| If you want to maintain a tolerant society, you cannot tolerate intolerance. Stripping away all real-world specifics, take this as a thought experiment: You have a community (of whatever size) that starts out containing (among others) groups A and B. Group B is defined by their desire to remove group A from the community, and their outspoken proclamation of such and attempts to persuade others to their point of view. If the community remains "tolerant" of all, that will, over time, almost inevitably result in the size of group A within the community shrinking, due to group B's efforts being both successful and tolerated, and due to group A not wishing to remain in a place where their very right to existence is constantly questioned. In effect, what this means is that a community that claims to tolerate both groups is actually intolerant of group A. Tolerating any group-directed intolerance is, in effect, espousing it. Thus, in order to be tolerant to the greatest number, any community must not tolerate intolerance. It is also well worth noting that the types of intolerance we are generally discussing whether or not to tolerate are intolerances of intrinsic characteristics, while being intolerant of them is intolerance of a behavior. People can change their behavior. They cannot change their intrinsic characteristics. Thus, in the thought experiment above, if the community refuses to tolerate Group B's intolerance, no member of group B needs to leave. They only need to stop expressing their intolerance. |