Nov. 13, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
08:57
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| So, of course, Canada does talk about being a tolerant country, an inclusive country. | |
| And the question of tolerance is actually really fascinating, philosophically speaking, which is, how is tolerance a virtue? | |
| Or under what circumstances is tolerance a virtue? | |
| Well, you see, tolerance is a virtue when somebody is acting in an intolerable manner. | |
| Courage is a virtue when we are facing something that requires overcoming a fear. | |
| It doesn't take much courage to have a nap on the couch in the afternoon. | |
| And abstinence is something where you have a lust or desire for something and you say no. | |
| A diet is when you want to eat, but you understand quitting alcohol if you really like to drink. | |
| So, you see, tolerance is a virtue. | |
| That can only be exercised when somebody says something intolerable. | |
| And that's when the question of tolerance comes up. | |
| Now, Canada is repeatedly called a tolerant country. | |
| And what that must mean, logically, is that Canada tolerates people who say intolerable things. | |
| Otherwise, there's no virtue called tolerance. | |
| Now, this guy, he's 85 years old. | |
| His name is Don... And he's been broadcasting for about close to 40 years. | |
| A Coach's Corner. I think he does analysis of hockey games after the hockey game. | |
| And he's been such a big guy in Canada that, like, I think half a million people tuned in at one point to watch him rather than just watch the hockey game. | |
| So he was a big deal. | |
| And yeah, he's old, he's grouchy, he's cantankerous, and he has the kinds of suits that look like they've been ripped off the back of a 68 Volkswagen. | |
| But he said something just the other day, a day or two ago, about immigrants, right? | |
| So he was talking about Remembrance Day, which just happened yesterday. | |
| And ahead of Remembrance Day, he was saying that he saw very few people in downtown Toronto, which is now majority-minority, He saw very few people in downtown Toronto wearing poppies ahead of Remembrance Day. | |
| I remember when I was in business, when I was director of marketing and I worked for a boss who every Remembrance Day we'd have a speech, we'd have a silence, we would talk about the sacrifices of the troops in Canada. | |
| Growing up in England, of course, it was a very big deal regarding World War II and so on. | |
| And so he kind of went on a bit of a rant. | |
| And this guy is very, very keen on maintaining the memory and the honor of Canadian veterans and so on. | |
| And he said, you people love our way of life. | |
| You love our milk and honey. At least you could pay a couple of bucks for a poppy. | |
| These guys paid for your way of life, the life you enjoy in Canada. | |
| These guys paid the biggest price. | |
| So, yeah, so he saw a few new immigrants, I suppose, wearing poppies, and he got kind of frustrated. | |
| And it was inelegantly phrased. | |
| It was, you could say, yeah, it was kind of intolerable in a way. | |
| But that's where the virtue of tolerance comes in. | |
| So what happened in response? | |
| Well, what happened in response was that the complaints about his remark overwhelmed Canada's broadcast standards body. | |
| They couldn't take any more. | |
| It overwhelmed their entire system. | |
| That's how many people called in to complain about this guy. | |
| Now, that's interesting, of course, because that's not very tolerant. | |
| Yeah, he said something that, yeah, you could say was not very elegantly phrased, to put it mildly, but so what? | |
| But so what? What are you dialing up and calling in and freaking out and trying to get the guy fired and so on? | |
| This is not the virtue of... | |
| That is intolerance, you understand? | |
| Look, there's stuff that I read about, there's stuff that I hear about, there's stuff that I'm lectured to about, there's stuff in the culture that I find absolutely Intolerable. | |
| In other words, I would not tolerate it in my own personal life, but it's free speech. | |
| It's out there in the world. You know, someone who claimed to be a friend came up to me and said, Oh, well, you know, the only reason you've had any kind of success is because of the color of your skin or white privilege or whatever. | |
| I would find that, you know, kind of a deal breaker when it came to a friendship. | |
| But I live with it. | |
| When I was the chief technical officer in a software company, if I had a friend who came up to me and said, yeah, yeah, you did start the company and you worked for a year without pay and you worked 80 hours a week and you traveled basically sleeping in the back of your car and all that to get the software company going, but you're totally exploiting The dozens and dozens of people you've hired and who are working for you. | |
| You're just exploiting them and you're ripping them off and they're the wage slaves and you're the evil capitalists and so on. | |
| That's kind of intolerable to me because it's false and it's nasty and it's unpleasant. | |
| But people say that kind of stuff about managers in the world all the time. | |
| Bosses and entrepreneurs and the founders of businesses and so on. | |
| So yeah, there's lots of stuff that's out there. | |
| When I was growing up and I was told that there's a patriarchy, there's male chauvinist pigs, that there's a rape culture and so on and all of that. | |
| Or that somehow I, as an individual, was implicated in, you know, past crimes before there was even such a concept of international crimes in history and so on, again, based on the color of my skin. | |
| Yeah, I find that kind of intolerable. | |
| Now, intolerable means, to me, I would not tolerate that In a personal relationship, that would have to be something that would have to be cleared up right away. | |
| And if a person stuck to a position that labeled me as unjustly privileged, as exploitive, as evil, and so on, that would be a deal-breaker for the relationship. | |
| So I would not tolerate it in my personal life, but the whole point of free speech, of course, is that we tolerate things that are upsetting to us. | |
| And people who can't tolerate things that are upsetting to them are not helping the cause of free speech. | |
| Now, why is Canada a good country? | |
| It's a good country because in the Western tradition, in the common law, Anglo-Saxon tradition, particularly the Protestant tradition, criticism of all of the sacred cows that you can gather together into one marketplace of ideas is foundational to progress. | |
| Every single slice and dice of human progress has come at the extreme emotional discomfort Of everyone who was invested in a prior position to take. | |
| Examples, of course, you could think of the end of aristocracy was highly offensive to people who were aristocrats. | |
| The end of slavery was highly offensive to those who bought and traded slaves and who supported that institution. | |
| Even economic advancements, you invent, you know, the Luddites were a group of people who smashed, I think, automatic weaving devices because they thought it put them out of work. | |
| Every single advancement You know, alternative media like this is causing great discomfort to the mainstream media and so on. | |
| Every advancement is very upsetting to a certain number of people. | |
| If we allow people's upset to silence discourse as a principle, then all of the progress that gives rise to the wealth and freedoms of the West, the wealth and freedoms of places like Canada and America, the UK, well, they're... | |
| All going to go away. | |
| And that is a real shame. Listen, millions of people have moved to the West. | |
| Immigrants have moved to the West because they wish to enjoy the freedoms of the West. | |
| And freedom is not trying to destroy people's lives because you disagree with what they're saying. | |
| I mean, that's a terrible precedent to set, and it's a horrible, horrible death spiral to get into when it comes to public discourse. | |
| Yeah, there are going to be people out there who say inelegant things, things that upset you, things that are offensive. | |
| Trust me, as a white male, I've lived with it my whole life. | |
| And I can respect someone's right to say something while having absolutely zero or negative respect. | |
| Contempt. Disgust. | |
| Even for what it is that they're saying. | |
| That's the price of living in a free society. | |
| People are going to say stuff and you're going to shake your head and you're just going to say, wow, do I ever disagree with that? | |
| And if I feel strongly enough about it, I will write something, I will record something, I will publish something, I will make a rebuttal, I will get the data, I will engage in the marketplace of ideas. | |
| But jamming... | |
| The call center of the government to complain is not really the free speech way. | |
| It is not really the free speech way. | |
| And you cannot claim the virtue of tolerance while trying to destroy the career of an 85-year-old man. |
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