[stcredzero]

For one, social shaming can, occasionally, be an effective way to change behaviour: it's a short hand for "your opinion is wrong, because all these respectable people say so". For another, I don't have the time and energy or personal obligation to graciously engage with every single person who may be a complete asshole.

What Social Media has generated is a millieu that jumps at the chance to engage in social shaming. It's the same sort of corruption as embodied in a state the jumps at the chance to prosecute to gratify the crowd, regardless of how actual justice is served. I see social shaming as so often practiced as a way for one group to enforce its will over another and assure itself of its own agency. (Such groups also profit non-materially from the additional division and outrage generated.)

it's a short hand for "your opinion is wrong, because all these respectable people say so"

If that's to apply, then the people who are using it first need to have convinced society at large.

Analogy: there are points of etiquette that only apply in a particular culture. If you try enforcing one culture's etiquette when you are the lone member of that culture in a different cultural group, then you are just being foolish. So what about when there are approximately equal numbers? Taking such action in that case also just causes division. It's only when there is a clear majority, and when the majority acts in a benevolent and inclusive fashion that pressure works. Absent benevolence from the majority, there is also only more division. This is just human nature.

In the group dynamic, it doesn't matter that in your mind, you "are right." For one thing, you are only human, so you could well be wrong or misapplying context. In the end, you are either coercing someone or convincing them. It's only the latter that brings true change.

>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 against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them

This is exactly my point. This is why an "intolerance in spirit" which damages civic life shouldn't be tolerated. Those who are intolerant of others having a different opinion are engaging in a form of selfish intolerance. They are like free speech advocates who suppress their opponents gatherings or religious people who think freedom of religion only applies to their own religion. Somehow such people only need to obey the letter of the law, and the spirit of their principle only needs to apply to those they like.

(EDIT: How can we measure the sincerity of someone's tolerance? Are they ready to tolerate someone who is presently behaving in a tolerant fashion? Or are they champing at the bit to be "righteously intolerant" because someone was intolerant in the distant past or in an entirely different context? I would say the former is sincere tolerance and the latter is a short-sighted and selectively applied "tolerance.")

[phillmv]

We're not discussing social media. We're discussing whether to extend the graces of polite society to people with abhorrent views.

It's not clear to me whether you understand the spirit of the Popper quote.

As I interpret it, it can be boiled down to: it's OK to not tolerate those whose unimpeded actions would to destroy your tolerant society.

I'm afraid that in that context I don't understand the rest of your comment about sincere tolerance.

[stcredzero]

We're not discussing social media. We're discussing whether to extend the graces of polite society to people with abhorrent views.

Extending the graces of polite society is one kind of tolerance. Another lesson of history is that peace and harmony is found through commerce. One of the closes friendships in the house when I was an undergrad was between a gay man and a woman who started out rabidly homophobic. They became best friends because they watched soap operas together. Had he behaved as you advocate and shunned her for what she thought, then she would never have become his best friend and she would never have realized the unfounded errors of her upbringing.

Yes, people who have done bad things should be punished. Going around punishing people for stuff they've said is simply intolerant. A society that enacts a regime like this through social means is not virtuous because it has tolerant and protective laws. It would be no better than a society that has granted racial minorities equal status on paper, but continues to oppress them through other means. (Yes, I am talking about the US.) One of the key messages of Gandhi and MLK is that your moral and philosophical consistency is vital, lest you unwittingly become yet another oppressor.

OK to not tolerate those whose unimpeded actions would to destroy your tolerant society.

Being tolerant in just the letter of the law but highly intolerant "in spirit" will destroy a tolerant society. It is happening right now. As with many things, it is harder to see at the top of the socioeconomic ladder and much easier to see at the bottom.

[greenrd]

>If that's to apply, then the people who are using it first need to have convinced society at large.

Just FYI, the controversial speaker at issue here quotes Carlyle - a man who advocated slavery, and using lethal force to put down a rebellion of disenfranchised former slaves in Jamaica - approvingly.