Why you should tolerate intolerable ideas | Nadine Strossen | Big Think

Many people have contended that there is a paradox of why should we tolerate intolerant ideas. And the answer is that we have to engage in exploration and analysis of all ideas if we are going to honestly and sincerely reach our own conclusion as to which ideas we believe to be correct and which ideas we believe other people should adopt.

I go back to John Stewart Mill's classic essay called On Liberty, in which he says here are the reasons why we should listen to even ideas that we believe to be completely wrong. And as somebody who is advocating tolerance for freedom, even for the ideas that we hate, I would say an idea that I would hate would be an intolerant idea. So here's the reason why I think I should listen to that idea, paraphrasing Jon Stewart Mill.

Number one, I may revise reviews after I listen to that idea. And I can give you a concrete example where that actually happened thanks to the silver lining of all of the protests on campus about free speech. Many students and faculty members even have asserted that freedom of speech should not be such a special important value in our society; we should not tolerate freedom for ideas that they consider to be dangerous ideas.

And quite frankly, to me it had always seemed so indisputably correct that we had to protect freedom for all ideas that I never really had grappled thoroughly with that contention. I recently wrote a book on the subject, and in the process, I had to articulate to myself why I reached that conclusion. I did so in a way that I persuaded myself; I hope that means I was persuasive to my audience.

I wouldn't have had to do that; I wouldn't have enriched my own understanding of my long-standing position had I not been forced to grapple with the exact opposite contention. So, one possibility is that we will realize that our original ideas were wrong or at least could be improved, refined.

And another possibility is that we will be reaffirmed in our adherence to our pre-existing ideas, but when we do so, we will understand them and appreciate them and articulate them with much more depth and vibrancy when they are the result, not just of unthinking, reflexive orthodoxy: "Oh that's what I've always believed and that's what everybody else believes," but when we are forced to really examine them.

And that forced examination comes through contact and conflict with challenges and questions and opposite ideas.