It’s one of those standard mistakes made by non-liberals, not grasping the difference between tolerance and approval. The liberal stance is that sure, we might not desire to live as you do. We might even think that your way of life is less than optimal – to put it mildly. On the other hand you’re a competent adult and as long as there’s no third party harm how you fuck up your life is your business.
That’s tolerance.
This applies to sexuality, gender claims, work choices, paint colours and anything else we might want to think about. Approval is different:
Providers of sex education in schools are teaching children that prostitution is a “rewarding job” and failed to advise a 14-year-old girl having sex with a 16-year-old boy that it was illegal.
Outside organisations teaching children about sex also promote “kinks” such as being locked in a cage, flogged, caned, beaten and slapped in the face, The Times has found.
Approval is supporting people in those choices, telling ’em that they’re fine and dandy. Which isn’t to be liberal at all. Tolerance and disapproval coexist quite nicely, if it’s necessary to approve of choices made then we lose that freedom to be liberal in the first place. For forced approval means the loss of that freedom to choose.
Which is what’s going wrong here. As with so many others of those issues. The progressives have simply forgotten what liberal means.
How about legalizing drugs (and prostitution), making school attendance voluntary, and inflation-proofing a universal basic income?
Having seen the behaviour of the feral teens in the local town-centre I’m inclined to suggest that “being locked in a cage, flogged, caned, beaten…” might not be such a bad idea.
So they want to re-introduce corporal punishment to schools?
Maybe people go for the promotion of approval when they realise that what they are advocating is, in truth, intolerable. They don’t want to look at the real consequences of teenage promiscuity, exploration of “kinks”, and the like. Rather than the hard work of making a case which people might reject, it’s easier to shut them up by making them feel guilty for not clapping along.
Another thing. I’ve noticed that in any group of sexually-curious teens who are obsessing and speculating about sex, there is often an older teen or an adult who clearly gets off on feeding them information. Youngsters gravitate to those who can gratify and stimulate their curiosity. It’s probably a variant of exhibitionism, but in the current climate I think we need a scientific-sounding name for it so that we can call them out when we see it.
Jonathan:
My guess is that they would be fine about it, providing it was done with consent. In that, little has changed. Back in the early 1970s, I had to consent to a caning from my headmaster. The alternative was calling in my parents and the police, so I didn’t have to think about it for too long.
Not scientific, but calling it grooming, those adults doing it groomers seems about right. Alternately, just “The Disney Corporation” works as well.
Being selfish, my bitch is that the progs don’t want to tolerate me!!
I’d be perfectly happy if the Greens, for example, trekked off into the bush to live on lizards and witchetty grubs while I loll in my armchair. But they want me to do that while they loll in the armchair.
As for the kids, I naturally think they should be given a boring, old-fashioned, strictly conventional upbringing. If they want to try cutting off their balls or being locked in a cage and flogged once they’re adults, well it’s their life. But they should be given the option to try normality first.
@ Sam Vara
Maybe people go for the promotion of approval when they realise that what they are advocating is, in truth, intolerable. They don’t want to look at the real consequences of teenage promiscuity, exploration of “kinks”, and the like. Rather than the hard work of making a case which people might reject, it’s easier to shut them up by making them feel guilty for not clapping along.
The guy who coined the phrase luxury beliefs, Rob Henderson, was on on the TRIGGERnometery program recently talking about how progressive beliefs harm the poorest in society.
He’s an interesting character who’s own childhood was chaotic, so he knows of what he speaks.
The progressives have simply forgotten what liberal means.
They probably think it’s what Liberal Democrats practise, 99% of which would have J S Mill spinning like a top.
When I was a teenager I decided I was all for tolerance. But should I tolerate people whose whole ambition was to remove toleration from the likes of me? In other words, should I tolerate intolerance? Specifically, should I advocate hanging socialists and communists in the name of toleration?
I never did resolve that paradox and it seems needless now; there are so few of us left who approve of toleration.
“Providers of sex education in schools are teaching children that prostitution is a “rewarding job” and failed to advise a 14-year-old girl having sex with a 16-year-old boy that it was illegal.”
Prostitution is a rewarding job. How many 21 year olds with degrees earn more than a 21 year old prostitute per hour?
And how many 14 year olds do we prosecute for having sex? Isn’t it more that it’s illegal to have sex with a 14 year old?
None. We would only prosecute an adult. So a 14 year old girl getting boned by a 16 year old boy would be ignored unless there were concerns over pregnancy and even then it would only involve a social services intervention, nothing more. I doubt either parents would ever be informed without the children’s consent.
dearieme,
In his book Liberty in the Age of Terror: A Defence of Civil Liberties and Enlightenment Values, written a long time before he got Brexit Derangement Syndrome, AC Grayling makes a very good case for the tolerant not tolerating the intolerant. |H e does recognise the circularity of that meaning the tolerant have become intolerant. His case is that without that intolerance a tolerant society is lost.
Thanks, BiND. So he admits it’s a paradox – toleration for me but not for thee. It’s a puzzle and no mistake. My own attempt to resolve it was to say that it’s like a contract: tolerance has to be binding on both parties.
If one party is intolerant by definition then … well you can’t go wrong hanging socialists and communists.
The intolerant are only a problem if they have power. That is why we must fight the Online Harms Bill and all the other BS as if our lives depend on it. Because they do.
Left hate:
Live and Let Live; Do No Harm
They want Roman/EU “Everything illegal unless approved”
Dominic Raab’s “Bill of Rights” – Bill of No Rights – will achieve this
It’s a complete reversal of Magna Carta and 1689 Bill of Rights
We need another Glorious Revolution