To counter intolerance of individuality—with much digression
In this article, we will briefly mention the concept of intolerance, its various source and targets, conservatism, and how to counter intelorance.
The structure of intolerance have different names, and those who hold this value have different ways to defend their behavior. By the end of this article, I hope you will know how to recognize intolerance and defend against it no matter in what form it appears.
Freedom to express individuality
For a group of people to live together, they need to let each other live.
In On Liberty by Harriet Taylor Mill (in spirit) and John Stuart Mill, a chapter is dedicated to individuality, how it should be protected as far as it does not harm the liberty of others. Let’s call this “the principle of harm”.
The idea of intolerance, in practice, often means that a group of people with a common trait should not exist. It goes from expressing disgust, denying the group’s existence, and suppressing expression of their individuality, the most extreme being killing them outright.
Paradox of tolerance states that the tolerance may allow intolerance to form and break tolerance. Freedom of speech did allow intolerance to spread, in the case of the US, although there are more factors to consider when deciding how to treat intolerance.
Sources and targets of intolerance
Here are some sources of intolerance that have cause massive deaths. Hopefully you see this list as “things not to try”.
- religion (crusade/jihad)
- tribalism (most of human history)
- to justify slavery (racism)
- to justify colonization (racism but different)
- disgust/superiority (e.g. of the poor in Great Britain)
- economic hardship (e.g. of bourgeoisie in Marxism)
- political (whatever crazy stuff you can think of)
- being stupid (e.g. email hostname may not start with
1)
The targets of intolerances? Basically every inheritable or acquired trait, imaginative or real. Intolerange of a trait develop from denying its existence to erasing it by force.
Contrary the word stem of *-phobia, fear does not lead to intolerant act. It mearly surrenders power to those who manufactured it.
There’s also cognitive dissonance, which… I have not heard of it being the main cause of any mass murder.
The propersity to follow rules (for lack of a better description) in some demographic
Even in a nation founded on the shared value of preserving personal freedom from the state, their descendents today may not want that freedom. “Law-biding citizen” they claim to be.
It is in my observation that some people have no use for extra liberty. Not that extra liberty does not benefit them. When given the option for choose how to live, they don’t know what to do. Instead, they would rather, to name a few, live a life void of disturbance, perhaps a government that can do things by violating personal liberty.
Maybe it is that philosophical inquiry requires a free mind, that the literature written by those people routinely return to traditional values. And when the idea that personal freedom is universal is mainstream, they feel silenced and fear expressing their inclination to follow existing rules. There are slurs used against them too, like “pawn”, “mindless”; mostly unjustified.
In software usage, there are people who often complain about proprietary software, but are incapable of using free software one way or another. Maybe they are incapable of learning computing, or they don’t want to. These people still need some software for whatever they do, like how the aforementioned group of people still need to live.
Still, as I observed, it is not the different aspect of liberty that’s the difference. It is the total amount of liberty, with the maximum being what described by Mill in On Liberty. Different individuals assign different importance to livelihood (economic) and liberty. In order to have social cohesion, they must each compromise. There might be ways to make both sides happy without compromise, but I think direct wealth transfer is necessary.
One more paragraph about the nature of such compromise. In a absolutely free world, no one is required to help others. However, a modern, civilized government provides welfare and other services that can’t be delegated to the private sector. For example, asking every voter to voluntarily fund the military may not work as well as taxation. Not all will be satisfied with a particular social contract that trades individual freedom with comfort.
If someone does not want freedom, freedom should not be forced on them. Whether they need freedom or not is for them to decide.
Resource allocation during economic upheaval
Should more welfare be provided to those who live by traditional values? Social elites already follow less rules than the rest of population. During the global free trade period, the wealth gained from global trade has contrentrated in the few who have adapted to the change. The rest suffered. It is not that far fetched to say that those with adventurous spirit are more likely to benefit from this. Some urge the government to interfere by balancing gains and losses, thus violating the principle of harm. The principle of harm only concerns itself with harm caused during the expression of individuality, not by outside factors.
This has added to social division.
Automation of production, not consumption
Hypothesis here.
I suspect that automation has contributed to most of the wage gap everywhere by automating production but not consumption. With enough production to saturate the consumption need of everyone (if they have infinite purchase power), only a part of the population is needed for that production. The rest are not paid enough to satisfy their consumption need fully, so the market shrinks. When consumption need is saturated, without intervention (e.g. collective bargaining), more productivity will only make the market shrink faster. International trade only moves this group of no automation to home or abroad. The disparity remains.
This has added to social division greatly.
Contagious Algorithms
Social media applications that serve ads employ recommendation algorithms to maximize use time.
During the 2015 US election, YouTube’s algorithm has caused the radicalization of many of its products users. Google has not been legally punishment for this act.
Some are concerned about social media users trapped inside their own bubble. To me, the information highway is configured based on what the user knows, and we should be more concerned about the spread of bullshit ideas the power-hungry cooked up. Whoever coined “bubble” must not know how the Internet works. “Rabbit hole” is an apt analogy.
Also, denying the existence of individuality can easily mutate into denying other existence in reality, such as global warming.
This has added to social division.
Striving for peace
This article could be longer, but let this be the final chapter before the conclusion.
In a past article about fearmongering, I asked: Can physical violence erase information [of intolerance]?
The answer to this question is nuanced.
What’s once a theocratic militant group who specialized in suicide bombing has gained popular support under survival pressure from Israel. While there were reports of soldiers chanting “to build a theocratic state”, the group has accepted Christians to be part of the electoral but cracked down on protests. Israel’s particular brand of “geopolitics” has united the two major sects in the regions. Martin Luther King has once said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” In this case, intolerance somewhere bring about tolerance elsewhere, albeit at a cost no party want to pay by themselves. It also leads to World War 3.
The shooting of Charlie Kirk happened too recently, so I won’t comment on it. However, I want to point out that storming a national institution building, armed, represents politically-motivated violence of greater scale.
Update(2025-09-26): After Jimmy Kimmel’s temporary suspension, talk show hosts from across the political spectrum has united to stand behind absolute freedom of speech. I hope they find a way to bridge social division in that country.
Since I don’t see any other option of coexistence, let’s start with the bare minimum – let everyone stay alive while respecting their individuality, talking all the above into account.
Survival is a baseline. Tolerance of individuality is also a baseline, but it is not the end. We can do much better that just tolerating. We can create a society where individuals support each other’s development. I think this would involve drastically increasing signaling within a society, using reality as a basis for consensus.
How to erase intolerance
Culture, can be described as information shared in a population that affects the behavior of those who have it. With the spread of digital computer systems and the Internet, the information nature of culture is more prominent than ever. Computer system designed to augment the human intellect can also write to the human intellect. The influence goes both ways.
To erase tolerance, we can erase its source or the derived sentiment.
To erase information, we can either
- destroy its storage medium, biological or digital
- erase it from its storage
- let it be forgotten
- overwrite it
In addition, we can limit its spread by… I don’t think it works. Internet censorship suppress the expression of individuality too much for me.
There are enough works mentioning the positive things one can promote in their surroundings. So please excuse my omission as to what to overwrite intolerance with.
The importance of wording
Individuality often referred to as “diversity” these days, although I think “protecting diversity” sounds a bit weird. We are experience a civil rights movement that liberates individuals from control of the commons, diversity of expression is a result of that.
Some news report call intolerance-driven attacks “motivated by hate and bigotry”. While the idea behind the intolerance is usually pointed out correctly, the word “bigotry” denotes some kind of bad mentality, while in reality it is replicated info made up by someone else. These extreme ideas are not rooted in human emotions, just information copied in. I usually use the word “stupid” in this case.
There’s also the trend to abuse the word “dicrimination”. Technically, discrimination exist. However, oppression/violence happens because the stuff inside perpetuator’s mind, as one intolerant ideology often contains stigma for multiple human traits. Price discrimination is still discrimination, so not all discrimination is based on intolerance.
As reader, I implore you to better utilize language(s) by consulting a dictionary. In times of post-truth, knowing how to communicate your intent clearly to those who still listen with a shared vocabulary (thus reality) is an important skill.