Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance: If a society tolerates all types of speech and political expression it will be challenged and subverted by those who wish to suppress freedom and tolerance. In order to defend the tolerance of a society, one must be intolerant of intolerance. If I’m reading the article right, he said that while outlawing intolerant speech would be undesirable, rational discourse should be used to help maintain the popular dominance of tolerant principles – that intolerance defends itself by suppressing rational discussion. But that at the end of the day, a tolerant society must reserve the right to say a dangerous enough expression of intolerance is illegal and can be suppressed. I expect the way that was written into post-WWII German law would sit well with him, whether the actual application of those laws would or not.
I’m not here to discuss the plus and minus or the exact nature of how to best adjudicate the tolerance v intolerance in an ideal society. Taking the paradox only on its face but not going all the way to the conclusion he offers. And having done that, I want to look at a phenomenon affecting modern politics that can serve as an example of the paradox in action.
The current flavor of fascism is a direct result of the very postmodernism that it postures against. There are other factors and influences, especially the “therapy culture” that emerged in the boomer generation, but in the course of my life, this is the one I’ve seen time and again. The tolerance that was used to justify this intolerance was grounded in postmodern values.
Postmodernism has many aspects, but I’m going to use the broadest version here. Modernism was the idea there are right ways to do things, truths that can be discovered and known. Postmodernism was about uncertainty, vagueness, and especially the idea there are multiple “ways of knowing” – functionally, that opinions can be as valid a view of reality as facts. The cry of the postmodern fascist, when they have lost the bully pulpit and know they’ve lost the argument as well, is a Lebowksian, “That’s just, like, your opinion, maaan.”
The Sokal hoax was, on its face, convincing enough. Given that Sokal himself is part of that raft of neo-nazis and enablers in Epstein Pal Krauss’s new book, I suspect there are valid arguments that his stunt was bullshit from go. It was meant to illustrate that postmodernism bad, reality is in facts and concrete things. And yet the Krauss cohort is a clown car of people who habitually and fiercely ignore good strong science that refutes their biases, and that use flimsy and handwavey science to support what they want to believe. “Facts don’t care about your feelings” cries lil Benny Shaps on monday, “Your intolerance hurts my feelings” on tuesday.
Faux News popularized opinion-as-reality. It’s possible to cherry pick reportage of factual things to support ideological positions, but it’s so much easier to spew propaganda when you realize “somebody said a thing” can be “news.” Then it’s Editorial Page: the Ostensible News Network. You can’t say anything anybody says is wrong, because that’s just, like, their opinion, man. I’m using my freedom of speech! You hates freedom?
I’ve heard this play out so so so many times at the street level. In my high school classrooms in 1993, in the arguments of randos on buses, in arguments with people I know. Person expresses factually wrong idea, is shown to be wrong, and says it’s an opinion, or even cites the first amendment. Maybe I’m wrong, but it feels to me like a natural extension of the idea that all opinions about truth have some validity – an essential postmodern idea, embraced by the masses without ever acknowledging the source.
There were variations on this that predated my youth, but based on the attitudes of teachers and adults and opinion-havers of the world as I observed back then, it seems to me that it was an idea whose promotion began with 1960s mysticism, developed into therapy culture in the 1970s, and stayed with us in that form ever since. Liberal schoolteachers were big fans of the idea, trying to encourage kids to debate because that’ll make us smorter. I got smortified off having to hear what skinhead Ron thinks about the just society.
The funny thing is, I don’t even think the idea is wholly lacking in validity, nor is postmodernism itself as a larger package deal. We’re all so powerfully influenced by our cultural environment and personal situations that assumptions about the nature of any given phenomenon can seem like Objective Truth when they are no such thing. And yet, those feelings and perceptions have a power that creates a sort of reality, a sort of truth, which is in some ways the only truth we can truly apprehend. Agnostic shit.
But the postmodern justification of and promotion of fascism shows the weakness of this liberal idea, employing it to ultimately work against itself. Fascist propaganda was just opinions which are all valid, until fascists won control of the media, the government, the church, big business, etc etc. At that point, all opinions are no longer valid. Fascist propaganda is “fact” – and fascist control of science publication and journalism means there is no official source you can point to that isn’t soon to express only the facts that the Aeternal Reich wants you to see.
It’s sad how George Orwell, Karl Popper, and any number of other intellectuals going back to the dawn of the written language can call these things out, illuminate them so clearly and simply a child could understand them, and yet collectively we fall for the trick unto the end of (our) time. Fascists working against education is certainly part of that, but there is a flaw in the human animal that is doing no small amount of the work for them.
We’re not as smart as we like to think we are. When you see the fancy talking heads spouting big words in defense of callow bigotry, using lofty language to make it seem like black is white, bad is good, up is down… You’re seeing smart people outsmarting themselves. The flaws in their thinking are obvious as all hell to you and I, but they are fucking impervious to truth.
Reality is what we make it and we are what that reality makes us. The vast majority of this country’s media is painting the picture of reality the Kochs and the Murdochs and Muskerbergs want people to see. It’s everything around them. They are swimming in hate speech and propaganda nonstop, all day all night, cradle to the grave. It used to just be radio, TV, and newspapers. Now it’s algorithms in social media sorting people into camps that can be marketed to more effectively, fueling division and strife, and even genocide if it makes the page views go up, makes money for the shareholders.
As much as they’re my hated enemies, I don’t blame US conservatives for having shit ideas about basically everything. It’s the world as they know it. A perversion of liberal principles, unashamedly hypocritical. Contradictions don’t mean a thing, because this stuff thrives on goldfish memories. The human animal is not as smart as we’ve wanted it to be – as every flavor of modernism supposed we would one day be able to achieve.
But being unintelligent does not mean you deserve to be misled. Blaming fools for being fooled is letting the foolers off the hook, and in this situation, those foolers are just the worst motherfuckers in human history. Hook their fucking asses. I don’t know that we can ever really beat this type of shit, but I do know we have to keep trying in any way we’re able for as long as we can.
If the world goes nasty, you owe it to yourself and the people you care about to make your own piece of that world as nice as possible. Just sucks knowing what you’re up against in that fight. But power on my people. I love you.
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To be fair, I think you are treating postmodernism a little unjustly here. Postmodernism, as an approach to the world, doesn’t say all opinions are equal, only that there is no single “correct” manner in which to look at a subject. This approach has been used by intellectuals long before the term postmodernism was coined. It is a powerful tool, and applied properly it encourages diversity and inclusion. But it doesn’t deny reality. It also doesn’t say, regardless of the common belief, that all opinions are equal. If the subject was slavery, the postmodern approach would suggest that slavery be studied through both the eyes of the slave and the owner, but there would be no contradiction with postmodernism when the conclusion was reached that slavery was/is an evil. If people want to claim their opinions are just as valid as anyone else’s, they should use the traditional justification for that excuse for the last four thousand years; religion.
That being said, I understand where you are coming from. When human beings are confronted with facts which are contrary to their understanding of the world, our mental models of reality (which is all any of us really have), initially, instinctively, deny those facts. This may even be an inherited survival trait, where mental models of the world don’t change easily because that model has allowed the individual to survive. Changing the model too rapidly could mean death. If the model says that eating those purple berries makes you ill, someone telling you that they are perfectly healthy to eat shouldn’t immediately change the model. But I won’t insist on this reluctance to change as heritable, the concept has the flavor of evolutionary psychology and too many evo-devo concepts could be called “just-so” stories.
Yet when an organization like Fox News builds model of reality, and designs it to deliberately alter or withhold facts from it’s viewers, the mental model of reality the viewers develop actively rejects other factual information presented to it which runs counter to their mental model. Further, it would be a mistake to assume that any mental model is consistent. The Red Queen is not alone in believing in contradictory ideas, or holding contradictory beliefs.
What can be done? The most obvious thing to do would to learn from history. These issues are not new, and pre-date postmodernism. The solution I see from historical examples is to eliminate inequality. This doesn’t mean that income, wealth, and opportunity are equal. Those are laudable goals, but are not in fact necessary for what I’m referring to. What needs to occur is that the inequality of power needs to drop. No one person should be entrusted with the power to direct how the mental models of millions of people are created. Organizations which ostensibly provide accurate representations of the world should be held responsible for factual errors, including errors of omission. There will always be demagogues like Trump or Huey Long, there will always be media moguls like Murdoch or Hearst, and they will attract followers, true believers.
Society can, and has in the past, put guard-rails to prevent demagogues from acquiring too much power. In some cases customs, in other cases actual laws. Those laws, some of which are still on the books, need to be enforced. In the areas where the demagogue ignores cultural customs (e.g. presidents need to divest themselves from personal holdings while in office), those customs must be turned into laws. Wealth also equates to power, so society should actively discourage enormous accumulations of wealth, I’ve promoted the 90% income tax idea any number times here on FTB, so I won’t go into any details now, but while such a tax will not immediately eliminate inequality it will incentivize the elimination of inequality over time without major economic shocks.
What frustrates me more than anything else isn’t that the republicans have rallied around a demagogue whose mental model of the world is 70 years out of date, it’s that the supposed opposition party is NOT saying that this is a problem and here are the possible laws which would correct it if they were restored to power. The message from the democrats of, “help us gain more seats.” is not a compelling one.
Well that’s just your opinion, maaaan! Seriously, I have many times come across assertions that there is no such thing as objective truth, justified in postmodernist terms. And often a “motte and bailey” approach is taken: statements implying or even cliaming outright that there is no objectve truth are made, when challenged there is a retreat to something more like your statement above, then after the challenge there’s a reversion to the stronger version. And I’d say the strong version is original but false, while the weak version is true but unoriginal.
thinky comments have outthunk me. or perhaps, i’m too drowsy after working all day in the brain mill. still, my post has value added, and i appreciate it. thanks!
Postmodern conservatism is a wild trend. This would be funny if it weren’t for all the suffering
Re Paradox of Tolerance, I think Edmund Burke said it best:
“There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.”
@1. I must disagree with your last sentence. Gaining seats might not be a compelling reason but it’s the only thing we can do. The alternative is not voting and expecting the world to fix itself somehow or making sure the GOPers return us to the dark ages. Also this might be a hot take but independent/moderate voters want the opposition to also focus on local issues, not just focus on federal politics where Dems realistically can’t do much in the minority anyway. Dems would benefit from starting down then going up. Sorry if that’s off topic but this weird habit of the left eating each other isn’t helping and has historically let worse things slide ironically. But to the post, I think varieties of postmodernism is the reason we’re in this mess. The conservatives have relied on this to tool to deny reality. They just won’t admit it.
What language is reality written in, then?
In order for there to be absolute truth, it’s not enough for language to attempt to accurately represent material reality — language has to be material reality. Same thing with thought — you can try to shape your thoughts about reality to reality, but for your thoughts to not be at least partially wrong (and significantly incomplete), reality itself would have to be made of thought — so, if there’s no subjectivity and reality is a matter of absolute truth and facts, whose thought is reality made of?
Postmodernist work in the last few decades has been a bit more clear that you can’t have truth not because there isn’t an underlying reality, but because there is an underlying reality. The reactionary solipsistic “reality must conform to what we say it can be” stance isn’t postmodernist, it’s the pathology (in the processes of language, thought, etc.) that postmodernism (and poststructuralism, etc.) describes.
@6, kitcarm,
I will still be voting for democrats because it is something I can do to stop the MAGA juggernaut. However, the democrats are not making it any easier for me to vote for them when every text message, every email, and every snail mail contact from them says two things 1) republicans are bad, 2) give us money. They have still not learned that money does not beat enthusiasm in elections. What I want to see from the democratic party is a plan, not a platform. Democrats, if we give you majorities in the House and Senate, what legislation would you pass to:
– Remove the power of presidents to unilaterally create trade deals, impose tariffs, etc. One person should not have that much power. And, in fact, the US Constitution does not give presidents that power unconditionally. All such deals are intended to be ratified by congress.
– Require high-ranking public officials (including USSC and Congress) to place any companies and/or investments into blind trust during their time in office. This needs to include people in cabinet positions.
– Establish guidelines for ethical behavior for all government officials, including Supreme Court judges, and tie violations of those ethical standards to impeachment/removal from office.
Be willing to abandon the filibuster in order to enact the above legislation.
These are three things which obviously needs to be done from today’s news. There are dozens of others, including increasing taxes on the rich, establishing improved health care, education, infrastructure, etc. But the above three should be a minimum.
Would democrats, if we gave them majorities in the House and Senate, immediately initiate impeachment and removal from office hearings for Pam Bondi, who has blanently and repeatedly indicated that the justice department will not enforce any laws she does not agree with. Like arresting the DOGE team for violating national security laws, boldly and repeatedly. Would the democrats impeach and remove from office Pete Hegseth, and RFK Jr., for incompetence and damaging the nations defence and public health infrastructure?
If the democratic party would give the people some reasons to vote for democrats they would get more donations, and they wouldn’t need them as much.
Finally, there are plenty of things an organized minority can do. Losing battles can be fought. There have been a few democratic legislators who have introduced bills to curtail some of the Trump Team’s more egregious abuses of power. But those feel like they are being proposed by individual legislators, not by an organized opposition. Instead, what does our organized opposition do? Send strongly-worded letters.
Do the democrats need to build local support and on local issues? Yes, absolutely. But they need to do both, because if they stop fighting at the federal level they won’t have a chance at the local level. ACORN was local, and look what the federal-level politicians did to that.
Now that I’ve vented some spleen, none of which is directed at anyone here so my apologies if that isn’t clear, let me respond to the comments about postmodernism.
Postmodernism is a very powerful tool to help understanding. But it has limitations. It does not place value judgements on the results. We can use postmodernism to say, “This author, writing in the 1920’s, shows signs of anti-semitism, which were commonly held beliefs at the time. Does the writing show a greater, equal, or lesser level of anti-semitism than the author’s contemporaries? Knowing this will give insight into the author’s work. At the same time it is understood today that anti-semitism, in the sense of the belief that there are genetic or cultural differences which create or reinforce prejudice or bigotry against Jewish people, is not supported by any evidence.” We can then assign a value judgement to the two different viewpoints: that the author in question is only reflecting common beliefs for their time; and the alternative which says that antisemitism was wrong in the 1920’s, just as it is wrong today. (For clarification, condemning the actions of the state of Israel is not anti-semitism, that is like saying that condemning the actions of Somali warlords is anti-black.) The tool does not create value judgements, the tool provides information which can be used to create value judgements.
The tool of postmodernism also says we cannot just make things up. If Picasso says that cubism is an attempt to show multiple views of the same subject on a flat surface, we can then evaluate how successful that was. If a critic says this style is confusing and did not live up to their expectations, we can analyze this viewpoint as well. Similarly, if a potential buyer says they do not want it in their living room, that buyer presumably can give reasons for their statement. But it is not acceptable for someone to suggest, for example, that Picasso was visited by space aliens who permanently deformed his vision such that Picasso only saw things as cubist. Not only is there no evidence for this, but we have indications from other work Picasso was doing at the time and afterwards that he could see normally. The tool of postmodernism does not give carte-blanc to every wild idea anyone can think of.
Yet, the term, “postmodern” has been used to argue that reality is really a consensus opinion and every opinion is of equal value. I recognize that this occurs, and there is probably no stopping it at this point. But we probably shouldn’t blame the tool for the lack of understanding of the people who claim to use it. We wouldn’t blame a screwdriver if someone used it as a hammer, we would say that anyone who chose a screwdriver over a hammer to pound the nail was an idiot. There may be mitigating circumstances, maybe a hammer was unavailable, but it would still be the wrong tool for the job.
@2, KG wrote,
I agree. But I also see that this form of argument is the same as the one theists use for the existence of god. Theists make a strong statement of a deity which involves itself in human affairs, until challenged. Then the deity assumes a nebulous existence consisting of love and truth. But as soon as the challenge vanishes, when the request for evidence goes away, the strong form shows up again.
This isn’t a form of belief which is limited to theology or postmodernism. I’ve seen this form used with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and quite often with statements of economic issues. I’ve argued with people who have stated that all economics is defined by supply and demand curves. Once I start naming other factors which affect economic behavior which are not limited to supply/demand curves, the statements become more guarded and less dogmatic. But I have no illusions that the next time the same person starts making statements about economics they will be revert to their dogmatic views.
For what it’s worth, postmodernism seems to be the current favorite term for reality-denying individuals. Those people who don’t want to think that their opinion of how reality operates could be wrong. This is one in a long line of tools latched onto by people who would rather not think. Before postmodernism we had quantum mechanics (and those who still propose that everything is possible because of quantum mechanics seem a bit quaint now). We’ve also had the Theory of Relativity used in the same manner. And, of course, and always, religion.
M Manu Rere@7,
Well first, you’ve smuggled in an “absolute” there, which doesn’t actually add any meaning. (You might say the same about my “objective” – I included that just to make clear that I wasn’t talking about cases wher “What’s true for me” can be different from “What’s true for you”, e.g. it’s “true for me” that aniseed is a repulsive taste, but you might like it.) But of course language is part of material reality – as sounds in the air, marks on a page, voltages in transistors, electrochemical impulses in brains.
Typical postmodernist confusion and obfuscation. Thoughts are (like language) part of material reality, but that doesn’t mean “reality is made of thought”, because most of it isn’t. “A is (part of) B” does not imply that “B is made of A”. Wool is material reality – does that mean reality is made of wool?
“Truth” is, in paradigm cases, a property of statements or assertions, and means, simply, correspondence with the facts. If I say: “Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the UK” that is (objectively) true, (or the truth), because Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the UK. If I say “Margaret Thatcher was leader of the Labour Party” that is (objectively) false (not the truth), because she wasn’t. There are other statements about Thatcher that don’t fit into this simple dichotomy, like “Margaret Thatcher was vile” or “Margaret Thatcher was a follower of Adam Smith” where, possibly, a postmodernist viewpoint might have something to contribute, but as long as you’re denying the existence of clear cases or truth and falsity, you’re talking rubbish.
Flex@9,
Exactly – and I’ve had the same arguments. In the economics context I call it the “Neoclassical Shuffle”.
i’m inclined to be more generous to monsieur rere, but this is all higher thought than i can manage these days, outside of whatever remarkable minute i was able to knock together the original post. i am way too beleaguered by a lack of sleep and a day job that devours brains. i’m writing this reply at 12:32 am after having spent fifteen minutes trying to read all of this stuff for comprehension. not working.
still, same as i said before, i can’t object to people adding value to my posts with this level of discourse. i just hope it doesn’t get too acrimonious when i’m not able to really track on it.