I don’t understand your point then. If the Babylon Bee can use their own definitions, so can Twitter. What grounds does that leave to object to a suspension based off Twitter’s definition?
I don't understand how your question relates to my point.
The compromise position is that you tolerate people's personal definitions and words, e.g., you would not demand they be punished for having or using them.
I'm not saying there is some legal "grounds" you could use to bar somebody from being intolerant of what you say or think, you just asked what a compromise position would be, and tolerance is one and it's what the progressive position was for a long time.
We don't agree on that. Pretty disingenuous and infantile that you claim that's the conclusion of my comment now, wasn't it? Do you want to actually have a conversation about this or just come up with some vapid "gotcha"?
It's fundamental to democracy and a healthy public discourse that people be allowed to voice their opinions including disagreements. It's quite extremist to believe that people who disagree with us must stop talking about it. That is not what tolerance means.
What's the end game? Ban and censor and silence until nobody complains, disagrees, speaks out, or satirizes The Truth™ ?
I already said I don't understand your viewpoint. You seem to be saying the Babylon Bee is free to challenge progressives', USA Today's, and Twitter's definitions of these words. However, you also seem to be saying that neither progressives nor Twitter can challenge the Babylon Bee's definition.
The everyone should just be tolerant of other people's definitions solution kind of relies on everyone being tolerant of other people's definitions.
I already said twice that I didn't understand whatever point you were trying to make. If you "want to actually have a conversation" like you say, you could try either directly addressing my comment or at least rephrasing and expanding on your point.
You said everyone should be tolerant of everyone else's definitions. Doesn't everyone include progressive, conservatives, USA Today, Twitter, and the Babylon Bee? If so, aren't you suggesting they should all stop complaining about the definitions the other groups use?
I'm not saying or suggesting any such thing as you insinuate and a really basic reading of what I wrote makes that very clear. If and when you are ready to have a grownup conversation, I'll be here. Until then, snarky content-free "zingers" don't interest me in any way. I literally do not care in the slightest and certainly won't dignify it with a response. Nobody else is reading this or being swayed by these comments, so if you don't want to try to have a constructive and polite conversation just move on. I hear twitter is a great place if you want to bait people with that kind of comment though.
>I'm not saying or suggesting any such thing as you insinuate and a really basic reading of what I wrote makes that very clear. If and when you are ready to have a grownup conversation, I'll be here.
How many times do I have to say that I do not understand what point you are trying to make? I'm not saying that like I think your opinion is bad. I am saying I don't understand how you are applying your principle of tolerance in this situation. Either directly tell me why my summary of your position is wrong or stop playing this "grownup conversation" card. A grownup way to approach this situation would be to actually engage in the conversation rather than repeatedly complaining that I am having this conversation wrong.
And how many times do I have to tell you I do not respond to that kind of rhetoric? I literally do not care about it. And that includes the high horse you're on now, doesn't work with comments like "Ok, I’m glad we agree that the Babylon Bee should stop complaining about how other people define these words." in the thread.
The point I am trying to make, which I made from the very beginning, is that tolerance to peoples' different opinions is a possible compromise position and it was the progressive position for a time. That's it, that's the point. You asked about what compromise position there would be vs shutting down debate from people who believe sex and gender are the same thing and binary, and that's an answer for you.
You may not understand what tolerance means and want to ask more about that, you may have other questions, you may dispute that was ever the progressive position, or you may argue that it is not a viable compromise, but not by asking some nonsensical rhetorical question about what I am saying, or what I agree with. If you are not capable of addressing the comment without snide digs at the messenger, just take it elsewhere. As I said, nobody else will ever read this so the performantive "I won" style of internet-arguing is pointless. And I'm not getting the impression by now that you are interested an answer to your question. So why even waste any more time here?
>You may not understand what tolerance means and want to ask more about that, you may have other questions
I understand what tolerance means. I don't understand who you are expecting tolerance from in this situation.
The Babylon Bee's article is not tolerant of Levine's or WaPo's definitions. The BB's refusal to remove the tweet is not tolerant of Twitter's definitions. People aren't objecting to the BB's definition in a vacuum. They are reacting to the lack of tolerance from the BB.
The problem doesn't originate with a lack of progressive tolerance. It originates from the BB's intolerance.
> The Babylon Bee's article is not tolerant of Levine's or WaPo's definitions.
Please explain your reasoning. I think this is getting to your fundamental misunderstanding about what tolerating speech and opinions you disagree with means.
> The BB's refusal to remove the tweet is not tolerant of Twitter's definitions.
This is not a correct use of the meaning of tolerance. You could say they didn't tolerate twitter's terms of service or moderation demands, but not that they didn't tolerate twitter's "definitions", so it's just muddying the waters here I think because of the asymmetric positions of the two parties when we're talking about speech on twitter's platform. So we should focus on how BB is not tolerating Levine or WaPo first.
> People aren't objecting to the BB's definition in a vacuum. They are reacting to the lack of tolerance from the BB.
> The problem doesn't originate with a lack of progressive tolerance. It originates from the BB's intolerance.
People most certainly object to different definitions, but the interesting thing I think is how you are using the word (in)tolerance here. The way you are using it certainly does not match the use of the word in the former progressive position that I was referring to.
>Please explain your reasoning. I think this is getting to your fundamental misunderstanding about what tolerating speech and opinions you disagree with means.
Levine and USA Today (I mistakenly said WaPo before) are using a definition of women that includes trans women. The Babylon Bee disagree with them. There are a few different ways the BB could react.
The most tolerant way would be to not say anything because Levine and USA Today's definitions don't impact them.
A less tolerant way would be to denote their disagreement through a related article that doesn't directly address Levine or USA Today. They could have had a cat winning at the Westminster Dog Show or whatever. That gets their point across without confrontation.
They chose an even less tolerant response. They directly mocked Levine and USA Today with derision and indirectly made Levine a target for future harassment. That behavior isn't tolerant.
Compare this to a scenario in which the tolerance debate is about a more discreet moral/immoral issue. Imagine I am anti-Semitic and hated when Bernie Sanders ran for President. The most tolerant response would be to keep that hate to myself and just vote for someone else. The less tolerant response would be to maybe write some webcomic in which the Happy Merchant meme disastrously runs for President to indirectly mock Sanders. The most intolerant response would be to name that webcomic character Bernie Sanders and reply to all his tweets with a link to the comic. That is what the Babylon Bee effectively did by directly promoting Levine as a target for ridicule to an audience that they had to know would harass her.
>This is not a correct use of the meaning of tolerance. You could say they didn't tolerate twitter's terms of service or moderation demands, but not that they didn't tolerate twitter's "definitions", so it's just muddying the waters here I think because of the asymmetric positions of the two parties when we're talking about speech on twitter's platform. So we should focus on how BB is not tolerating Levine or WaPo first.
Twitter's ToS on this issue use a definition of women that includes trans women. Otherwise, misgendering someone wouldn't be against Twitter's rules.
> Levine and USA Today (I mistakenly said WaPo before) are using a definition of women that includes trans women. The Babylon Bee disagree with them. There are a few different ways the BB could react.
> The most tolerant way would be to not say anything because Levine and USA Today's definitions don't impact them.
> A less tolerant way would be to denote their disagreement through a related article that doesn't directly address Levine or USA Today. They could have had a cat winning at the Westminster Dog Show or whatever. That gets their point across without confrontation.
> They chose an even less tolerant response. They directly mocked Levine and USA Today with derision
That's simply not what tolerating the words and opinions of others means though. It doesn't mean that you can't disagree, you can't voice your disagreement, or you can't mock or satirize.
> and indirectly made Levine a target for future harassment. That behavior isn't tolerant.
Satirizing that USA Today award is not intolerant of their speech, because it is not calling for or taking action against an individual or group and their right or ability to speak.
And everybody's opinions and disagreements and speech can have good and bad intended and unintended consequences. People who believe sex and gender are the same and trans is a mental illness can be made subject to harassment by people who argue against them or mock them in public too. You can argue that's not that's a good thing and whether or not tolerance of speech and opinions promotes that (more than intolerance would), but you can't just call it intolerance just because you don't like it.
>That's simply not what tolerating the words and opinions of others means though. It doesn't mean that you can't disagree, you can't voice your disagreement, or you can't mock or satirize.
>Satirizing that USA Today award is not intolerant of their speech, because it is not calling for or taking action against an individual or group and their right or ability to speak.
Does that mean that you would consider mocking Jewish beliefs and calling them lies to be tolerant because it isn't calling for action against Jewish people? If not, how is it different from mocking Levine's identity?
> People who believe sex and gender are the same and trans is a mental illness can be made subject to harassment by people who argue against them or mock them in public too.
True, but that is the paradox of tolerance. No one cares what your personal definition is if you keep it to yourself. Those people will only get met with intolerance when they voice their own intolerance.
> Does that mean that you would consider mocking Jewish beliefs and calling them lies to be tolerant because it isn't calling for action against Jewish people? If not, how is it different from mocking Levine's identity?
No, I would not call any kind of speaking being tolerant, because that's not what tolerance means. You seem to be struggling badly with this simple concept, or at least pretending to be. It could be intolerant, if you were calling for some action against a person, but it doesn't make sense to call it tolerant just because it's not intolerant.
Tolerance does not mean anybody's ideas or opinions or beliefs are sacred and protected from disagreement or mockery. It's almost implied in the word really, I don't see why this is such a struggle - tolerance [for opinions I don't agree with].
Should Christians or Muslims or Atheists have protection from criticism or mockery? No, so I'm definitely about equality when it comes to Jews. How about you?
> True, but that is the paradox of tolerance.
Tolerance is not a magical silver bullet that has no problems.
> No one cares what your personal definition is if you keep it to yourself. Those people will only get met with intolerance when they voice their own intolerance.
That's still not what intolerance means, but sure censoring or banning or threatening people who voice opinions you disagree with is an alternative to tolerance, which you seemed to be talking about in the original comment I replied to. It goes both ways, right?
I'm not trying to catch you with some gotcha trick question. I am trying to find some consistency to your opinion. Are you saying your definition of tolerance is purely based on action or at least incitement to action and not based on speech? Any speech that stops short of calling for action qualifies as tolerant? Does that mean someone can be an open bigot and still be considered tolerant if they don't act on that bigotry or incite anyone else to act on it?
No I'm not saying that. I'm saying what I said (although I did edit it a couple of times, I never included anything that should have remotely given you that impression).
If speech is not intolerant that does not mean it's tolerant. It's not one or the other, and they are entirely independent concepts.
> Does that mean someone can be an open bigot and still be considered tolerant if they don't act on that bigotry or incite anyone else to act on it?\
It's possible they could be that and still be tolerant of other people voicing different opinions. It does get pretty complicated with what exactly constitutes bigotry, and where the line is from robust opinions and disagreements to assault, harrassment, intimidation, etc.
Let's take the Clintons and Obamas for example -- they are homophobic bigots who disagreed with the rights of gay people to get married and campaigned on hateful platforms of marriage being between a man and a woman, and yet they (as far as I know) did not censor or attack or intimidate those who disagreed with them on that issue, so we could say they were tolerant of different opinions being voiced, despite their bigotry and intolerance for gay marriage rights itself. Did they attract hateful supporters emboldened by their speech? Perhaps. Were their voters and supporters complicit in resulting discrimination and attacks on LGBTQI+ peoples? Maybe. It's a pretty tough problem though isn't it. Should they have been silenced, barred from office, imprisoned for what they said? No I don't think so.
I don't pretend there is a simple formula for it that everybody can follow without disagreement. There are no alternatives where that is the case though, except for the old "everybody who disagrees with sig will be punished" dictatorship.
Is there any objective evidence that censorship and intolerance would have better outcomes?
>If speech is not intolerant that does not mean it's tolerant. It's not one or the other, and they are entirely independent concepts.
Well I guess that is the heart of our disagreement. The prefix in- means not. Intolerant literally means not tolerant. Not intolerant speech is by definition tolerant speech.
> Well I guess that is the heart of our disagreement. The prefix in- means not. Intolerant literally means not tolerant. Not intolerant speech is by definition tolerant speech.
That is absolutely not the heart of the disagreement, just a weird definition that you're wrong about. The disagreement is fundamentally about whether tolerance for speech means allowing people you disagree with to speak.
Tolerant means you are tolerant toward others. Speaking is not itself an act of tolerance toward other people. I could make a post about Linux programming on Hacker News, that would not be tolerant toward trans people for example. It wouldn't be intolerant, it's just that it wouldn't be tolerant because I am not "tolerating" anybody when making such a post.
Or let's take another example in the strange gotcha twitter style you seem to be most comfortable communicating with: You posted an earlier comment which was "Yeah, insiders not knowing the full details of Musk's plan because Musk doesn't have a detailed plan yet seems more likely than WaPo just making some stuff up." There was nothing in that comment that showed an intolerance to Nazis attacking Jews, so you are saying you tolerate Nazis attacking Jews when you made that comment, right?
And there is nothing about the in- prefix of the word or anything else about it that means everything must be either tolerant or intolerant, that's ridiculous. Insoluble is the opposite of soluble, meaning it can't be dissolved. Does that mean your comment is insoluble because it is not soluble?
Tolerant: willing to accept behavior and beliefs that are different from your own, although you might not agree with or approve of them.[1]
Intolerant: disapproving of or refusing to accept ideas or ways of behaving that are different from your own.[2]
These are the definitions from Cambridge Dictionary and show these words are direct opposites of each other. We can look at it like boolean logic.
True == !False
!True == False
NULL != True
NULL != False
NULL != !True
NULL != !False
Tolerant == Not Intolerant
Not Tolerant == Intolerant (the literal definition of the word)
NULL != Tolerant
NULL != Intolerant
NULL != Not Tolerant
NULL != Not Intolerant
The Musk example is not "not tolerant". It is NULL. It is making no comment about Nazism. The Babylon Bee article was not a NULL value because it was directly commenting on the acceptance of trans people.
A possible alternative position is tolerance for others' words and definitions, and this was the mainstream progressive position up to about 10 years ago.
That is not using your creative definition of the word tolerance, but the common one and the one which was used by progressives when they advocated for that position. So there's an answer for your question I originally answered.
