SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Fine print: The following are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Journal by Azuma Hazuki
Tolerance Is Not A Moral Precept.
This is a thorough once-over giving the lie to the "conservatives'" self-serving bullshit squealing that "Butbutbutbutbut if you don't tolerate my intolerance you're a hypocrite!" The short version, as put forth in the article, is this: tolerance is a peace treaty, not a suicide pact.
Put another way, it's social technology, just like laws. It allows us, in an ever-more-connected global society, to exist and function. Like a treaty it covers those, and only those, who are party to it.
This means that if you're a genocidal fucking psychopath then no, Virginia, we do not have to "tolerate" your unhinged ramblings. You are cancer in the body politic. You have gleefully ripped your human card to shreds and dropped the pieces in an incinerator, cackling like a hyena on PCP at how you have "owned the libs." You have placed yourselves outside the treaty. We are not obligated to put up with your shit.
tl;dr: if you can't behave like a civilized human being, don't be surprised when you get treated like a rabid animal. Read and be better, or don't, it's your choice, but don't bitch when you get your find-outs.
This is a thorough once-over giving the lie to the "conservatives'" self-serving bullshit squealing that "Butbutbutbutbut if you don't tolerate my intolerance you're a hypocrite!" The short version, as put forth in the article, is this: tolerance is a peace treaty, not a suicide pact.
Put another way, it's social technology, just like laws. It allows us, in an ever-more-connected global society, to exist and function. Like a treaty it covers those, and only those, who are party to it.
This means that if you're a genocidal fucking psychopath then no, Virginia, we do not have to "tolerate" your unhinged ramblings. You are cancer in the body politic. You have gleefully ripped your human card to shreds and dropped the pieces in an incinerator, cackling like a hyena on PCP at how you have "owned the libs." You have placed yourselves outside the treaty. We are not obligated to put up with your shit.
tl;dr: if you can't behave like a civilized human being, don't be surprised when you get treated like a rabid animal. Read and be better, or don't, it's your choice, but don't bitch when you get your find-outs.
On Tolerance - For Everyone Who Needs To Hear This
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 320 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday April 28, @05:51PM (6 children)
I think perhaps this can be generalized to "there should be no absolute" or perhaps "There is only one absolute, which is not well defined".
The first generalization is easier to comprehend. In the case of tolerance, absolute tolerance would lead you to tolerate evil so we can, on that basis, reject tolerance as an absolute.
Now when you start applying this to other virtues it gets tricky. Like love for example. We generally regard it as a virtue, but if you try to imagine absolute love you first have to define love, and that gets tricky. In the Bible we have "there is no greater love than a man lays down his life for a friend" or something like that; but by no means is sacrifice a perfect proxy for love.
So that leads us to the 2nd generalization -- that there is an absolute virtue, we just can't define it.
IMHO, when religion does good, it's in the attempt to define and attain such an absolute virtue and even the irreligious recognize it as good. OTOH, when religion fails it's often because they chose a virtue and made in an absolute. e.g., absolute obedience. First, it's arguably not even a virtue, and even when it is, it creates opportunities for abuse.
Now send me $25, because I just told you obedience is a virtue.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday April 28, @07:30PM
What if one looks to tolerance not as an "absolute", but as a point-on-the-horizon "goal"? What would that goal look like, as something to navigate towards? If we don't have even a direction [schlockmercenary.com], it just seems like one's time would be better spent on issues where we do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29, @05:23AM (4 children)
That is a very Modern Western interpretation. In most schools of normative ethics, the entire idea of "absolute virtue" is self-contradictory. Virtue, by its nature, requires moderation because the state of being drives to excess. And this excess of anything is inherently a vice compared to the ideal we seek.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Saturday April 29, @04:05PM (3 children)
I'm not a philosopher, but it seems to me that if you conclude "absolute virtue" is self-contradictory, it's because your definition of virtue failed, not because the idea of absolute virtue is failed.
Programming analogy follows
Programmer: This program meets your specifications perfectly.
Customer: It's still not what I want.
Programmer: Either the notion of meeting your specifications perfectly is self-contradictory, or the specifications are insufficient. The former sounds like bunk, so let's keep talking.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29, @10:21PM (2 children)
Ignoring the fact that "meeting a specification" isn't a normative virtue, the notion of meeting their specification is self-contradictory in your analogy. On its face, you move away from meeting what they want by trying to follow their specification perfectly; the "better" specification follower is, in fact, the person who imperfectly follows the imperfect specification for they are the ones that will actually effectuate the true desires. In addition, specifications are snapshots of desire while actual desires are affected by the passage of time and perspective and a perfect specification follower would have spotted the insufficient specification in the first place.
Furthermore, a programmer has different goals, perspectives, and motivations. Inherently, being a "good" programmer in practice often means breaking the virtue of following the specification in order to effectuate a (working, cost-effective, deliverable, legal, etc.) program because they know that informal specifications are inaccurate by nature or must bend to the demands of the Universe. In truth, possession of "meets specification" as a virtue is, by necessity, the full embracing of all the considerations underlying their actions. A "good programmer" (or specification meeter) isn't simply someone who creates a program that does what it is supposed to do. Nor do they, as aspect of their character follow the specification just because that is what should be done. Instead, it is the holistic balancing of considerations and judgments in order to actualize the state of being underlying those ideas. And it that, they live the virtues instead of acting the virtues.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01, @08:10AM (1 child)
Yep, it was a mistake to get rid of the philosopher. Code monkeys are not a acceptable substitute.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 06, @08:01AM
Won't you come home, aristarchus, won't you come home? We missed you all the long time!