more on intolerance
Nov. 30th, 2005 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eiriasShoot, a stray mouse click erased my half-completed post.
I'd hoped that my earlier writing on this topic would get the thoughts on intolerance out of my system, but it didn't seem to work that way -- which probably means I missed something. Maybe this shot will do the trick.
I think that part of my problem -- which perhaps is what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cos was alluding to -- is that I was trying to treat tolerance as a binary: you tolerate something or you don't. ukelele added a nuance -- tolerance of beliefs vs. people -- but it only seemed to confuse the matter in my head, because I was trying to conceptualize it as a separate dimension (obviously not orthogonal but nevertheless distinct).
Today I began wondering if perhaps a sliding scale is more appropriate. Here I will try to make one up, with totally invented numbers, as a sort of thought-experiment. Because I am neither a professional psychometrician nor a professional philosopher, it will be clumsy, so anyone with relevant expertise who cares, feel free to poke me with improvements.
Let X be some proposition about the world, e.g. "Falun Gong is the path to salvation." Here is a scale of possible government responses to X.
-300 [Belief that X] is forbidden.
-200 Belief is unregulated, but [publishing that X] is forbidden.
-100 Publication is unregulated, but [acting on a belief that X] is forbidden.
0 No regulation of X.
100 Publication is unregulated, but [acting on a belief that not-X] is forbidden.
200 Belief is unregulated, but [publishing that not-X] is forbidden.
300 [Belief that not-X] is forbidden.
Here I tried to distinguish between public and private heresy; one can imagine a society that, e.g., permits private Falun Gong belief but prohibits advertisements about meetings in major papers. One could probably interpolate other government-actions on this scale as well.
Of course, as libertarians are fond of noting, there are ways of persuasion that don't require the government sledgehammer. I have no idea where to put these -- realistically I suspect they should be interleaved with the above in some more sophisticated way -- but for now I will just sandwich them in the middle like so:
-30 [Belief that X] makes you a social leper.
-20 Belief has no major consequences, but [publishing that X] makes you a social leper.
-10 Publication has no major consequences, but [acting on a belief that X] makes you a social leper.
0 No regulation of X.
10 Publication has no major consequences, but [acting on a belief that not-X] makes you a social leper.
20 Belief has no major consequences, but but [publishing that not-X] makes you a social leper.
30 [Belief that not-X] makes you a social leper.
By "social leprosy" I mean that X has major social consequences, such as discrimination in employment or housing.
Finally, because I think social consequences must admit to finer distinctions, here's a third scale:
-3 [Belief that X] is considered rude.
-2 Belief is a matter of taste, but [publishing that X] is considered rude.
-1 Publication is a matter of taste, but [acting on a belief that X] is considered rude.
0 No regulation of X.
1 Publication is a matter of taste, but [acting on a belief that not-X] is considered rude.
2 Belief is a matter of taste, but [publishing that X] is considered rude.
3 [Belief that X] is considered rude.
And here is an example analysis.
Let X be "women suck at math and science."
Now we get into the part whereukelele's cry for tolerance of people has me confused, because I explicitly meant to put it in this scale somehow, and yet I'm not sure what it maps to. It's clear that anything with an absolute value from 10...100 is insufficiently tolerant of the people -- but stuff in the very middle, well, I'm just not sure.
And this is where we get back to why I wish we weren't relying so much on this word in the first place -- what does it mean to tolerate a person? Does it mean "to separate judgment of a person from judgment of his beliefs"? With some extreme beliefs, this is neither possible nor practical: I'm sure there are some otherwise-lovely racists in this world, but I'm not all that keen on inviting them to alphabet nights. I don't think a single person who knows me would object to this decision. However, if I turned it around and said I wasn't going to invite any Christians to my parties, I'd definitely be the bad guy. I want some way of distinguishing the two cases that doesn't rely on "it's different because I said so" -- which, frankly, every liberal apology for the distinction seems to do.
I guess a lighter way of putting it that might also be a little clearer is: What niceties does one owe to the rude? Is it OK to write someone off for rude beliefs? statements? actions?
I bet for all of us the answer is, "It depends on the belief." Which is precisely why I think generic "tolerance" is the wrong way to look at it.
I'd hoped that my earlier writing on this topic would get the thoughts on intolerance out of my system, but it didn't seem to work that way -- which probably means I missed something. Maybe this shot will do the trick.
I think that part of my problem -- which perhaps is what
cos was alluding to -- is that I was trying to treat tolerance as a binary: you tolerate something or you don't. ukelele added a nuance -- tolerance of beliefs vs. people -- but it only seemed to confuse the matter in my head, because I was trying to conceptualize it as a separate dimension (obviously not orthogonal but nevertheless distinct).Today I began wondering if perhaps a sliding scale is more appropriate. Here I will try to make one up, with totally invented numbers, as a sort of thought-experiment. Because I am neither a professional psychometrician nor a professional philosopher, it will be clumsy, so anyone with relevant expertise who cares, feel free to poke me with improvements.
Let X be some proposition about the world, e.g. "Falun Gong is the path to salvation." Here is a scale of possible government responses to X.
-300 [Belief that X] is forbidden.
-200 Belief is unregulated, but [publishing that X] is forbidden.
-100 Publication is unregulated, but [acting on a belief that X] is forbidden.
0 No regulation of X.
100 Publication is unregulated, but [acting on a belief that not-X] is forbidden.
200 Belief is unregulated, but [publishing that not-X] is forbidden.
300 [Belief that not-X] is forbidden.
Here I tried to distinguish between public and private heresy; one can imagine a society that, e.g., permits private Falun Gong belief but prohibits advertisements about meetings in major papers. One could probably interpolate other government-actions on this scale as well.
Of course, as libertarians are fond of noting, there are ways of persuasion that don't require the government sledgehammer. I have no idea where to put these -- realistically I suspect they should be interleaved with the above in some more sophisticated way -- but for now I will just sandwich them in the middle like so:
-30 [Belief that X] makes you a social leper.
-20 Belief has no major consequences, but [publishing that X] makes you a social leper.
-10 Publication has no major consequences, but [acting on a belief that X] makes you a social leper.
0 No regulation of X.
10 Publication has no major consequences, but [acting on a belief that not-X] makes you a social leper.
20 Belief has no major consequences, but but [publishing that not-X] makes you a social leper.
30 [Belief that not-X] makes you a social leper.
By "social leprosy" I mean that X has major social consequences, such as discrimination in employment or housing.
Finally, because I think social consequences must admit to finer distinctions, here's a third scale:
-3 [Belief that X] is considered rude.
-2 Belief is a matter of taste, but [publishing that X] is considered rude.
-1 Publication is a matter of taste, but [acting on a belief that X] is considered rude.
0 No regulation of X.
1 Publication is a matter of taste, but [acting on a belief that not-X] is considered rude.
2 Belief is a matter of taste, but [publishing that X] is considered rude.
3 [Belief that X] is considered rude.
And here is an example analysis.
Let X be "women suck at math and science."
- US government: I would rate this a -100: you can talk smack all you want but you can't use gender as a hiring criterion, and if it becomes obvious that you have, you are wide open for a lawsuit.
- Major social consequences: Based on Larry Summers' experience, I think I would put this as a -20. (This is where more sophisticated interleaving is needed... or maybe just 3 separate, correlated scales.)
- Minor social consequences: Highly dependent on the circles you run in. In most of the circles I'm in it would be a -3. However, there are some in which it would rank as a -1 or a 0.
Now we get into the part where
ukelele's cry for tolerance of people has me confused, because I explicitly meant to put it in this scale somehow, and yet I'm not sure what it maps to. It's clear that anything with an absolute value from 10...100 is insufficiently tolerant of the people -- but stuff in the very middle, well, I'm just not sure.And this is where we get back to why I wish we weren't relying so much on this word in the first place -- what does it mean to tolerate a person? Does it mean "to separate judgment of a person from judgment of his beliefs"? With some extreme beliefs, this is neither possible nor practical: I'm sure there are some otherwise-lovely racists in this world, but I'm not all that keen on inviting them to alphabet nights. I don't think a single person who knows me would object to this decision. However, if I turned it around and said I wasn't going to invite any Christians to my parties, I'd definitely be the bad guy. I want some way of distinguishing the two cases that doesn't rely on "it's different because I said so" -- which, frankly, every liberal apology for the distinction seems to do.
I guess a lighter way of putting it that might also be a little clearer is: What niceties does one owe to the rude? Is it OK to write someone off for rude beliefs? statements? actions?
I bet for all of us the answer is, "It depends on the belief." Which is precisely why I think generic "tolerance" is the wrong way to look at it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-30 11:36 pm (UTC)"Potentially dangerous" IS an awfully slippery slope, and that's the entire point. You've got two warring slippery slopes right now -- one that would have The Official Belief as the only belief you can have, and one that would institute compulsory acceptance of every wacky, fringe, (dare I say) deviant *gasp!*, lifestyle that the human mind can concoct. I think both of them are terrible ideas.
The problem is that some lifestyles, some philosophies, some viewpoints, are mutually exclusive. You can't be Gay and Born Again Christian. You can't be Wiccan and a Boy Scout. The problem with "tolerance" as a social movement is that you're only really being tolerant of whatever viewpoint happens to be socially in vogue at the moment. Once you're tolerant of THAT viewpoint, you become de facto intolerant of some other one. Go ahead and speculate on they might tolerate neo Nazi leadership representation in the NAACP...
The point is that it doesn't matter if my views mesh with your views. I'm not, and shouldn't be under any obligation, implied or otherwise, to care a whit about what you have to say. Civilization is built upon the fact that for overall betterment, I realize it's in my best interests to take an interest in what you have to say, and figure it into my decision making.
But there are some people who will never realize that, and trying to build an entire social movement around misguided attempts to "convert" people such as that is at best futile, and at worst counterproductive. The latter because you risk advancing policies that could eventually be broadly interpreted to restrict the rights of those people who were ALREADY on your side...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-01 02:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-01 05:24 am (UTC)For example, as ukelele succinctly pointed out, which it is impossible to (consistently) be both Gay and Born Again, it is quite possible for a gay individual and a born again individual to live next door to each other, so long as they refrain from thwoing rocks over the fence. And I can be "tolerant" of both of them, simply by not attacking them as long as they're not attacking each other.
I guess it depends what is meant by "acceptance". All I want is to leave people alone unless they present imminent danger to those around them. Of course, as we all agree, there are many gray areas in defining that criterion.
Or to come at it from yet another angle, the only Born Again Christians I'm not willing to be tolerant of are the ones who bomb abortion clinics, or advocate such, or do other things that I consider to be actively harmful to others. If somebody wants to despise gays without harming them, I will disagree with them, but I'm not going to harass them about it.