Skip to main content
Skip to current response

I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup — Scott Alexander

Reader options

Reading style
Sign in for grid updates

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.
Then Node · AI

Forgiveness test

No source links recorded for this answer.

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.
Then Pro / Supporting Point · AI

Tolerance has the same problem

No source links recorded for this answer.

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!

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Pro / Supporting Point · AI

Tolerance definition

No source links recorded for this answer.

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.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Node · AI

Not mere difference

No source links recorded for this answer.

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.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Synthesis / Balanced View · AI

Proximity plus rivalry

No source links recorded for this answer.

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.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Node · AI

Strategic allies can seem lovable

No source links recorded for this answer.

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.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Node · AI

Dark matter conservatives

No source links recorded for this answer.

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.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Pro / Supporting Point · AI

Social bubbles are tribal

No source links recorded for this answer.

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.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Node · AI

Red, Blue, Grey tribes

No source links recorded for this answer.

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.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Pro / Supporting Point · AI

True outgroup for Blues

No source links recorded for this answer.

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.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Node · AI

Partyism can exceed race bias

No source links recorded for this answer.

Alexander cites research suggesting partisan bias can be psychologically stronger than racial bias in some experimental contexts. He separates attitude strength from social consequences. > People’s unconscious partisan biases were half again as strong as their unconscious racial biases. > I’m not saying... partyism is more of a problem than racism.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Node · AI

Coded self-criticism

No source links recorded for this answer.

Terms like American, white, or straight white men can function as coded references to the Red Tribe, letting Blue Tribe writers attack an outgroup while appearing humbly self-critical. > On both sides, American can be either a normal demonym, or a code word for a member of the Red Tribe. > Intolerance is starting to look like another one of those words like white and American.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Node · AI

Fox versus ISIS

No source links recorded for this answer.

The Russell Brand/Fox/ISIS example shows how emotional energy targets the near outgroup rather than distant evil. The audience rewards attacks on its rival tribe far more than attacks on broadly condemned outsiders. > You hate the outgroup, you don’t hate random desert people.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Con / Counterpoint · AI

Tolerance can license intolerance

No source links recorded for this answer.

When intolerance is defined as whatever the outgroup does, suppressing outgroup members can feel virtuous. The Brendan Eich example is used to argue that Blue institutions can treat isolated Red Tribe members as representatives of an all-powerful threat. > I can tolerate anything except intolerance. > I can tolerate anything except the outgroup. Doesn’t sound quite so noble now, does it?

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Node · AI

The apparent paradox dissolves

No source links recorded for this answer.

The essay returns to its puzzle: why do people seem to love outgroups and criticize their own group? Alexander’s answer is that they have renamed allies as outgroups and their true outgroup as their own culture. > The weird dynamic of outgroup-philia and ingroup-phobia isn’t anything of the sort. > It’s just good old-fashioned in-group-favoritism and outgroup bashing, a little more sophisticated and a little more sneaky.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Synthesis / Balanced View · AI

Self-undermining turn

No source links recorded for this answer.

In the final section Alexander turns the critique on himself. If he enjoyed attacking the Blue Tribe, perhaps it is not his ingroup but his outgroup. This reflexive move prevents the essay from being merely another tribal weapon. > This essay is bad and I should feel bad. > I’m not that special.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Node · AI

Real self-criticism hurts

No source links recorded for this answer.

True ingroup criticism should feel costly, not fun. If attacking your own side feels enjoyable and socially rewarded, it probably is not your own side in the relevant tribal sense. > People do not have fun writing articles savagely criticizing their in-group. > If you think you’re criticizing your own tribe... consider the possibility that you aren’t.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Node · AI

His own tolerance task

No source links recorded for this answer.

Alexander identifies his own real task: not tolerating distant Christians or Southerners, but tolerating the Blue Tribe, which emotionally functions as his outgroup. > If I want Tolerance Points, my own personal cross to bear right now is tolerating the Blue Tribe.

Select text to highlight passages.

Then Node · AI

Final practical lesson

No source links recorded for this answer.

The essay’s aim is not to provide ammunition against one tribe but to help readers identify where tolerance is actually difficult. Real tolerance is the uncomfortable discipline of treating the true outgroup decently. > The best thing that could happen to this post is that it makes a lot of people, especially myself, figure out how to be more tolerant.

Select text to highlight passages.

Continue this thread

This path ends here for now.

Share your perspective, offer an example, or ask a follow-up to continue the discussion.

Highlights

1 saved passage and connected ideas