THE PARADOX OF TOLERANCE — Time to Speak Truth to Bullshit
The Paradox of Tolerance is a philosophical concept that suggests if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance, thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance.
The concept was coined by political philosopher Karl Popper in 1945. Popper — a Lutheran — was partially motivated by trying to understand how Nazism could take over a liberal country like Germany in the 1930s.
Every so often the Paradox of Tolerance pops up to explain how society works, and in many ways, it explains a bit of what we are seeing around us over the last year. It also illustrates what needs to be done to combat the slippery slope of intolerance before it is too late.
In mid November, 2024, Berlin Chief of Police Barbara Slowik gave an interview where she stated:
There are areas [in Berlin] — and we have to be honest about this — where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay or lesbian to be more careful… There are, unfortunately, neighborhoods in Berlin with a majority of residents from Arab backgrounds where there is open sympathy for terrorist organizations and very blatant antisemitism
There are two interesting things about this… First, Slowik correctly points out that the issue isn’t Israel or Palestine, it’s Jews, as we knew all along. Secondly, she specifically cites the LBGTQ community.
Berlin is vibrant and diverse with it’s own special identity and a keen awareness of creating inclusiveness. It is one of the most tolerant and livable cities in the world, as is considered to be one of the most Gay-friendly cities in the world.
And yet, with all the tolerance of Berlin, there are areas of the city that are blatantly, and sometimes violently intolerant.
The majority of Berlin has accepted that certain communities have different values and lifestyles, but those certain communities have not extended the same respect back.
The culmination of this paradox is in the bizarre alliance called the Queers for Palestine movement.
Leaving aside for a moment that the far left has actually doomed Palestinians, (let’s all give a hand to the ILGA for explicitly screwing over LGBTQ Palestinians), the Queers for Palestine movement makes little sense as it is a merging of two diametrically opposed ideals. One promotes acceptance and tolerance toward the LGBTQ community, the other has a long history of killing LGBTQ members.
And it’s not just Berlin. The Migration Research Institute in Budapest estimates that there are over 900 “no-go” zones across Europe — parallel societies that do not adhere to general norms of liberal democracies.
Ed Husain, a moderate Muslim from the UK, published a deep dive assessment of this parallel world in his recent book: Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain.
Husain found many liberal and moderate Muslims across the UK, but he also found substantial intolerance. In town after town Husain uncovered Mosques preaching radical forms of Islam that subjugate women, rampant Anti-Jew and Anti-West sentiment, active promotion of the dreams of a Caliphate, and de-facto Sharia control over the local population.
The issue in the UK is complex… Partially due to negligent immigration policy, partially do to poor management of integrating minorities, and also partially due to the sentiments of extremism in some of the Mosques that Husain visited.
And even though the UK is a widely tolerant society, it has simultaneously allowed flagrantly intolerant enclaves to thrive and exert control.
Husain, like Slowik, believes that it is important to be honest about the situation. In a recent interview Husain stated:
I think people don’t want to be seen to be picking on minorities. That’s a good thing, but that impulse shouldn’t then end in a place where we can’t have free conversations in a respectful manner
As Husain points out, he believes Keir Starmer, as well as many in British politicians, are too fearful of being called “Islamophobic”.
As a recent example, Brits should be very concerned about the current “Blasphemy Law” being floated around by Labor MP Tahir Ali. The law looks to effectively ban any criticism of Islam in the name of reducing Islamophobia. But criticism of other things OK…
Again the paradox… Ali wants protected free speech to criticize certain aspects of UK society. But Ali wants to limit free speech when it comes to criticism of other aspects of UK society, specifically the most intolerant aspects.
The Paradox of Tolerance is a slippery slope that erodes societies. Acts that were once deemed outside the norm of civil society are now given tacit support.
We see it every day in the flagrant Anti-Jew acts all over Europe, Canada, the US, and Australia.
Once, not so long ago, shooting up a Jewish elementary school in Canada was seen as pure evil and a hate crime. Now it seems like an inevitability — like the price for being a Jewish six year old in Toronto is getting sniped.
We see it in the loathsome disregard of basic civil liberties in the US — specifically when it comes to Jews. Like denying Jewish students a right to enter their college classrooms.
Despicable bottom-feeders like Candace Owens or Hasan Piker are allowed to spew vile lies unabashed and hide under “Freedom of Speech”, but when the opposite perspective is presented it is forcefully silenced….
For example, recently the Oxford Union held a widely biased debate called “Israel is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide”. The two speakers who represented the Israeli side — Arab Israeli activist Yoseph Haddad and Anti-Hamas activist Mosab Hassan Yousef — were initially forcefully barred from even entering the building, and after the event the Oxford Union doctored the videos.
Here is Yoseph Haddad’s full speech:
The more we tolerate intolerable behavior, the more intolerable behavior becomes the norm.
The recent murder of United’s CEO Brian Thomson by Luigi Mangione is a stark juxtaposition… The US healthcare system is notoriously broken, but this does not justify murder.
But a frightening amount of young people in the US think the murder was justified.
This should come as no real surprise given the amount of young people in the US who want to “Globalize the Intifada”.
“Intifada” means “uprising” in the literal sense, but de facto it means killing civilians. The reason we know this is because of the thousands of innocent civilians who have already been killed in the name of “Intifada”.
Thousands of young people across the US have been advocating for murder for the past 15 months, and the more we tolerate this behavior the more we should expect to see people like Luigi Mangione taking law into their own hands.
We have become so used to organizations like SJP, JVP, CUAD spewing out blatant misinformation that we gloss over the true underlying motivation of their action: the forceful eradication of Western/Liberal ideas.
Even though they remind us of this, we still choose to ignore it because we tolerate the intolerable:
On New Year’s Eve Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42 year old US citizen, deliberately rammed a Ford truck through New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said at a press briefing on Wednesday that the suspect “was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could” and was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.”
Additional weapons and explosives were found in the truck.
Jabbar also pledged his loyalty to ISIS.
All of the Tulane students who spent months screaming to “Globalize the Intifada” got exactly what they wished for.
And now 14 people are dead and another two dozen hospitalized.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
The biggest victims of the Paradox of Tolerance is women.
Jews are the Canary in the Coal Mine. Tolerance of intolerant ideals is going to spillover from Jews to other groups, specifically women.
Just like we ignore what SJP, JPV, CUAD and others really want, the Paradox of Tolerance has created a situation whereby we are ignoring what is already happening to women.
Women’s rights in Afghanistan were already horrible, but very recently the Taliban has issued a new decree baring women from Academia, from employment, and even from having women stand by windows.
Legalized child marriage is on the docket to be reinstated in Iraq.
And in Syria, where everybody is cheering on the “rebels” who brought down the horrific dictatorial regime of Assad, Kurdish women are being kidnapped and sold to sex-slavery as you read this. Legal representation and protection of women in Syria is quickly being rolled-back.
The situation in Europe is just as troubling.
Rape incidences in Europe have doubled over the last decade, but governments are hesitant to take a stance. And it isn’t a new phenomenon.
On New Years Eve of 2015–2016 Germany experience a sexual assault rampage across the country. But in the spirit of the Paradox of Tolerance, key aspects of perpetrators were silenced. As the Telegraph pointed out a week later, on the 6th of January 2016, “Police and media have been accused of silence on wave of New Year’s Eve assaults by men ‘of north African or Arab appearance’ because of fears of stirring social tensions”
Connor Tomlinson recently wrote a deep-dive expose on the troubling trend of “Grooming Gangs” in the UK, stating: “It appears that the lives of young women being irrevocably ruined is a price that some politicians really are willing to pay for diversity”.
(Side note: Tomlinson’s piece is published on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s incredible zine. She is a Somali-born Dutch activist and former politician who has dedicated her life to advocating for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women.)
Assita Kanko, a Belgian politician and Member of the European Parliament, recently called out the Dutch Council of State for their ruling on Female Genital Mutilation.
There are thousands of videos circulating online where Imams across Europe, the US, Canada, and Australia call for the forced subjugation of women, preaching to their adherents ideals that simply should not be tolerated, and yet they are.
We have become way to tolerant of intolerant ideals from both the far left and the far right.
But this leaves it to the average in the middle to call out the crazies.
And herein lies the Paradox of Tolerance. We have lost the ability to call out the intolerant, which only gives the intolerant more power and control. We shrug and sigh every time Freedom Caucus congressmembers open their mouths.
Maybe we fear being called Racist or Islamophobic for speaking out. Maybe we have succumbed to norms of Wokeism and Identity Politics that cloud logic, reason, and critical thinking. Maybe we prefer the dopamine rush of bite-sized misinformation spread on Socials instead of taking a few extra moments to think. Maybe we fear alienating others. Maybe we fear retribution and backlash.
But the more we shy away from speaking out against intolerant ideals, the more power and credence we give to intolerant ideals
Popper recommended a way to deal with the Paradox of Tolerance in his treatise from 1945 titled “The Open Societies and Its Enemies”. He wrote:
We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.”
In simpler terms: If you want to maintain a tolerant liberal democracy, you actually need to stop tolerating the intolerable.
As the indispensable
Bill Maher recently pointed out: It’s time to speak Truth to Bullshit.
There are countless moderate Muslims, like Ed Husain, who are literally risking their lives to call out intolerance and speak Truth to Bullshit because they have lived through it. They know the damage that can happen.
Bassem Eid. Amjad Taha. Luai Ahmed. Ahmed Al-Khalidi. Ahmed Fouad Al-Khatib. Dalia Ziada. Hoda Jannat. Raheel Raza and Mohammed Rizwan. Mo Husseini. Loay Al-Sharif. Amir Pars. Salman Rushdie. Hamza Howidy. Noor Dahri. Sana Ebrahimi. Sophia Khalifa. Anila Ali. Hussain Abdul-Hussain. Rawan Osman. Nazanin Boniadi. The Council of Muslims against Anti-Semitism. Salman Sima. And countless more.
Take five minutes to learn from the experiences of Maral Salmassi, and how quickly intolerant ideals can overwhelm civility.
2024 was a horrible year across the globe, where extremisms of all forms — right, left, religious — overtook our lives. And in some areas of the world, like the Sahel, has lead to bloodshed.
It is time to fight back against this and to speak out against it.
The more tolerant we are of intolerant ideals, the more intolerant ideals will rule over our lives.
Till next time…
