Karl Popper was a fool, and so too are you if you follow his words blindly.
Misunderstood by many, and ironically<?> misunderstands the truth himself!
Hello and welcome back or welcome for the first time.
I’m sure you have probably come across this quote by now in your life at least once, if you have been paying attention to the political discussions going on.
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. ~Karl Popper~
Too bad he was kind of, sort of, misquoted. In the short attention span addled quest of society to constantly reduce things into shorter and shorter sound bytes; some folk have been spreading around only a portion of his full quote. The full quote itself says much more, and warns instead against the radicalization into the extremes of those who would be intolerant to others. I.E. Leave others be if they harm no one, until that is they give rise to a call to arms, become violent themself, and bring harm unto others. Or at least, he supports that up to the call to arms part. Which is part and parcel to the trouble of his full quote as well.
See, with his quote most people know, it just devolves into a quagmire of holier than thous being angry with other holier than thous. Even if one side is or is not holier, both sides that are or are not believe they are. The tolerant who previously were harming no one become intolerant to the intolerant and thus become the tolerant if they are not harming anyone. At first you may look like ‘the good guys’ to others and yourself, but eventually enough events of friendly fire occur, or misfires entirely; and the other side you consider intolerant is now befriending all those people whom you thought to be intolerant who have had to deal with your intolerance.
So far as that goes, Karl is both correct in that we must be careful in how we extend unlimited tolerance to the worst; but is incorrect in his solution to the problem in that short quote.
So what about his full quote? Does he at least get it right there?
Only sort of. He’s on the right track, until he begins to espouse his belief to have a right to enforce his own beliefs unto others he doesn’t agree with. What Karl Popper and his many followers do not understand, is that literally NO ONE has any right to bring harm unto another person when they are causing no harm unto anyone else. By including terms like ‘suppression’, he gives rise to the justification to use force of arms, psychological warfare and much more, considering how it has gone so far with people being isolated and cast off from the main society as being ‘undesireable’ or ‘evil’. Does that sound very tolerant to you? Doesn’t to me. Especially when those very same people doing the casting away of those they ‘other’ being often not much better or worse than those they deem lesser. It’s not hard to see either, once you peel away the mask they wear on a daily basis out in the open public.
It took me a while to come to terms with this, since I too feel to the idiocy of Popper at one point. In multiple ways. I’ve been on both sides of this quote now depending on who you ask my allegiance. Ultimately however, my allegiance to any side never changed, for I have never been on either side of the fence. I am one of those types who thinks you are all wrong, about almost everything. If not completely, then in some nuanced way that changes the entire outlook of whatever belief set you may have.
You can blame philosophers like Karl Popper for producing people like me who are like that. It is these types of thinkers effect on the world that produces people like me who are willing to tolerate anyone of their thoughts and opinions; so long as they don’t act them out. And if they do act them out, then they best not be harming anyone, lest they wish to feel the reciprocity of harm itself.
The best way to deal with intolerant people, is to let them be. Not just let them be intolerant, but just leave them alone. Leave them to their own devices, but keep an eye on them. Let them keep the company they keep, but pay attention to them. Don’t be scared of what they might do, since they could do anything at any time always, and you’ll never be the wiser unless you have omnipotent oversight over them. And if you do have that, then you are probably their enemy for a good reason, as you are now breaching their natural right to privacy.
Perhaps they merely are thinkers themselves, and are going through the mental framework of certain ideologies that require better understanding on a personal level to understand the truths of why they may be right or wrong. Even if you don’t like those ideologies for whatever reason, we cannot produce proper argumentation for or against these ideals without having proper understanding of them. To believe anything otherwise is egotistical foolishness.
So why would you have the right to inject your opinion? Why would you have the right to inject your offense to their thoughts but lack of action? WHY would you have the right to breach their privacy?
Karl Popper thinks you do have that right, but only when things get violent and calls to arms are being made.
Folks… Calls to arms have already been made by both sides of the political fence. I won’t say who did it first though, because quite frankly it’s hard to tell now at this point. But be that as it may be, both sides have become intolerant to the other, and so now the remaining among us who are actually the truly tolerant ones, are having to deal with a lot of intolerant egotistical assholes.
If you still agree with Karl Popper after reading this whole quote, then my friend, you just gave us remaining ‘tolerant’ people the excuse needed to become intolerant against you as well.
Do you see now how this cycle just continues to devolve upon itself?
What this means, is that all the methods being employed by one side to cancel the other, or isolate some person, or generally speaking punish them for saying/thinking something undesirable to someone else but brings them no harm; are making them the malicious ones. The intolerant ones.
His argumentation isn’t terrible though. It is lucid up to a point, even going so far as to say the very suppression he later supports would be unwise under proper conditions; but then falls off the tracks of logic when he starts to get presumptuous in the idea that the ‘tolerant’ will have the correct ideas themself to begin with. Perhaps society is run by fools and agreed with by even more fools. Perhaps those fools consider themselves the tolerant ones, whilst the rest who barely tolerate them are considered intolerant because they clamor against the hell in which they desire escape?
That’s the problem with Poppers quotes. All of them, as shared here today. He assumes moral authority, which is deeply problematic when people who are nowhere near close to having anything to do with morality use his ideas against those they decide to be lesser their own morality.
Freedom and Liberty…
…do not allow for presumed moral authority over anyone else, provided they are harming no one! I would extend the definition to include the cause and effect chain as well to at least one link afterwards. That is, no harm to anyone immediately, or indirectly immediately after the first. I.E. Future generation, children of parent punished, etc.
Regardless of my own views on those ideals and how best to enact them, their basic and original definitions prior to any changing by current day morality police hypocrites; are exactly why Karl Popper is wrong.
Liberty states simply to do as you wish so long as you harm no one. It is the very essence of what Liberty means. To define it any other way, or add caveats, is to take away from its true meaning. That’s what they do when they start to add on caveats like positive or negative liberty. These do not exist. There is just Liberty. You either have it, or you don’t. Call it neutral liberty if you are the type who needs to add words to already good enough terms.
And Freedom is the extension from Liberty that denotes that neutrality. You are either free, or you aren’t. Your freedom is decided if you have the liberty to be free. If you live in any society that could be described under the definition of ‘negative liberty’, then my friends; you are not free. Same can be said of positive liberty, for now you have other agencies and entities believing they have the right to enforce their personal liberties over you. I.E. “I’m more equal than you are” type bullshit.
So again, you are either free, or you aren’t. If you do not live in a state of ‘neutral liberty’, then you are not free. Even if you somehow wield the cudgel of improperly defined freedom, you are just somewhere below someone else who holds a mightier cudgel.
So even you are not free, even if you are that which reduces others freedoms.
And so we come back to Karl Poppers grandiose mistake.
Karl Popper has decided in his quote that he is sufficiently wise enough and moral enough to know when is best time to resort to violence and force, instead of patience and words.
Karl Popper, is a moron for having uttered those words. A well meaning moron, but a moron nonetheless. His yellow brick road is a fast lane to hell. Karl Poppers followers, are also morons for taking his words blindly without consideration towards the effects that will be caused by their actions.
Cause and effect is a tricky thing for people to consider accurately I have noticed in my life thus far. They often believe that blame for things lays at the feet of those who react to the stimuli of the situation. They are incorrect, since the reaction itself is a direct effect of the casual link provided by their action itself. Some may say “but you have the ability to choose to not do X/Y/Z thing” and they are correct that there is a choice available to be made… but that same thing applies equally to the person who performed the first action. They could have not done that thing as well. Besides which, such an utterance is often just said by people looking to shift blame for their own actions onto their victim. Likewise is said in reverse by those who are the victim blamer.
So who’s right? Who’s wrong?
It’s the exact same problem in Karl Poppers quotes. It’s the exact same situation with many arguments, debates, protests or etc that go wrong and turn into violent/forceful action. Both sides believe themselves to be the one ‘tolerating’ the other.
Both sides eventually lose tolerance for the other, but which one does it first is important.
In my life so far, I have learned that the ones who are being made the biggest commotion about by simple minded loudmouths, are often the least harmful to others.
Our society is full of these simple minded loudmouths. And depending on which day of the week is occurring, you get to see the current flavor the media wants to share with you.
They sure do have a large selection to pick from here in Canada. A whole lot of intolerant people who don’t realize they are the enemy in the eyes of their patron saint, Karl Popper.
Pretty ironic, isn’t it? The very logic used against those they detest, applies equally to the very people who detest their ‘others’. It’s the same way with other philosophical arguments too.
Hanlon’s Razor…
is opposed by Greys Law. More specifically, those who follow Hanlon’s Razor as some sort of holy guidance to never be strayed from, become the fools the malicious can manipulate. At which point Greys Law becomes more relevant, and it can be said the fools must be malicious themselves, because after so much evidence they must either be plain outright stupid or malicious themselves.
Such is the same with the people who follow Popper. They are fools casting the label of malice onto fools casting the label of malice. But the chicken and egg problem emerges when you can’t tell who cast the first label of malice.
And so the only result that fixes the problem, is one of two things. Either violence that peters itself out, or mass restrictions against everyone to avoid the worst case of the prior.
In an ironic way, we’ve already seen the restrictions due to the way the pandemic led to people being mostly locked up into their homes. Perhaps not long enough in some argumentation. From this point of view, Trudeau’s use of the emergencies act seems more understandable. If we ignore the other pressing issues of the situation like the virus for instance, and focus on the potential/plausible secondary causes for such actions, then it makes sense that a leader of any nation might start to resort to more authoritarian methods to increase the onus against those who are acting out in any which way or the other. He just picked a real bad time to do it, because no matter who is doing what with their trucks and horns; it just doesn’t look good to be using what are essentially war time measures against people preaching freedom. (Even if they are being silly loons about it.1)
We saw the excuse of extremists being in the midst of that protest used, and regardless of its accuracy, it was also a convenient revelation right near the same time gun law changes were taking place here in Canada again. So the result there is that many of the law abiding people whom own guns are going to believe it just to be convenient timing, while the rest are going ‘Oh good, the government is keeping us safe” which couldn’t be further from the truth since they could have had those people stopped long before it occurred.
Yes, they could have. How? You think the FBI/CIA/NSA didn’t have some sort of inside info already into Diagolon or the people trying to help support their cause? Really? How about CSIS who would be getting that info from those agencies if it inquired, or was actively getting intel anyways? How about the RCMP who have been known to arrange things and create entrapment situations like the time with that couple in BC? Not to defend any of these people who resorted to violence, but this is all being said to point out that we cannot believe these groups or agencies to be incompetent. Greys Law dictates that we are fools to believe them when they claim to have made mistakes only out of ignorance. They have had far too many chances in the past to correct their ways.
So then, Occam’s razor tells us that having pared all of that away, the simplest answer must be the truth. And that means that we have effectively already gone through the ‘restrictions’ part, even if it was conveniently timed to occur alongside the measures used to deal with the pandemic. How’s the old saying go?
”Never let a good tragedy go to waste.” ~Winston Churchill~
Indeed.
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»The prior stated opinion on current events in regards to government bodies is in general mostly conjecture based upon the consequence of the series of unintended consequences. I am not outwardly stating that any government did what I am saying specifically for these reasons. I am merely stating the ease at which such things could be done in such a manner by an entity such as government, if it so wished to. This is highly important, due to the nature of libel and my wish to avoid committing to it in any manner. Also, in tandem with everything said, I am making the point that foolishness and malice can be very hard to discern from one another, but discern them we must as indicated by Greys Law.« 2
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So even if its just coincidental and just seems really conveniently timed, and just appears to be what I am calling it; it is still something that occurred in some sense. And the fact it did nothing to reduce people’s fervor to ostracize each other, and people are just getting angrier and angrier with each other; I fear we are going to see the violent outcome soon. How soon though, is the question I cannot answer as of yet.
But if I blame anyone, I start that chain of blame on fools like Karl Popper, who gave people a large quote easily chopped into an even more harmful smaller quote. In his full quote, he at least tries to be the civil one, up to a point. In his short quote, people lose civility almost immediately.
As such, my opinion is that his words are toxic to a nation of reason and logic. A reasonable and logical individual may fall victim to this words allure at first, maybe a second time at best; but a third time? Nay. His paradox is paradoxical only because he believes himself to be correct through spin on moral compasses. Which is what makes him wrong. He believes his moral compass to be true, and that others like him will also have true compasses as well.
Ironically, that couldn’t be further from reality. The idea that any one person has everything right in life, is wrong. Likewise, believing yourself to be correct to bring harm unto others who have not harmed anyone else, based only upon your supposed moral superiority, is even more incorrect.
Yes, this means you don’t start going to war with your supposed demons, until they have actually harmed others. Yes, this means you leave distasteful or annoying people alone, until they have actually harmed others. And no, you don’t just go and change definitions or make up new words to justify yourself. You are just a different sort of evil at that point, that is just as intolerant or more so than those you deem lesser.
The consequence for going against what I am saying here today, is the very reality you are experiencing at this moment. The chaos surrounding us, is the result. And I have to say, it’s not the first time we have seen this kind of thing occur. I don’t dare put a number on it though, because the history books are often missing many pages of nuance, so there may be more times it has occurred than we are aware of right now. Those times we are aware of though… those all hold some really bloody pages.
So remember this, even if you disagree with everything else I have said (foolishly)…
Your opinions, rights, beliefs, ideals, virtues, or otherwise moral grandstanding does not supersede others basic liberty. You do not have the freedom to reduce the freedom of another, provided they have not caused actual harm to another.
But they do, if you have done so, and they have not harmed anyone else.
And that makes you the intolerant one being punished by those who tolerated you.
And that means Karl Popper himself would be on the pointy end of that pike, skewered by his own words, since by his own final words of the long quote, incitement to violence should be considered criminal; and his words incite people to violence.
This has been Mr. MacKay, and I hope you find usefulness in my words. Hopefully positive. If you wish to see these kinds of posts continue to be written and shared, I suggest using some of the buttons provided below.
And if you are interested in learning more about my future goals and aspirations as made transparent in my first post, keep tuned in for when I release my next posts that begin to detail some of that. There’s a lot to unpack, so I have been taking it slow and steady to make sure every detail I can share, is. As one fellow said to me on discord recently, lack of detail makes my request somewhat dubious. I have been working to rectify that situation, since he is correct that there lacks much detail. Detail I have had yet the time to share properly.
That will be the focus of one of my future posts here. Perhaps the next one? I don’t know for sure, since I am still working on it, and there are other topics that still need to be discussed at length as well.
So in the meantime…
It should be made clear that while I preach the ideals of Liberty and Freedom, I do not stand with or against any groups of activists or protestors of any sort that may be acting for or against either. My ideal of Liberty and Freedom are ‘Neutral’ in that I have them, and so do you, and neither of our liberty or freedom supersedes the other in either a ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ notion. Thus while I may make example of certain groups or individuals at times either for or against their motive, I do not explicitly support it, nor do I abhor it, specifically. Examples made are exactly that, only. If ever I decide to go against this footnote, it will be made clear via a separate footnote indicating such.
See Footnote #1.