Sarah Gray
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

This is a dangerous statement without qualifiers.

I think this is a reasonable claim when it comes to intolerance expressed through actions.

When the intolerance is expressed purely in thoughts and words, which can only serve to offend someone’s feelings or sense of fairness/decency, it is a very different matter.

You justify your intolerance of thoughts/opinions/words in part, on the basis of what constitutes, in your opinion, a reasonable argument.

If an argument is “unreasonable,” or morally reprehensible, or even simply incorrect as a matter of fact, then the correct response is simple:

Attack the argument and not the speaker.

It is easy enough to challenge and invalidate flawed arguments — and it is good to do so. Doing so helps educate people, including the speaker — it is productive and beneficial.

Attacking the speaker, or their right to speak, is the opposite: you have likely isolated the speaker and strengthened his objectionable opinions; you have left a record in which the person making the bad argument appears to be the victim; you have not educated anyone.

Attacking the speaker feels good but it isn’t good.

All that you have done by attacking the speaker is encourage ignorance and radicalization. The only benefit you’ve created is the warm glow of feeling superior and punishing the inferior — a lovely feeling, but one that only benefits you, and hurts society at large.

Prioritizing feeling superior over educating people on important matters is an excellent way to make things worse rather than better.

If you want to make things better, to help people realize they are wrong and correct it, then you need to treat them with respect and compassion, while logically demonstrating the flaws in their argument.

Yes, it takes time to do that. Yes, it is very frustrating. Yes, it doesn’t feel nearly as good as being mean to someone who you think (perhaps correctly) deserves it.

But the other option is, eventually, violence.

If it gets to that point, it will be in large part because good people like you and I failed to prioritize doing good over feeling good.

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    Sarah Gray

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