ID: A scene from Legally Blonde of a conversation between Warner and Elle in the corridor at Harvard, in 4 panels:

  1. Warner asks “What happened to the tolerant left?”

  2. Elle replies, smiling “Who said we were tolerant?”

  3. Warner continues “I thought you were supposed to be tolerant of all beliefs!”

  4. Elle looks confused “Why would we tolerate bigotry, inequity, or oppression?”

  • cynar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    2 days ago

    Basically, I want my various types of weirdness tolerated by others. Others want their weirdness tolerated. We mutually agree that it’s beneficial to each of us to tolerate each other. This gets expanded to other forms of weirdness. So long as it doesn’t significantly impinge on others who dont want it, we have no reason not to be tolerant of others. This is the social contract.

    Intolerance inherently impinges on others. While it might not impinge on my personal weirdness, I will still fight against it. I know it could be me next, and I would hope others would stand with me then. In turn, I will do that for others, both because it is right (in my mind) and because I don’t want to be targeted next.

    I will default to assuming people are happy with the contract. If they demonstrate disagreement, or contempt for the contract, then I withdraw its protections.