Recently, the French opposition leader Marine Le Pen was convicted for embezzlement of funds, together with 27 others. As a consequence, she cannot participate in the 2027 French presidential election, unless she wins her 2026 appeal. Quite a difference with the 2025 election of convicted criminal Trump. The above is an example of the tolerance of intolerance a.k.a....
In 1945 waarschuwde Karl Popper ons reeds voor de paradox van tolerantie in zijn boek The Open Society and its Enemies. Hij wordt “algemeen [] beschouwd als een van de grootste wetenschapsfilosofen van de 20e eeuw.” “Minder bekend [dan andere paradoxen] is de paradox van de tolerantie: onbeperkte tolerantie moet leiden tot het verdwijnen van...
De Volkskrant, 31 augustus 2023: "Een grote meerderheid van de Nederlanders wil dat de overheid of de Europese Unie optreedt tegen online desinformatie. Bijna de helft vindt zelfs dat de vrijheid van meningsuiting moet wijken als mensen gevaarlijke informatie delen." Wat is eigenlijk desinformatie?? Mijns inziens is desinformatie hetzelfde als onwelgevallige...
For a long time, something is bugging me: the nonsense ratio of "news" articles, and its parroting by other media (eg, radio, tv). Most information is ideologically biased (eg, conservative-right vs liberal left). Often, its main intention is to raise our anger rather than to increase our knowledge. As a result, the Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom model...
In a recent video (>3 min.), Dutch vlogger Harry Vermeegen wondered why liberal-left beliefs qualify as idealism, while conservative-right beliefs qualify as populism. His remark triggered a question that had once been on my mind, but which I had discarded back then, for reasons I cannot recall. The ingredients of conservative-right beliefs are either (i) emotions...
Being born in 1960, I was a teenager in the 1970s. If any society was permissive then it was back then. Nowadays, intolerance seems to be the driving force in (Western) societies. It's an example of Isaac Newton's third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (source). In the 1970s, Labour-Left was a dominant political force that...
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