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I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup — Scott Alexander

Starting question

Essay thesis

Alexander argues that much advertised tolerance is aimed at groups that are not really one’s outgroup. Real tolerance means kindness toward people who provoke tribal anger. The essay’s central move is to identify the true outgroup not by difference, but by proximity, rivalry, and emotional heat. > I can tolerate anything except the outgroup. > Being tolerant makes me see red, makes me sweat blood, but darn it I am going to be tolerant anyway.

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Forgiveness test

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The opening Chesterton story distinguishes real forgiveness from forgiving what one never condemned. If something seems harmless to you, ignoring it is not forgiveness. Virtue appears when the offence genuinely hurts. > You only pardon the sins that you don’t really think sinful. > You forgive because there isn’t anything to be forgiven.

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Tolerance has the same problem

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Alexander transfers the point from forgiveness to tolerance. If one already likes or approves of a group, being nice to them earns no special tolerance credit. > Tolerance is also considered a virtue, but it suffers the same sort of diminished expectations forgiveness does. > Thus do you gain no merit by tolerating them!

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Tolerance definition

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He proposes that tolerance means respect and kindness toward members of an outgroup. This immediately raises the question: who is actually experienced as an outgroup? > If I had to define tolerance it would be something like respect and kindness toward members of an outgroup.

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Not mere difference

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Outgroups are not simply people most unlike us. Nazis were more culturally similar to German Jews than to Japanese allies, yet the Jews were the hated outgroup. Small differences near home often matter more than large differences far away. > Freud spoke of the narcissism of small differences. > Outgroups may be the people who look exactly like you.

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Proximity plus rivalry

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The working account is proximity plus small differences, especially where groups compete for status, legitimacy, or moral authority. Distant strangers can become allies; near neighbours can become enemies.

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Strategic allies can seem lovable

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Groups that are culturally distant can become honorary ingroups when strategically useful. The British praise of Irish and Sikh soldiers during wartime illustrates how quickly contempt can turn into paeans when allies are needed.

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Dark matter conservatives

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Alexander describes living amid conservatives geographically but rarely meeting them socially. His circles, Reddit, elite universities, and online communities filter them out almost completely. > Conservatives are all around me, yet I am about as likely to have a serious encounter with one as I am a Tibetan lama.

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Social bubbles are tribal

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The bubble is not maintained by explicit political screening alone. Politics is the visible tip of a broader cluster of tastes, habits, institutions, class markers, and cultural signals. > Voting Republican... is the iceberg-tip of a conservative tribe with many distinguishing characteristics.

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Red, Blue, Grey tribes

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Alexander sketches Red Tribe and Blue Tribe as cultural clusters, with Grey Tribe as a partial offshoot. The categories include food, religion, sports, media, education, marriage patterns, moral panics, and aesthetics, not just votes.

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True outgroup for Blues

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The central application: for Blue Tribe members, the true outgroup is not distant enemies like al-Qaeda, but the Red Tribe. That explains why Thatcher can provoke hotter hatred than Osama bin Laden. > Osama provokes a snap judgment of flawed human being, Thatcher a snap judgment of scum. > If you’re part of the Blue Tribe... your outgroup... is the Red Tribe.

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Partyism can exceed race bias

Final practical lesson

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