There’s a question of whether there’s an important difference in kind between sorts of tolerance. Here’s an analogy which might or might not work: assume that, in general, a driver of a vehicle drives as fast as they think it is safe for cars to be driven in general. Only impatience would cause them to not tolerate people who drive slower than they; a safety concern could cause them to be upset by people who drive faster, since they consider that speed unsafe. Say you have two people who each drive at 50 mph. One of them tolerates only slower drivers but wants to ticket faster drivers and the other tolerates all drivers. The first driver could have a legitimate issue with the second one. They don’t disagree about how fast it’s safe to drive—they disagree about whether it is appropriate to expect that safety standard of others. Some kinds of statements are dangerous—perhaps not to the degree or in the way that cars are, but dangerous, like slanderous statements or ones that incite to riot or ones that are lies or ones that betray confidences or ones that mislead the gullible or ones that involve occupied inflammable theatrical venues. Refusing to castigate people who express those kinds of statements might—I’m not confident of this—itself be worthy of censure. Or perhaps I’m missing the point and those aren’t the kinds of statements the tolerators of which should be tolerated?
There’s a question of whether there’s an important difference in kind between sorts of tolerance. Here’s an analogy which might or might not work: assume that, in general, a driver of a vehicle drives as fast as they think it is safe for cars to be driven in general. Only impatience would cause them to not tolerate people who drive slower than they; a safety concern could cause them to be upset by people who drive faster, since they consider that speed unsafe. Say you have two people who each drive at 50 mph. One of them tolerates only slower drivers but wants to ticket faster drivers and the other tolerates all drivers. The first driver could have a legitimate issue with the second one. They don’t disagree about how fast it’s safe to drive—they disagree about whether it is appropriate to expect that safety standard of others. Some kinds of statements are dangerous—perhaps not to the degree or in the way that cars are, but dangerous, like slanderous statements or ones that incite to riot or ones that are lies or ones that betray confidences or ones that mislead the gullible or ones that involve occupied inflammable theatrical venues. Refusing to castigate people who express those kinds of statements might—I’m not confident of this—itself be worthy of censure. Or perhaps I’m missing the point and those aren’t the kinds of statements the tolerators of which should be tolerated?