Reflection – What You Resist You Become

Politically, I tend to consider myself as a progressive, and yet it’s always puzzled me that so many liberal progressives are intolerant of intolerance. Then again, Karl Popper supported that very notion:

‘Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.’

— Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)

Perhaps Gandhi had the answer with his notion of satygraha?

‘Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love, or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase “passive resistance”, in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing we often avoided it and used instead the word “satyagraha” itself or some other equivalent English phrase.’

— M.K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa

H ❤

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