The Paradox of the Paradox of Tolerance

The case for being intolerant to those who are intolerant of the intolerant for the sake of saving tolerance itself

If you’ve been on the Internet at all this year, you will have been involved in a discussion that involved somebody posting a link to a comic that claims to explain Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance.

The full comic can be found online.

Now, you need to understand that nobody who posts or links to this comic has ever read anything actually written by Karl Popper. That’s why it’s so dumb. But what Karl Popper actually said and meant is not material, because this stupid cartoon more accurately reflects the views of those who link to it.

The Paradox of Tolerance (Internet Version) states simply that:

But my question is, what will happen if we tolerate people who share this stupid comic around? I think there can be only one answer: an increasingly intolerable tolerance for intolerance in the form of censorship of the intolerant, and those of us who favour tolerance for them.

Clearly, to those of us who believe that freedom of speech is a cornerstone of tolerance, tolerating those intolerant of intolerance poses an obvious risk. Tolerating these intolerants could be dangerous indeed.

So, for the sake of actually saving tolerance, those of us who would extend tolerance to the intolerant must ourselves be willing to be intolerant of those who are intolerant of our tolerance for the intolerance of the intolerant.