Is it possible to tolerate the intolerant?

[ellyrobson]

Starting this thread in response to discussion on the lists about whether it is appropriate to take action against groups like the BNP (NB: NOT as CGS - just in an individual capacity).

[anarchistluke]

I don't think we have to be tolerant of discriminatory/authoritarian/oppressive/exploitative ideologies, etc. I think the question of no-platform comes down to a tactical question, not a moral one. In my eyes, grassroots fights against capitalism, fascism, etc can acceptably extend to no-platformism, in moral terms, but might not want to for tactical reasons of not looking like hypocrites, etc. I really don't think there's a solid moral argument to be made against no-platform that can't be made against almost every other form of direct action.

[beccy]

Ray Hill's response to the question of no platforming was that we just couldn't take on the BNP and win: he gave the example of an EU document from after the holocaust that estimates that Europe only had 3 million missing people - there's a later one that adjusts it to 9 million, but would anyone who might be thinking of engaging in real debate with a fascist know that?

This is a moral argument in the sense that it's safest just to keep the BNP off our campuses etc, rather than that it doesn't undermine our position of tolerance. But then, there's tolerance, and there's being irresponsible...

[anarchistluke]

Tolerance, 'neutrality', etc as they exist in the liberal democratic ideal tend to protect the most powerful vested interests and the most engrained received opinion, against the interests of the most marginalised, oppressed, victimised, etc.

If you weigh up both sides of a debate 'evenly', then the guy who can afford a PR department, billboard/radio/TV adverts, persuasive leaflets and people to hand them out, etc, etc is likely to win, not the guy who has nothing but logic and truth on his side.

[digger1]

First of all the hypocrisy is not on the shoulders of those who believe in protecting political belief and still oppose the BNP but is instead on the shoulders of those who claim that we are not ALLOWED to oppose the BNP. As an anarchist, a worker and as a moral human being I both politically and morally oppose the BNP. However now I am being told that expressing my contempt for their fascist ideology is not allowed because it does not allow them to express their political views. In short you, (not you personally but the proponents of this argument), are saying to me " You may not express your political views because they disagree with my political views on someone else's political views" do you see the hypocrisy. the statement that we cannot demonstrate our abhorrence for political views is ALSO a political view. Do you see what I'm getting at here? I'm really sick of being told that I cannot stop the BNP, who by the way do everything they can to stop my ideology, by fuzzy bloody liberals who don't even realise their own political tyranny. they don't think of their views as political but just as "right" or "moral". So they might be but equally so they might not be.

Also I would ask these people whether they would oppose Blood and Honour holding meetings in this area? what about Combat 18 or the national front? what people don't seem to realise is that I and many others like me are not anti-BNP but anti-fascist. The lines between these organisations and the BNP are very blurred indeed.

How many people do you think i would have been able to get to come along to oppose a Ukip or even Tory meeting. For me personally they are pretty damn close to the BNP, although the BNP have a long way to go before they murder as many people as the Tories have.

The fact is that this liberal notion that all ideologies are equally valid is nonsense. and the worst thing is that the liberals that expound this same notion as a fact do not even realise how opinionated they really are.

In short they can feel free to say what they like just don't expect me to sit back and do nothing about it.

[anarchistluke]

Oh yeah, that's a good point, digger, and one that I forgot to mention in my last post. This is something that bypasses people...

The liberal/postmodern ideal of tolerance and value relativity/subjectivity is paradoxical and self-defeating. If you hold that all moral values are culturally relative, or every view is equally valid and should be tolerated, then you can't be consistent in condemning other people's intolerance. To do so yourself is to fail to tolerate them.

I hope that makes sense? Basically I mean that if you think all views are acceptable, then the view that someone else's view is unacceptable must itself be acceptable. And the same goes for practices as well as views. If your ideology insists on allowing other cultures to do as they please, then you should allow them to prevent your culture from doing as it pleases, etc.

[eddm]

Digger is right - the idea that anyone should be able to say what they want, where they want, when they want, is a political one, which is held as an absolute truth by the people who believe it. Fair enough to them if they want to hold it, but they're wrong.

No Platform is a policy held by many student unions which states that the BNP will not be allowed the use of union facilities to organise, and usually also that the union will actively campaign against them in the event of them organising. I remember arguing for the policy a year ago. The two standard liberal arguments against it were 1) "We can beat them in debate" and 2) "no one in Cambridge Uni is stupid enough to fall for these ideas, so it doesn't matter if they're expressed".

The answer to argument 1) is that ideas have strength based on material realities. They don't just exist in the vacuum of a debating chamber. An idea becomes powerful wen it resonates with people, as the ideas of fascism start to do during periods of economic depression and so on. Also, we can beat them in debate but if they're interested in taking power by force (which fascists tend to be) they'll eventually shoot us anyway no matter how many witty repostes we can think of.

The answer to argument 2) was that Nick Griffin, Chairman of the BNP, was educated at Downing College, Cambridge. I particularly hated this argument, because its implication was that anyone attracted to the BNP is an ignorant working class person who has reverted to a natural state of barbaric racism because they no longer want to vote for the Labour Party (you get this argument alot in the liberal media). Which is obviously wrong.

But, this being Cambridge, the liberals had their way and overturned the policy.

It was interesting being on the same side as JSoc for a change though.