Let us ask a few questions. If a liberal, progressive society oppresses the intolerant, is it self contradicting? Is it violating the freedom of the intolerant? Is such a society a hypocrite one?

When you go on debating with the irrational, emotional and the illogical, they will almost always use fallacies to counter your arguments. But the world is in turmoil right now and opening up news channels or newspapers feels nauseating to me. I think we must seek answers to these questions — frequently raised by the said groups to be wielded as fallacious shields — and we should do it logically.

Philosopher Karl Popper coined the term ‘Paradox of tolerance’ in his book The Open Society and Its Enemies. The idea states —

“In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."

But is it not intolerance itself?
Yes. It is.
But it’s a necessity, it has to be there to ensure that the intolerant cannot destroy the tolerant society through their intolerance. That is the paradox.

As a layman, I understand that in simpler terms. If you let someone get away with something evil or bad, they will do it again. And they’ll do it with more eagerness and ferocity than before since they didn’t face retribution the last time. Seen it happening countless times.

The rise of fascist third reich is a perfect and obvious example. In the beginning, despite concerns from various nations, England and France kept trying to please Hitler, bidding to his will, hoping he’d stop at one point. It still amazes me that they (Eng, Fra) gave away a large chunk of Czechoslovakia’s land to Hitler and no representative from that country was present in the meeting! Yes, I’m stating the historical facts in a much simpler terms but doesn’t make it any less true. We all know how the third reich took advantage of Europe’s amiable attitude and then burned it to the ground. Many examples can be drawn from history where the intolerant, given the chances, destroyed the tolerant society.

I do agree with Karl Popper. But then comes the second part of the equation. If we act intolerant as a society then what’s the point of being tolerant in the first place?

In Popper’s words -

"I do not imply for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force..."

This is quite self explanatory. We don’t have to be intolerant to intolerance as long as the dispute stays in a non-violent state where the possibility of intelligent discussions is still there. But let’s say the intolerants come at you with knives and bombs, you really don’t look for excuses to look the other way. You have to fight them, for the sake of your safety and the greater good.

The people, the philosophies that encourage intolerance should be suppressed. This might seem like a baffling paradox but it really isn’t. It’s about where exactly are you ready to draw the line.

The illustration was taken from reddit, here