[traject_]

The irony of the paradox of intolerance is that Popper defines it in the context of physically violent and irrational intolerance:

"But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."

Most citations of Popper's paradox are used, however, to justify suppression of "dangerous" ideas with very indirect and nebulous notions of harm on the level of social contagion. So the irony is that modern uses of the paradox is intolerance beyond acceptable limits for Popper.Or, in other words, in a society with a developed norm for tolerance, the intolerant can only resort to the paradox to censor ideas as long as people just believe the paradox naively and don't take a careful look at the potential harm caused.