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I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup — Scott Alexander

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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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Final practical lesson

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