Back in 2017, when white supremacist Richard Spencer was socked in the face by someone wearing all black at Trump’s inauguration, it launched an online debate, “Is it OK to punch a Nazi?”
The essential nature of the debate was whether it was acceptable for people to act violently towards someone with repugnant reviews, even if they were being peaceful. Some suggested people should confront them peacefully by engaging in a debate or at least make them feel uncomfortable being Nazi in public.
Others believed that it is totally fine to punch a Nazi.
The question of how to tolerate the intolerant was put beautifully by a philosopher named Karl Popper in 1945.
“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance,” he wrote. “If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”
So, basically, if you tolerate the intolerant, the intolerant will eventually wipe out tolerance.
Michael B. Tager, a Baltimore-based writer and Managing Editor of Mason Jar Press, shared a similar scenario on Twitter recently that got a lot of attention. He shared a story of sitting in a punk bar when someone wearing Nazi paraphernalia sat down beside him.
The punk rock scene has always had to deal with the infusion of Nazi types since its beginnings in the late ’70s. Seminal hardcore band Dead Kennedy’s expressed their frustration with the interlopers in their 1981 classic, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off.”
In Tager’s story, the bartender shows zero tolerance for Nazis even if they’re being peaceful and he gave a powerful answer why.
During the Spanish Civil War, a famous left-wing propaganda poster showing dead children killed by Francisco Franco’s Nationalists read: “If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.”
It’s a powerful statement that carries importance to this day. If we tolerate intolerant ideologies such as white supremacy, then they will be allowed to flourish. That doesn’t mean society has to be violent, but the enemies of tolerance should be pushed to the periphery of society.
Kick them out of your bars, places of worship, social media feed, neighborhood, school grounds, and politics. Once the Nazis are allowed to openly operate in tolerant society, it’s going to take a lot more than punching to get them out.
