no not all republicans are nazis, some are, of course, many even, but not all, not by far. And obviously, not all people who deny your arguments about who is a nazi automatically becomes a nazi.
It doesn't mean they are good people. But here is the thing, not every bad person is a nazi.
You might be a very bad person, and still not a nazi.
A problem with you way of seeing things, is that, is conveniently arbitrary. You can actually call absolutely anyone you like a nazi. That's a fast route for authoritarianism. Tou want to kill anyone? Easy, you say they are a nazi and their death is justified in your eyes.
That's just bad. You can have a system that defines who is good and who is not by such an arbitrary system.
Look at it this way. By your definition you are yourself a nazi. Because if I'm a nazi and I'm here you are sharing this space with a nazi, making yourself a nazi... See how easy is to label someone as a nazi by those definitions?
No. Our moral system should be stronger, should be able to accurately determine if a person is a good person or not based on their actions, without any chance of arbitrary labeling any person as bad by the convenience of an authoritarian figure.
Your inability (or more likely refusal) to understand simple concepts doesn't invalidate those concepts.
There is nothing arbitrary about "people who support a militarized ethnostate" nor about "people who support state violence against a designated out group".
No part of the "ten Nazis at the table is about sharing space, it's about it ignoring their atrocities and being friendly with monsters.
If you want people not to say you're a Nazi, why don't you try just saying without any prevarication "masked secret police snatching people off the street because of their race is wrong, that's Nazi behavior and people who support it shouldn't be tolerated".
You won't. Because you clearly do support that kind of behavior.
Now you are just manipulating my arguments.
As I never denied that people who support a militarized ethostate is a nazi. Nor denying their atrocities.
What I say, and you deny is that not every person who voted republican support a militarized ethostate. Even if Trump is doing precisely that with their vote. Politicians lie and manipulate their voters all the time.
The people you are describing is clearly nazi, and at no point in any comments I said anything different.
What I've clearly said is that not every republican wants that. By my own knowledge of knowing republicans that doesn't want that. Believe or not, I know republicans that doesn't want secret police snatching people of the street because their race.
Here comes some important concept, the reality you and me see is not the same that other people see. You and I see ICE actuations and we do see the SS. But there are people that doesn't see that, some of them genuinely don't think that they are doing that. Are they on the wrong? Yes, but not because they are nazis, but because they are missinformed and manipulated.
A think that's very common in politics is the inability to see the crimes of "your party" and this happens to many republicans, they are just blind to the atrocities committed by Trump. Other see that atrocities, don't support them but still vote Trump for other reasons. Specially in a two party system people don't agree with 100% of what the party they vote do.
Still, they are on the wrong for that. And I'm not saying they are good people. Some of them even not being nazis are bad people. Some of them vote republicans because they hate gay folk or trans folk. By definition homophobia or transfobia is no nazism even if it is as bad as nazism.
The point you keep missing is that there is bad beyond nazism. And one of my main arguments is that that is precisely a very dangerous line of though because is a line of though that has a convenient ease to label truly good people as bad, and truly evil people as good. And that should never happen in a good moral system.
Also, people don't call me nazi. You are the only one who calls me that. As any rational person who talks to me 5 minutes about any topic can clearly seen what's my political leaning. So I'm not really worry.
Given that the candidate they voted for was pretty open about his intentions to push for a militarized ethnostate, what you say suitable for fertilizing crops. At a bare minimum, every Republican Voter considers Nazism to be at least not a deal-breaker. And that brings us back to that table with 10 Nazis.
No, I'm not missing that, it's just not relevant to your original argument (people who call out Nazis call everyone they disagree with a Nazi). Let's stay on topic here. Saying "people call everyone they disagree with a Nazi" and then giving two examples that are both totally valid callouts of Nazism is carrying Nazis' water. If you're making the same arguments against people calling out Nazis that Nazis make, then you're doing Nazis' work, regardless of what your intentions may have been.
Just a question for the fun on it. Those new nazis you create with you rethoric can also create new nazis?
So there are the original nazis, we all agree there are nazis. Then anyone you think is too close to them you said they are alzo nazis. The famous table with ten nazis.
Can those new nazis also create newer nazis if other people sit with them?
And this newer nazis can also create even newer nazis when other people happen to sit with them, or saying that them being friends to a person who is friend of a person who is friend of a person who voted for an orange nazi, that automatically create other nazi?
Where does the if you sit near a nazi you are a nazi ever stops? How degrees of proximity of the original nazi you consider enough so you don't think they are nazis?
For real. A person who is a friend of a person who is a friend of a person who voted for Trump? Nazi or not nazi?
Now i know you're arguing in bad faith.
For the second or third time in this thread: The other nine Nazis aren't Nazis bcs of their proximity to a Nazi, but because of their willingness to socialize with a Nazi.
You're deliberately misrepresenting anti-Nazi arguments to try to defend people who are happily supporting Nazism. If you're not a Nazi you'll do til someone actually starts goose stepping and throwing out Roman salutes.
Elon Musk is indeed a Nazi, if that's what your reference was about.
My question is specifically about socialising voluntarily and friendly.
I will make the question more clear.
Person A = Donald Trump
Person B = Person who voted for Donald Trump, doesn't self define as a Nazi, personally this person doesn't consider Donald trump a Nazi
Person C = Person who didn't vote for Trump, thinks Trump is a nazi but is friends with person B. this person doesn't consider person B a nazi.
Person D = Person who didn't vote for Trump, thinks Trump is a nazi but is friends with person C, knowing that person C is friends with person B.
Person E = Person who didn't vote for Trump, thinks Trump is a nazi but is friends with person D, knowing that person D is friends with person C.
All this people are willing to socialise with their friends, they know them, and they know their political stances (only A and B vote republican) and they know who are their friends with. How many of those people would you consider Nazis?
Until now I understood that you would consider all of them nazis, also any subsequent friends of this little friendship chain. But feel free to correct me and tell me otherwise.
What the fuck did I just read? Nazis rounded gay and trans folks up and put them in death camps too.
Get the fuck out of here, Nazi fucking scum.
You seem to be implying that not all Republicans are not Nazis.
10 years ago it was true that not all Republicans are Nazis. However, there has not been no resistance from every elected Republican to the Nazi movement within the party for far too long to be able to honestly make the claim that Republicanism is not Nazism.
I've always wonder. Why some people is so eager to make everyone their worst enemy.
I remember this joke, about the difference between a republican and a democrat:
There comes a new guy to the republican party and they ask them:
Meanwhile other guy enters the Democratic party and they ask them:
My point is that even as a political strategy we might be better off trying to find reasons on why other people is "one of us" instead of trying to find reasons on why they are the worst scum on earth.
This is an extremely valid point you are making. It is why I oppose Democratic leaders like Gavin Newsom, Amy Acton, etc throwing trans people under the bus in an effort to get Republican voters.
The rest of your comment is incredibly anectdotal, and doesn't match with my lived reality, where local Republican leaders called me a pedophile because I hosted some drag shows. My experience has been that Republicans lead and convince with fear, as opposed to using intellectualism to get people to hate gay people. Sure, that convincing may be incremental, but I don't think the conversation you created in your head has ever happened in any reality.
Likewise, I have never seen a Democrat organization kick someone out for being opposed to taxing the rich, let alone call them a Nazi. In fact, most of the Democratic party's leadership at the national and at state levels oppose taxing the rich. That's why the DSA and similar parties/caucuses are gaining power within the Democratic party.
But let's be clear, the story you made up in your head, has never happened, despite how fucking erect I would get if it did happen. Your story is less believable than Candyland.
All Republicans are Nazis. Republicans may be misguided in why they are voting Republican, but that doesn't make them any less of a Nazi.
A Republican voter may be incredibly passionate about crashing the economy (9 of the past 10 economic recessions have been caused by Republicans), and they may be voting Republican because they want to crash the economy. But they doesn't absolve them of voting for ICE to terrorize communities.
We didn't give the 1940s Nazis a pass because they didn't know what that the wretched smell was bodies burning. We treated them exactly as who they were: Nazi scum.
Just as a note. The Allied powers gave most nazis a pass. Only 24 people were judged in the trials of Nuremberg. Most people who voted for Hitler's, even members of the Nazi party were not judged by it once they surrendered.
It was understood that most of them were probably not inherently evil, even when they were on the (very) wrong.
I would assume most republican voters would be the same. Most I know are on the wrong, but they are not inherently evil. They've been lied and manipulated, but deep inside they would probably just want to live happy peaceful lives like all of us.
Most people look back on Nazi Germany and see the populace as the Nazi scum they were. Most of the populace that wasn't a victim, including the ones that voted against Nazism, deserve this treatment, as they did not do enough to stop it.
It is also very well know how Hitler took advantage of the situation of Germany to manipulate its population and it's political system into giving him absolutely power.
When studying that period of time is one of the first things being studied, how Hitler managed to get into power even when he never really got majoritarian popular support.
Alright, so I read through your other comments and you've proven yourself to be a Nazi.
I am not saying you are a Nazi because I disagree with you. I am saying you are a Nazi because you are looking to shift the definition of what a Nazi is so that Neo-Nazis can exist more easily and more freely without being called a Nazi. Fuck Nazis, such as yourself.
Being a billionaire is a choice, a choice to hoard money to the detriment of everyone and everything around you. One could easily choose to not be a billionaire by paying taxes and funding their local social support services and donating to charity. Intolerance of greed on the scale of billions of dollars should be the norm as it is actively detrimental to society.
Robbery is a violation of personal safety and social boundaries and is also actively detrimental to society. It is also a choice.
Intolerance of the choices of others that violate the social contract of "don't be greedy, don't steal, don't hurt others, etc..." is valid intolerance in my opinion.
Nazis are intolerable because they are intolerant of the vast majority of humanity itself and for reasons outside of most people's control. Sure, you can make it a choice and convert to Judaism, but the vast majority of Jews are born into Judaism; It's not a choice like greed on the scale of billions or breaking and entering.
For that reason alone, Nazis are worth disposing of. The myriad additional reasons to hate Nazis just makes the job easier.
There are also a plurality of underlying issues not explored by this, because it's treated as first order only problem. Like... why is it that people become intolerant and why they blame certain groups for things.
And usually that's underlying economic or inequality conditions in the society or other forms of social upheaval.... which people generally don't want to address so much as they want to focus on the social sorting of hating and being hateful as the 'solution'. It's much easier to be tolerant when you are in an environment where members are all roughly of equal status, harder when there are perceived or real inequalities and abuses of power.
Real world is more complicated because people don't hate for no reason. They may, have very legit reasons, and you likely may have the same reasons directed towards a different group.
Everyone does vastly over simplify this, because well, they want to use is as a litmus test to prove they are good and other people are bad, and that's the only 'use' of this principle. Which is what folks do with a lot of moral/social guidelines... they want to reduce them to sorting mechanisms with themselves on the 'right' side of the sort... and if you challenge that notion maybe it's not that simple... you must be one of the 'bad' people.
Further, everyone is intolerant of something. Even if they won't admit it. Nor will they admit... that they and everyone else make mistakes. People's mind and behaviors change... a whole other second order factor also totally outside the scope of this 'paradox'. and for a lot of folks on lemmy... you can't ever change or be reformed from your previous views... etc.
We also have the wonderful case of social movements that seek to turn innocuous behaviors into intolerable assaults on themselves, like the 'manspreading' nonsense from Tumblr.
I think it's better understood as a phenomena, not a principle or a rule or any of that. You don't have to 'accept' or 'reject' it. You should think about it though, about the implications of where you draw the line, because in real life it is never as clean as 'nazis bad, everyone non-nazi good', and there are so many legal and other examples that get into murkey waters.
But that's just people exploiting ambiguity, not a real problem with the principle. It's an implementation problem. And since every other alternative will be dependent on a similar definition with a threshold up define bad, this one can't be substantially worse.
You're counting wrong when you're talking about "most". If most people hated society you would not see cities larger than a few thousand people. People are annoyed by it, but they accept it because they know what they get in return (conservative propaganda is essentially about lying about what makes society good)
We already do partial tolerance. It's called fines instead of deportation, it's called reputation instead of tarring. What you're really looking for here is stronger cultural enforcement.