The Hypocrisy Of Selective Tolerance

Only a minority of those who endorse widespread social tolerance are truly consistent, as many proponents of tolerance go so far as to openly call for intolerance of whatever ideas they rightly or wrongly consider intolerant.  There are indeed people who cannot deserve protection from intolerance if that intolerance does not manifest itself in unjust ways, like slander or physical abuse, but intolerance itself is not automatically deserving of this response.  Who is being treated in an intolerant manner?  Are they actually guilty of the charges against them?  Are they being accused of something that is actually irrational or immoral in the first place?  It is these factors that determine if intolerance is legitimate or not.  Simply responding to intolerance with intolerance by default is a selective intolerance that has no intellectual or moral foundation.  Indeed, it is downright contradictory.

Showing intolerance to intolerance (no matter what the latter is intolerant of) is no less hypocritical and asinine than saying pacifism must be protected by warfare.  In both cases, there is a massive disparity between professed beliefs and action.  It should be obvious to everyone why it is utterly inconsistent to establish a pacifist society by force.  As soon as the topic is switched from pacifism to tolerance, however, people who are staunchly tolerant of many fallacies and immoral actions suddenly pretend like intolerance is necessary to defeat intolerance.  More specifically, even intolerant hostility towards anti-rationalism, relativism, and certain double standards (there are specific forms of sexism against men and women alike that somehow are defended even in our allegedly egalitarian culture) is usually seen as a negative form of intolerance that needs to met with intolerance!

As I have elaborated upon before, it is logically impossible for there to be an obligation to tolerate irrationality, evil, or the people who defend or practice such things.  It is impossible to rationally defend irrationality.  It is impossible to ethically defend immorality.  Moreover, if objective moral obligations do not exist, not one has a right to be tolerated.  Thus, whether or not objective values exist, tolerance is an ideal that is incompatible with all logically possible realities.  There is no such thing as a rational or morally sound toleration of anything that is not either morally obligatory or amoral.  Rather, there can only be irrational, disproportionate, or otherwise unjust responses to stupidity and evil.  A harsh reaction to a particular evil might treat it as a greater moral problem than it is or involve an evil reaction to evil, but mere harshness is not the issue.

There is never a place for tolerance of irrationality or injustice in a rationalistic society.  Does this mean that anyone who embraces irrationality or injustice should be treated as sub-human?  Of course not!  Many confuse intolerance for cruelty, when it does not have to be anything more than justified harshness.  Treating someone harshly for doing that which is obligatory or for doing something amoral is itself an injustice.  Discriminating against irrational people by recognizing their stupidity, withholding supererogatory forms of kindness, and mocking them when they refuse to change is intolerant, but none of these things is cruel or unjust.  They are, in fact, perfectly rational and just responses to a society whose leaders and citizens are largely non-rationalists.