zlacker

>>helsin+(OP)
> Our society has become one in which people feel licensed to give their selfishness free rein.

This, this right here - and it's not just the US where this shows up (although it's definitely the most extreme). At the core, I think, it's all about "free speech": when you have a constitutional right to say whatever you want, without any limitations, you will first get a bunch of contrarians yelling all sorts of offensive stuff around "for the lulz"/"because they can", and eventually that sort of stuff gets normalized, and then societal cohesion (especially when the offensive stuff is directed towards minorities) and eventually society itself gets poisoned.

>>mschus+72
This feels like the right time to remind people of the paradox of tolerance [0]. Here's the summary of the article:

"The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually ceased or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

>>_Micro+x2
If you're going to post that, then let's also remind people that it's only a paradox if you treat tolerance itself as a moral imperative:

"Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats [..] the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms."

- https://medium.com/extra-extra/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-prec...