Can a small minority push too aggressively and embolden a silent majority (or substantially larger plurality) to unify against them and feel justified in resistance? This feels like one of the major themes of the current political climate in the US and parts of EU.
Clearly can democracy –by definition the majority — tolerate enemies? The question is as follows: “ Would you agree to deny the freedom of speech to every political party that has in its charter the banning the freedom of speech?” Let’s go one step further, “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?”
To which he later concludes:
We can answer these points using the minority rule. Yes, an intolerant minority can control and destroy democracy. Actually, as we saw, it will eventually destroy our world.
So, we need to be more than intolerant with some intolerant minorities. It is not permissible to use “American values” or “Western principles” in treating intolerant Salafism (which denies other peoples’ right to have their own religion). The West is currently in the process of committing suicide.
It isn't necessary or desirable to prohibit the ban-speech party from speaking. This is my primary objection to political philosophies that favor minmaxing statistics with policy, over principles. I object in the extreme to the idea that if A->B->C->D->E->F->G->Hitler, then society has a duty to prohibit A at the expense of liberal principles. Start with banning G, if you absolutely must. Speech doesn't directly cause victory. It only seems that way if you're very afraid of something.
> The West is currently in the process of committing suicide.
This one of those lines that, when it appears in an article, you know there's an error somewhere in the preceding thousand lines of argument, as surely as if it were a proof that 1 == 0.
> an intolerant minority can control and destroy democracy
I'm more worried about intolerant minorities of privileged people who are currently in power destroying democracy, not least because they actually have the power.
> “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?”
This is something philosophy has actually done well to detail. It's the paradox of tolerance, and I think the answer absolutely has to be yes. For those looking for easy surface level gotcha's, that seems like a problem. Dig deeper, and it's logically consistent with the belief of tolerance, for if one allows intolerance, their tolerance loses all value.
Very enlightening, but I think the points about non-GMO/organic food are a bad example. The non-GMO/organic movement is a rejection of technologies which improve yields. Distribution costs might have lowered, but supply forces will almost always keep these foods substantially higher in price because yields are lower.
Are yields really low, or is that just an excuse huge conglomerates like Monsanto that wants to "DRM" seeds use, when they don't care about yields at all?
And are they giving a subpar product + patents/copyrights + DRM, and selling it with the same high prices as to make yields irrelevant (when upselling 10x and 100x what you buy produce for, the original yield is an insignificant factor to the price).
It's important to keep in mind that the author of this piece is anti-GMO, so the slant in this case is to paint non-GMO foods in a more positive light.
And I agree, in general the rejection of GMOs is born out of a fear of technology.
The basic argument is interesting but has important preconditions: the majority needs to be tolerant (the change doesn't cost them much). In the case of kosher drinks, it's almost completely invisible.
When people actually have a preference (such as how a drink tastes) we find that the market provides a lot of variety despite the cost. Consider the shelves of your average convenience store.
Applied to religion, changes are far from costless and we often see persistent disputes. And anyone making large-scale predictions needs to account for how incredibly successful and persistent western culture and products are. This doesn't seem to be due to intolerance.
The flip side: An intolerant majority. There are good reasons to avoid leaving whether minorities get civil rights to the whim of the majority, and to instead enshrine such rights in a constitution.
Maybe in the western cultures, but I've been hearing variations of the "nail that sticks out gets hammered down" from my korean family for a long time.
That sentiment comes from the Confucianism, Buddhism, and Neo-Confucianism which shaped Korea. I think that sits alongside with the points the article is making.
Similar to the McDonalds in Milan example in the article, Korea has LotteMart everywhere, and people do sometimes eat there instead of a local joint.
Koreans also study English just like other countries. The annual 수능 exam taken by students is considered to be extremely important for college applications. It has a section on English.
I don't think it's an old phenomenon for Western cultures either. Kafka's novels and stories, for example, are all about the outcasts being pushed away and ostracised from society.
I remember reading an article somewhere discussing the difference between the US saying of "The squeaky wheel gets the grease," and the East-Asian (I think specifically focused on Japan in that article) saying of "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."
Which is an interesting point as I've wondered what final effects people from community/family oriented societies (like Shame/Honor cultures) will have on independent/self-centered western culture and vis-versa.
This is actually why social networks inevitably fail; all small splinter groups become the most vocal, dominating discussion, setting narratives. Even if you remove some of the most extremist groups (like Reddit -> Voat), other, more socially accepted, still stay and might be even more dangerous due to their lower profile/higher acceptance/long-term devastating effects that are hard to predict.
Democracy is not necessarily the majority. It depends on the reference: eligible voters, or actual voters, as well as the participation rate.
The majority "winner" among all eligible voters in most U.S. elections is the non-voter. Voting is not compulsory, and often there are three or more candidates, therefore the winner is usually only getting a plurality of votes from participants. And compared to the eligible citizens, it's really merely a significant minority producing the result.
If you add in the effect of primary elections, where an even smaller number but highly motivated voters participate, contributes to even less involvement thus less majoritarian democracy. Ergo in a general election, the three or four choices you have on a ballot (other than write in) were determined by a process usually involving less than 15% of the eligible voters. [1]
Reasonable accommodation often comes down to a cost argument. In almost all the examples the author cites, it costs next to nothing to accommodate these small groups of people.
It is a corporation or a society deciding that it is willing to make a minuscule procedural or behavioral adjustment in order to accommodate a group of people. For those who don't have a peanut allergy or religious dietary restrictions, the difference is barely perceptible.
If you are a government or a corporation that services tens or hundreds of millions of people. You don't make policies or products just for a plurality or majority of individuals-- you try to them compatible for as many people as possible.
This isn't "tyranny of the minority", it is just good design.
This is not really intolerance winning but a standardisation on the most strict.
it's what was missing from things like trans-pacific partnership and other multi-lateral regulatory agreements.
Where there are differences in regulation, pretty much the only sane means of harmonising is to choose the most strict, most onerous regulation, as that will (almost certainly) be a superset of the other regulations (if not you probably are discussing regulation of different things)
At the moment the EU/US seem to be stuck on chlorination of chicken - but one approach to bactericide will be more effective and win out in time.
> It is not permissible to use “American values” or “Western principles” in treating intolerant Salafism. The West is currently in the process of committing suicide.
This is a far-right diatribe. To see it on HN, where most articles mentioning actual minority rights get flagged into oblivion as “too political” is embarrassing. Just look at the top-level comments: you’ve even got the gay-bashes using this chance to pile on a little, well, gay-bashing.
Nobody is closing their eyes to “salafism”. There is no such thing in the US, at least not as a relevant cultural force. The Muslim community is surrounded and infiltrated by three-letter agencies. Yet mentioning such things, or the President’s fascist dog-whistles gets downvoted to #CCCCCC. I happen to live in a country with about 10x as many Muslims as there are in the US, and I have no trouble finding pork or bacon or any other sort of haram food. And if my Heinz ketchup is kosher, which costs about 1/1,000,000 of a cent (see Wikipedia), I have trouble seeing the injustice.
If you think there’s a dictatorship of political correctness you should look up both “dictatorship” and ”political correctness” in a dictionary. Usually dictatorships come with power, so I’d like to return mine.
"A Kosher (or halal) eater will never eat nonkosher (or nonhalal) food , but a nonkosher eater isn’t banned from eating kosher."
I absolutely never buy halal meat and whenever possible try to avoid kosher certified foods. I do try to vote with my wallet and keep religion out of my food as much as physically possible.
Which would have some impact if this was some general belief/rule -- but most non-religious/lightly religious people don't care about that at all, whereas most religious people do care and insist.
Which makes this a personal whim more than something that has any effect to counter the trend.
> The paradox of tolerance was described by Karl Popper in 1945. The paradox states that if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.
What an overlong and rambling article. Over the years I've found the big trick in writing is to know what to leave out. This is hard to get right but TFA could really do with some editing, it would probably be a stronger article at 1/4 the size that it is.
I believe it. The most extraordinary evidence of this is the gay rights movement. They've adopted "Love Wins" as their slogan, but then refuse to even interact with people who may not support them (i.e: Mike Pence). Clearly, they don't believe their own propaganda.
You have made up two stereotypes at once. First that all gay people adopt the slogan "love wins", then that no gay people will interact with Mike Pence. Neither is correct. Further it is so obviously insane that you would cry hypocrisy at people who are loathe to interact with someone who doesn't believe they have the same rights as other human beings, and who has the power to actually make that happen, that you should be ashamed of yourself, for not even being a horrible person in a subtle way.
“Love wins” is not a slogan of the gay right movement. A quick search turned up a bunch of Christian literature. So stop making up arguments.
Mike Pence wants to allow parents to send their children to “conversion therapy”, and your example of hurtful actions is not meeting with him?
I’m happy to meet with him any time that he’s free, but I can’t guarantee that he’ll enjoy it.
And, to quote a recent comment of yours, “Is this relevant to the linked article at all or are you just finding any excuse available to push your politics?”
[+] [-] nugget|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CrystalLangUser|8 years ago|reply
This is a different sort of case than described in the article, but pushback here is inevitable.
[0]: https://www.aargauerzeitung.ch/schweiz/weg-mit-dem-kreuz-sec...
[+] [-] thriftwy|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] plainOldText|8 years ago|reply
Clearly can democracy –by definition the majority — tolerate enemies? The question is as follows: “ Would you agree to deny the freedom of speech to every political party that has in its charter the banning the freedom of speech?” Let’s go one step further, “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?”
To which he later concludes:
We can answer these points using the minority rule. Yes, an intolerant minority can control and destroy democracy. Actually, as we saw, it will eventually destroy our world.
So, we need to be more than intolerant with some intolerant minorities. It is not permissible to use “American values” or “Western principles” in treating intolerant Salafism (which denies other peoples’ right to have their own religion). The West is currently in the process of committing suicide.
[+] [-] psyc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|8 years ago|reply
This one of those lines that, when it appears in an article, you know there's an error somewhere in the preceding thousand lines of argument, as surely as if it were a proof that 1 == 0.
> an intolerant minority can control and destroy democracy
I'm more worried about intolerant minorities of privileged people who are currently in power destroying democracy, not least because they actually have the power.
[+] [-] adjkant|8 years ago|reply
This is something philosophy has actually done well to detail. It's the paradox of tolerance, and I think the answer absolutely has to be yes. For those looking for easy surface level gotcha's, that seems like a problem. Dig deeper, and it's logically consistent with the belief of tolerance, for if one allows intolerance, their tolerance loses all value.
[+] [-] golemiprague|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] khawkins|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|8 years ago|reply
And are they giving a subpar product + patents/copyrights + DRM, and selling it with the same high prices as to make yields irrelevant (when upselling 10x and 100x what you buy produce for, the original yield is an insignificant factor to the price).
[+] [-] fzeroracer|8 years ago|reply
And I agree, in general the rejection of GMOs is born out of a fear of technology.
[+] [-] skybrian|8 years ago|reply
When people actually have a preference (such as how a drink tastes) we find that the market provides a lot of variety despite the cost. Consider the shelves of your average convenience store.
Applied to religion, changes are far from costless and we often see persistent disputes. And anyone making large-scale predictions needs to account for how incredibly successful and persistent western culture and products are. This doesn't seem to be due to intolerance.
[+] [-] pjc50|8 years ago|reply
You can have anything you like so long as it's manufactured by Coke.
[+] [-] rectang|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MollyR|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CrystalLangUser|8 years ago|reply
Similar to the McDonalds in Milan example in the article, Korea has LotteMart everywhere, and people do sometimes eat there instead of a local joint.
Koreans also study English just like other countries. The annual 수능 exam taken by students is considered to be extremely important for college applications. It has a section on English.
[+] [-] grenoire|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghusbands|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aidenn0|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xeoncross|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whatusername|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 77pt77|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ssdd|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] bitL|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmurf|8 years ago|reply
The majority "winner" among all eligible voters in most U.S. elections is the non-voter. Voting is not compulsory, and often there are three or more candidates, therefore the winner is usually only getting a plurality of votes from participants. And compared to the eligible citizens, it's really merely a significant minority producing the result.
If you add in the effect of primary elections, where an even smaller number but highly motivated voters participate, contributes to even less involvement thus less majoritarian democracy. Ergo in a general election, the three or four choices you have on a ballot (other than write in) were determined by a process usually involving less than 15% of the eligible voters. [1]
[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/10/turnout-was-...
[+] [-] bparsons|8 years ago|reply
It is a corporation or a society deciding that it is willing to make a minuscule procedural or behavioral adjustment in order to accommodate a group of people. For those who don't have a peanut allergy or religious dietary restrictions, the difference is barely perceptible.
If you are a government or a corporation that services tens or hundreds of millions of people. You don't make policies or products just for a plurality or majority of individuals-- you try to them compatible for as many people as possible.
This isn't "tyranny of the minority", it is just good design.
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|8 years ago|reply
it's what was missing from things like trans-pacific partnership and other multi-lateral regulatory agreements.
Where there are differences in regulation, pretty much the only sane means of harmonising is to choose the most strict, most onerous regulation, as that will (almost certainly) be a superset of the other regulations (if not you probably are discussing regulation of different things)
At the moment the EU/US seem to be stuck on chlorination of chicken - but one approach to bactericide will be more effective and win out in time.
[+] [-] shaki-dora|8 years ago|reply
This is a far-right diatribe. To see it on HN, where most articles mentioning actual minority rights get flagged into oblivion as “too political” is embarrassing. Just look at the top-level comments: you’ve even got the gay-bashes using this chance to pile on a little, well, gay-bashing.
Nobody is closing their eyes to “salafism”. There is no such thing in the US, at least not as a relevant cultural force. The Muslim community is surrounded and infiltrated by three-letter agencies. Yet mentioning such things, or the President’s fascist dog-whistles gets downvoted to #CCCCCC. I happen to live in a country with about 10x as many Muslims as there are in the US, and I have no trouble finding pork or bacon or any other sort of haram food. And if my Heinz ketchup is kosher, which costs about 1/1,000,000 of a cent (see Wikipedia), I have trouble seeing the injustice.
If you think there’s a dictatorship of political correctness you should look up both “dictatorship” and ”political correctness” in a dictionary. Usually dictatorships come with power, so I’d like to return mine.
[+] [-] gambiting|8 years ago|reply
I absolutely never buy halal meat and whenever possible try to avoid kosher certified foods. I do try to vote with my wallet and keep religion out of my food as much as physically possible.
[+] [-] coldtea|8 years ago|reply
Which makes this a personal whim more than something that has any effect to counter the trend.
[+] [-] dionian|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghusbands|8 years ago|reply
Some people refuse to buy halal meat, for various reasons, and that prevents it taking over completely.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] raverbashing|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] tachyoff|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] tlarkworthy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wemdyjreichert|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tchalla|8 years ago|reply
> The paradox of tolerance was described by Karl Popper in 1945. The paradox states that if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.
[+] [-] jacquesm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] catdograbbit|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gameswithgo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matt4077|8 years ago|reply
Mike Pence wants to allow parents to send their children to “conversion therapy”, and your example of hurtful actions is not meeting with him?
I’m happy to meet with him any time that he’s free, but I can’t guarantee that he’ll enjoy it.
And, to quote a recent comment of yours, “Is this relevant to the linked article at all or are you just finding any excuse available to push your politics?”
[+] [-] tunesmith|8 years ago|reply
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