Is tolerance intolerant?

[Rev. Rye]

A couple of thoughts I had and wanted opinions on.

Are you really tolerant in your beliefs? Is tolerance something to strive for? Should we strive to be more tolerant as a society? Is it even worth it?

Pluralization ought to be the case and it is beneficial. I don't agree with pluralization extrapolated to relativism though.


https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/0...51839.html

Even instrumental carols have been banned in some schools. Are people so weak in their beliefs that they can't accommodate someone else's belief?
I've told a muslim I hope your Ramadan goes well. I'd have no problem telling a Wiccan that I hope their Yule festival is well. It doesn't mean I support those beliefs.

I just don't know when "being tolerant" or "politically correct" became so much about what we don't want to see or believe or have, and less about respecting the sacredness of other people's beliefs?

I mean if we're truly an autonomous culture or striving for one, do we really respect the autonomy of the individual?

In 1945, Karl Popper wrote a book called The Open Society and Its Enemies, about the basic contradiction inherent in tolerance, and this is what he ended up concluding:

Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, 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 certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.

In practice, I think there is one important limit to where the line should go: To quote the old adage, "“My right to swing my arm ends where your nose begins.” Admittedly, things have to be judged by several factors (mostly the basis of your concerns and whether or not they're rooted in facts and/or observable reality, and their effects on the world around you) for them to mean anything [especially since the phrase in question seems to have originated in Prohibitionist circles and their definition of where one person's nose begins is kind of nebulous and the effects were/are not all that helpful], but, without taking all that into account, not only tolerance, but ethics in general, just ends up boiling down to the question of "How dare you worry about your selfish desires when you should be worrying about my selfish desires?"

That said, as strongly as I believe in a separation of church and state, the example of instrumental carols being banned from holiday concerts really seems to be taking things a bit far, not in a dangerous way, but in a really pointless one.