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.
Re: Just a little to say
Date: 2005-12-01 02:50 am (UTC)When I was there, people Just Didn't Go to AWOL. Or if you did, they looked at you funny. But that was the mid-90s, during the Republican Revolution, and things are getting better now nationwide. And it was sort of hush-hush that Dr. Fala was a lesbian. (I only knew because my boyfriend at the time was a comm/business major, and she was his advisor. She also got us tickets to President Clinton's commencement speech at Penn State. Somewhere, I have pictures of a little microscopic President.)
Actually, Becca went to AWOL a couple years. Sometimes, looking back, I wish I had, because I was always curious, but somewhere I learned that you like one or the other, but not both, so I ignored it.
Re: Just a little to say
Date: 2005-12-01 05:07 am (UTC)I think as society in general becomes more tolerant and accepting, all the microcosms will follow along, eventually. Of course, you have your ultra-liberal, progressive schools where gay has been OK for years already, and the ultra-conservative ones where it'll still be a while -- if it's ever accepted.
(Hee, they still call it the barn! Were all the windows still broken and drafty, and did the power go out because the landlord was delinquent in bill-paying? Worst. Landlord. Ever. I was in #6.)