Homosexuality is a natural observable phenomenon in the human species across time and cultures. It is an aspect of people as fundamental as height or skin tone. Not accepting them for any reason is intolerance and does not have to be tolerated. It is also intolerance to not accept Muslims, but you do not have to tolerate any intolerance that manifests from their beliefs.
People are not tolerant or intolerant, specific views held by and actions done by people are.
You don’t need values to reason about tolerance.
The only form of intolerance Popper recognized was bigotry around beliefs. The concepts (and words) homophobia, racism, transphobia, and islamophobia were not even invented when he wrote about the paradox of intolerance.
When he described the intolerant, he specifically meant people who would use violence to stop others from expressing different beliefs - nothing else. He did NOT mean "intolerance" of any particular skin tone, or sexual behavior, identity group, etc.
This is important because intolerance of sexual behavior doesn't structurally break the system of discussion and truth-finding that we use. You could jail every blue-eyed person, just was we jail people who commit certain crimes, but as long as everyone can speak then our system for collective truth-seeking still works. The ONLY meaning for the word "intolerance" that breaks that is intolerance of free speech, and that's the only kind of intolerance that Popper said needs to be suppressed with force. And he was right.
I see this misunderstanding constantly online - honestly it's hideous to see people twisting Popper's pro-free-speech message into an excuse to crush those they misunderstand or disagree with. Literally inverting his meaning.
Btw, tolerance, like democracy is just a bulls$##t concept. Would you like to be tolerant of the neo-trans man going to the same toilet as your teenage daughters???
Yeah, it really is sad to see people so eager to embrace authoritarian sensibilities like this. The paradox of tolerence has seemingly become a buzzword without meaning, perverted beyond its original intent; a simple facade that enables people to feel self-justified about their own intolerance while still allowing them to claim progressive ideals.
Here, let’s talk about the person who literally replied to your post. Quoting it since I’m sure they will, rightfully, get banned.
> Btw, tolerance, like democracy is just a bulls$##t concept. Would you like to be tolerant of the neo-trans man going to the same toilet as your teenage daughters??? [wawjgreen] [1]
This is hate speech. This is not an expression of belief or rational argument. It’s not even an argument at all, it’s just an emotional appeal to transphobia with the goal of changing your perception of trans women to that of man who is out to sexually assault teen girls, and a direct call to not tolerate them (i.e suppress their speech). Couldn’t have asked for a better example to just fall into the thread.
In contrast, someone expressing a belief or making an actual argument like, “I know that not allowing trans men and women to use the bathroom that matches their gender will cause them dysphoria, but as a matter of public policy here is why I think bathroom bills are necessary…” is not transphobia and is speech that should be tolerated.
[1] And also take a moment to appreciate an IRL instance of accidental-ally. Obviously we don’t want trans men in the women’s restroom.
- George Orwell, "Freedom of the Press" (1945)
Note that this predates Popper's paradox.
> answer me: would you be comfortable if a MAN who says he thinks he is a woman went to the same toilet as your teenage daughters!? cowards downvote, if you are right, come debate me.
Let’s break it down, the imagery here is pretty simple. In both comments “neo-trans man” and “MAN” are front loaded and used with a lot of emphasis, they’re trying prime an image in your brain of a big scary hulking man and trying to get you to associate that image with trans women. Trans women are scary, trans women are dangerous. It’s a cute trick, because it’s actually misandry leveraged against trans women.
Next, “thinks he’s a woman” is also pretty simple. Using “he” in this context serves to keep the previous image fresh in your mind, remember we’re taking about a bad bad man here. And the whole thing characterizes trans women as delusional, unhinged, or “mentally ill.” Just like the first one, this actually leverages ableism against trans women.
And “same toilets as your teenage daughters”, hopefully this one is obvious. Now that we’ve established that trans women are mentally unstable dangerous hulking men we need to paint a picture of the consequences of that. Our victim, someone small, young, weak, defenseless and sympathetic (relying on misogyny here). Our location, somewhere people feel vulnerable and exposed in just the manner that points to sexual assault. Finally! We have an instance of direct transphobia — the fear that trans women are rapists dressing up as women to attack them when they’re vulnerable, and that they’re pedo groomers. Two for one special!
So let’s circle back, how does this suppress speech. Because it’s not a gun pointed at someone with the threat of pulling the trigger if they speak. It’s suppressing speech by way of character assassination and marginalization. The former is a way of discrediting anything they say because who would take anything a mentally unhinged monstrous rapist says seriously when they ask for “equal rights” — “yeah equal rights to diddle kids you sick freak.” And the latter by way of reach. Speech is pretty ineffective when you have no one to speak to and nobody wants to associate with monsters.
P.S. the reason people don't bother debating people like you, is that it's usually like playing chess with a pigeon and they know this.
Someone else's words don't justify your use of force/violence. If you think they do, your values are broken and you're simply another authoritarian tyrant trying to crush the ethnic/cultural/religious/ideological group you don't like. Everyone in history has weak excuses for their tyranny like this. --
Also note that it's trivially easy to short-circuit your argument just by someone saying you're being white-phobic or misandric. Well, now you get to explain why _this_ "whateverphobic" statement is "violence" which demands a violent response, but _that_ "whateverphobic" isn't.
Ultimately you've just defined your beliefs as not violent, and others' as violent and denied the very legitimacy of any thoughts beside your own. Perfect authoritarian tyrant behavior.
Of course not, a crowbar isn’t a weapon until it’s used as such. I swear, entire generations have been set back when it comes to making progress on this due to that sticks and stones nonsense. It is ridiculous the idea that words somehow live in some abstract plane of existence unable to affect the real world if you just ignore them and that people don’t use words to achieve real life outcomes that hurt others.
> Also note that it's trivially easy to short-circuit your argument just by someone saying you're being white-phobic or misandric. Well, now you get to explain why _this_ "whateverphobic" statement is "violence" which demands a violent response, but _that_ "whateverphobic" isn't.
This isn’t the gotcha you think it is. Hate speech regardless of its target, including white men, is violence. You’re confusing the “prejudice plus power” definition of institutional racism with hate speech.
> Ultimately you've just defined your beliefs as not violent, and others' as violent.
I have not, in fact my position is entirely belief independent. Picking some generally agreed upon abhorrent views as example — if you want to write a missive about how people of dark skin are genetically inferior, that women are weak and a functioning society requires that they submit themselves to men, your findings that homosexuality is a disease and should be treated as one rather than accepted I’m not going to stop you because the beliefs themselves aren’t hate speech.