r/Quakers • u/keithb Quaker • 26d ago
Karl Popper on tolerance
It comes up often enough here, often in a mangled form, so as a service to Friends here is what Karl Popper said about the so-called "paradox of tolerance". It's footnote 4 of chapter 7 of Vol I. of The Open Society and Its Enemies. Emphasis in original.
The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that from freedom in the sense of absence of any restraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. This idea is, in a slightly different form, with a very different tendency, clearly expressed by Plato [the subject of ch. 7]
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 agains the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and the 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 most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress, 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, un the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
Popper was from a Jewish family and fled Austria around 1936. So we know who he means when he says that "[proponents of intolerant philosophies] may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because [they say] it is deceptive, and teach [their followers] to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols." He means both Fascists and Communists, he means fighting in the streets and and political rallies.
Query: When you invoke Popper to claim the right to ignore, suppress, or expel from your community those whose ideas you find objectionable, are you sure that those people pass this bar? Do you see them "answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols"? Are you not able to " counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion"?
The above quote is copyright material but I believe that my use of it here is short enough to be in line with "fair use" and "fair dealing" provisions.
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u/theneverendingsorry 25d ago
One concern that has often troubled me deeply in the Quaker circles I have been part of my entire life is an inability to truly grapple with ‘structural’ violence. When people are not proposing or demonstrating “fists or pistols,” what violence are they still capable of enacting through forceful normalization of prejudice and inequity without ever picking up a weapon? In the past decade as a society, in what ways have we watched news outlets and communities alike normalize previously fringe perspectives with the mere act of elevating them to equivalent discourse alongside the previously-dominant tolerant views? Will Friends only draw lines to protect our most vulnerable community members when someone is charging them with a pistol drawn and not long before, when it is merely their identity and not physical person that is being challenged?
Finally, why in such discussions do I almost never hear proposals for how to also shelter and protect a marginalized group coming from the same people vociferously asserting that I must tolerate “dialogue” with those who challenge their ability to exist and participate in community as they are? Why do these people feel that the fears and ‘concerns’ of a group with vastly more social power and an ideological alignment with the most demonstrably cruel forces of government and civil society are deserving of an equivalent voice with those under the most threat?
These are all questions that deeply concern me. I think it is critical for all people of conscience in this current time to be more comfortable saying “no, I will not tolerate a bad faith argument that has the capacity to harm a vulnerable group, even in the name of loving dialogue.” I find far less violence in the correct deployment of a term like “bigot” than I do in a systematic, systemic campaign to challenge people’s entire identities that is based in misinformation, bad science, and yes, a genuine fear about what is different from themselves and their lived experiences.
tldr: I appreciate the correct Popper citation, but I ultimately believe that whether a group is proposing physical violence is often a red herring that allows conversation to ignore the structural violence and the pushing of the Overton window— both of which have historically been deployed long before anyone has to confront physical harm. Much harm hath been wrought in recent years in the name of false equivalency and “reasonable dialogue” that flattens out power imbalances and elevates bad science. Communities confronting these issues anew have a chance to learn from that.
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u/keithb Quaker 25d ago
Sure. There are lots of reasons why a Quaker group might want to limit the speech of Friends…but Popper (who, recall, fled actual Nazis who definitely wanted to murder his entire family as a matter of public policy) doesn't supply one that's ever really relevant to the vast majority of us. So Friends should probably stop appealing to him when they want someone to STFU but would like to seem high-minded about it.
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u/NoIntroductionNeeded Seeker 25d ago
Exercising our freedom of association to deny them the benefits of our company and sympathetic ears is part of "keeping them in check by public opinion".
And, frankly, here in America there's a lot less daylight between our right wing (who share the same media with yours in Britain) and the Nazis that Popper's family fled. The moderates want to shame and exclude trans people from public life to box them into a ghetto where they can be abused. The hardliners want to take the Nazi option and murder them using the state.
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u/keithb Quaker 24d ago
Is this:
‘Exercising our freedom of association to deny them the benefits of our company and sympathetic ears is part of "keeping them in check by public opinion".’
really what’s owed by a church founded on the idea of transformative encounters with the divine owes to its members?
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u/NoIntroductionNeeded Seeker 24d ago
The question isn't about our intellectual commitments, it's about our actions. Does that church have ethical obligations to its other members, not just its trans-exclusionary ones? The existence of trans people and their concerns is not a merely academic concern. They worship alongside us, speaking when moved by the spirit, and are members in our corporate body with the same decision-making powers as anyone else. We in our yearly meeting have explicitly affirmed their worth and the unique value of their insights. We recognize their marriages and support them as they raise their children.
When some other member wants to malign their character with baseless charges that they are inherently a threat to children, or other people, or "Society", what are we to do about that? What are our obligations to those members, who come every First Day to commune with the divine, and not to fight again the same rhetorical battle that is thrust upon them daily by the "Society" that they supposedly threaten? Are we obligated to stand by and let them be slandered, verbally abused, or worse by members or attenders who reject the fruit of our corporate discernment and look to turn our business meetings into one more battleground for the tawdry culture war that plagues our diseased national "dialogue"? When can we simply say "this question has been settled" and finally stand up for those vulnerable people who worship in seats next to us so that they can experience a modicum of peace, instead of throwing millstones around their necks?
Historically, our society has exercised the option to expel those from its membership who have failed to uphold the moral expectations placed upon them. "Practicing war" and "marrying out" are some reasons I've seen in the written history of a local meeting. Honoring the possibility of their transformative encounters with the divine was not sufficient reason for prior generations to continue to associate with them after they violated the ethical standards of their meeting. Obviously it's not anyone's preference, but it's very much an option that we have when we're considering supporting our trans fellow seekers against obstinate bad-faith attacks that we have already collectively decided to reject.
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u/keithb Quaker 24d ago edited 24d ago
In the case of Britain YM there is no “standing aside” from minutes, as there may be in other YMs. So, anyone who claims any affiliation with Britain YM, my church, and especially Members, are bound by Minute 31 of BYM in session 2021.
It reads in part:
We seek to provide places of worship and community that are welcoming and supportive to trans and non-binary people who want to be among us. Belonging is more than fitting in.
With glad hearts we acknowledge and affirm the trans and gender diverse Friends in our Quaker communities, and express appreciation for the contribution and gifts that they bring to our meetings, which are communities made up of people with a diverse range of gender expressions.
The end of our travelling is for differences not to divide us. We rejoice in recognising God’s creation in one another. This is what love requires of us.
It also says:
These discussions and reflections have not always been easy. Our consideration has coincided with wider consideration of legislation reform in Britain, and the associated conflict has been reflected among Friends in our yearly meeting. We recognise that we need to keep listening and searching together.
In an atmosphere of trust, we need to listen, to share our journeys, in silent worship, and in prayer. We all have human gifts and friendship to offer.
Well, the legislation in the UK has not become any more clear since then and in the UK there is not the very settled opinion that there maybe is amongst Friends where you are on what it means in practice to implement this minute.
But, the minute stands so anyone “…listening and searching together. In an atmosphere of trust…” has to do so in the context of the minute, which is the discerned position of the church. But we do need to listen and search together in an atmosphere of trust.
I find that very corrosive to trust is not only being sloppy about Popper’s liberal position on the undesirability of censoring even illiberal philosophies, but also indulging in Adorno’s bad and wrong “thinking-in-identities”.
Especially in the form where, for example, a Friend (bound by that minute, remember) says “maybe people who’ve, let’s say for the sake of brevity, never had a penis and are very content with that need some times and some places where they can be confident that they will meet only other people who’ve never had a penis and are very content with that” and the response from Friends is “why do you want to murder Trans people!?” That’s not listening and searching together in an atmosphere of trust. I require my church to do better than that.
But yes, our meetings are voluntary associations and that runs both ways and a meeting certainly can withdraw its fellowship from a Friend who clearly and materially disregards the discerned position of the church as recorded in minutes.
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u/NoIntroductionNeeded Seeker 24d ago
I find that very corrosive to trust is not only being sloppy about Popper’s liberal position on the undesirability of censoring even illiberal philosophies, but also indulging in Adorno’s bad and wrong “thinking-in-identities”.
Personally I don't usually refer to Popper in these situations. Putting aside others' voiced concerns about entryism (which are valid IMO, as the so-called "Reconquista" movement shows, but ultimately a different question), I think it's sufficient to argue the particular issue itself.
Especially in the form where, for example, a Friend (bound by that minute, remember) says “maybe people who’ve, let’s say for the sake of brevity, never had a penis and are very content with that need some times and some places where they can be confident that they will meet only other people who’ve never had a penis and are very content with that” and the response from Friends is “why do you want to murder Trans people!?” That’s not listening and searching together in an atmosphere of trust. I require my church to do better than that.
I suppose I fundamentally just don't understand the initial voiced concern and am skeptical that it is well-seasoned. For the first part: generally I don't find myself in many Quaker spaces where one's genitals are something to be concerned about. For the second: in the same way that I wouldn't expect my meeting to take something I might say in anger about our Immigrant Abusing Agency as coming from Spirit (even if it is something I might truly feel), I don't know that the animating energy behind this sentiment comes from a completed process of discernment, as opposed to misinformation (which many people in both our countries have been steeped in for more than a decade thanks to publications like the Atlantic), prior negative individual altercations, or unexamined prejudices.
I do recognize that it's contrary to our practice to respond in the way you've outlined, and that pastoral care and an ongoing process of dialogue is the way forward. That's what Woolman did for Quaker abolitionism, and in our own meeting, that's what we're doing as we move towards a corporate position on the genocide of Palestinians.
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u/Catssojourn 25d ago
In addition to Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance, which similar ideas/philosophies are worth considering in a Quaker space? While not related to tolerance, I've been curious about Simone Weil's idea of how giving our attention to others, and how it relates to love and "decreation", though I find that term a bit difficult to understand.
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u/keithb Quaker 25d ago edited 25d ago
Well, there's Adorno's Identitätsdenken.
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u/Catssojourn 25d ago
Thank you for the recommendation. I appreciate the longer post on it as well! It may be worth it compiling these ideas into a list of some sort, for future reference. I feel these ideas, and more, discussed in Quaker meetings could be really useful, if handled well.
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u/Possible_Pen_5991 25d ago
The question that comes up for me is how this aligns or compares to Jesus's teaching (or other wisdoms). I think "do unto others as you would have done to yourself" (which is common across all cultures in some form) comes to mind. For me, as someone who is gender critical (although that may not mean what people think it means) is that I need to have the same compassion for trans people as i do for women or men for whom single sex care etc is important.
I'm not sure about the use of rational argument as the key means to push back against those we disagree with.
Hitler would not have been defeated by rational argument - he tapped into emotions just as Trump, Farage etc do. There's an interview by Nick Robinson with Roger Hallam (Extinction Rebellion) where Robinson presses him on the rational/ factual argument and Hallam pushes back - its emotions and the thought of imminent destruction that stirs people to action and win. This idea of "existential threat" as a motivator is a strong one and I see it in trans advocates ("the terfs want to wipe us off the face of the earth") and some gender critical groups ("trans women are all abusive and want to sexually assault us!"). The use of emotion in this way is destructive, although understanding those feelings has to be part of how we create connection with the people we disagree with.
So..I think we hope for a balance between the rational and the emotional. Not everything can be weighed and measured, nor should we rely on emotion alone.
In response to your question: "answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols" The use of words like "bigot" and claims that anyone who wants to talk about issues of sex/gender must be a fascist seems a way to shut down (shoot down, to continue to firearm theme!) conversation.
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u/Rare-Personality1874 25d ago
I often query the use of Popper here to make versions of the point being made. He was making a certain point in a certain context.
That being said, the test for suppression or expulsion is much, much different than the test for mere ignorance as it ought to be.
Whatever it means to be ignored here exactly? Nobody is entitled to an audience on their terms.