As an admirer of Karl Popper I've been pleased to see him getting renewed attention, even if this ubiquitous graphic gives an inadequate account of his views on tolerance.
It's been less of a pleasure to see his name co-opted by those on the left who want to censor the expression of opinion. This is the precise opposite of what Popper argued for in his work.
And this in turn has led to his becoming something of a hate figure for the no-nothing right. An example:
Nobody even knows who karl popper is but his 70-iq take on “tolerance” reeks of the marxist bullshit modern lefties regurgitate whenever given a platform 🤣
— idc (@cryharderhoeee) June 2, 2023
James Kierstead has written a post about Popper's views on tolerance, drawing on his work beyond The Open Society and its Enemies (where the Paradox of Tolerance is mentioned in a footnote) and on his correspondence.
He concludes:
So Popper should not be adopted as a champion by those who want to curtail the simple expression of opinion. His work and his instincts place him squarely on the other side of that debate.In the final analysis, Popper’s proposal that we should tolerate each other up to the point of violence doesn’t constitute an exhaustive account of where we might have to set limits on speech or expression. As the Victoria University legal scholar Eddie Clarke has noted, in a few situations our current laws do enforce some penalties against speech even in the absence of violence (in cases of perjury, say).
Nevertheless, Popper’s writings on toleration, including his famous ‘paradox of toleration,’ remind us that coercion is as good a place as any to set a hard limit for toleration. Setting the bar as high as coercion leaves citizens space to develop their own ideas and life-paths freely. We should therefore approach any limits to expression below this high bar with some scepticism.
This emphasis on violence as the line we must not cross puts Popper firmly in the main stream of liberal political thought running through Max Weber (with his emphasis on the state as the possessor of a monopoly on force) as well as John Stuart Mill (who similarly insisted that citizens should be free to develop their ideas uncoerced by others).
1 comment:
Even Liberal Democrats don't follow Popper, but are willing to shut down the debate of minority viewpoints, such as in the Gender debate at this Spring's Federal Conference, by using a procedural motion. True liberals, following Mill and Popper would have heard the debate and then voted to reject the motion, both giving the holders of a minority viewpoint the right to be heard and making it clear to all that their view did not reflect the views of the majority. It seems that the Liberal Democrats are becoming like the Labour Party where the suppression of some views is the norm.
I was at the conference, but elsewhere in a training session so only heard reports of what happened afterwards.
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