I love Substack. I haven’t been as active as I wished, but this is a wonderful platform for aspiring writers.
That’s why This Piece of News really saddened me.
I asked myself, can I really keep using Substack given the circumstances? Would giving up my newsletter be the only ethical choice?
But it looks like, at least for now, we’re safe.
Substack’s original stand on free speech didn’t sit well on me. I’m not an expert, and I even question my own belief system almost weekly since the conflict in Palestine started, but I knew better people than me had already dissected this argument.
Back when Russia invaded Ukraine, I pondered the same thing, and I coincidentally, I learned about the Paradox of Tolerance.
You can read my original post here.
Now that many people, Margaret Atwood Included, have written about it, I think it’s time for me to share my 2 cents on complete, unabridged free speech.
I hope you enjoy it.
The paradox of tolerance
The paradox of tolerance, famously associated with the philosopher Karl Popper, but approached in countless shapes and forms by many others both before and after him, states that an all-tolerant society can only be stripped of its tolerance in the end.
Or, as he writes in his “The Open Society and Its Enemies;”
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.
And this is exactly where we are right now.
Although not as widespread as it should be, this is a concept easy to grasp at its extremities. For example, religious terrorism or racism are extremist philosophies which cannot be tolerated by tolerant societies. But intolerance of any form, even towards the intolerants, means that a society is not really tolerant. Hence the paradox.
Photo by Brandi Alexandra on Unsplash
What I like about the paradox is how strongly it assumes tolerance deserves to be preserved. So much, in fact, that it should be allowed to even go against its very nature if threatened.
How far is it ethical to go to safeguard tolerance is a separate subject, one I’m not prepared to discuss, but I believe that by preventing the spread of false and misleading propaganda to democratic nations, we are well within ethical limits.
Evidence being the—not so—thin line between what’s acceptable and what’s not.
Tolerance is the very essence of a free society; it is the driver of individuality and the fertile ground feeding curiosity and beauty, and it needs to be protected, at all costs.
Limiting freedom is not tolerant.
Challenging happiness is not tolerant.
Manufacturing information is not tolerant.
Accepting abuses as inevitable is not tolerant, because, as Margaret Atwood says in her “The Testaments;”
... very little in history is inevitable.
Alla prossima