>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.
That's easily explained: citing a dictionary definition doesn't mean you know the meaning or how to apply it in a context. The man of the year award is not intolerant, just like giving a trans woman a woman of the year is not intolerant toward biological women who believe they are not the same gender as a trans woman. Tolerance does not mean forbidding all disagreement and satire.
But I am glad you have understood that a comment is not necessarily tolerant or intolerant. That's great progress, it took a while, but I applaud the effort and persistence. Good luck with the rest of the journey.
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.