Comments Elsewhere

bigot, n.: One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

I guess I am a bigot, then. You see, I am strongly partial to my political group …

Of course, I already pointed out above that the definition has something importantly in common with ordinary usage but that it fails to grasp one important aspect: that “bigot” is a vice term, and only applies to those whose intolerance and partiality is irrational. To which Kinsella objects:

As for your irrational qualifier, that’s meaningless. Firstly, all action is necessarily rational (at least in the praxeological sense).

I’m well aware of that; but I wasn’t using the word “irrational” to contrast with rationality in the praxeological sense. You might have gleaned it from context; you also might have gleaned it from the fact that I wasn’t, using the word to describe actions at all but rather preferences (which are neither rational nor irrational in the praxeological sense, but can be either rational or irrational in the ordinary language sense of “reasonable” or “defensible”).

So, again: do you have a problem with the definition of a bigot as someone who is irrationally (unreasonably, unjustifiably) partial to their own group and intolerant towards those who differ? If so, what?

As for your own definition:

I would propose an alternate definition for bigot: One who hates other groups of people, who are not initiators of aggression, and actually initiates aggression against them.

This is a stupid definition of “bigot”. The world is full of bigots who have never attacked a soul; I take it that most people who attend Klan rallies, say, have never actually assaulted a Black person or a Catholic. (The days carnival-atmosphere village lynchings are mercifully over; actual violence is now almost exclusively committed by a small hard core.) But if your definition of a “bigot” excludes enthusiastic supporters of the Klan you are not actually defining “bigot” as the word is used by English speakers, but rather something else. And when I called Hoppe a bigot, I was speaking English.

You are taking Hoppe out of the context of the chapter that such was in, which was a chapter addressed to conervatives and to the socially conservative lifestyle. If a conservative culture is to be maintained, then, no, one cannot be tolerant of homosexuals.

This is disingenuous. Hoppe explicitly states in the passage:

They — the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centred lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism — will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.

A first reading clearly seems to indicate that Hoppe thinks intolerance towards homosexuals—up to and including exile and confiscation of property, if this can be done under the terms of the covenant—is necessary to maintain a libertarian order. Hoppe wants to maintain a libertarian order. Therefore, it seems to follow that Hoppe advocates intolerance towards homosexuals.

Maybe Hoppe only means that they must not be tolerated and must be physically removed if one is to maintain a libertarian order in a “traditionalist” kin-based covenant community, but not necessarily in other communities. If that’s what he means, it’s more than he says. It’s not a bizarro reading, but it’s also not one that will help you out much anyway. Hoppe’s made it very clear here and elsewhere that “traditionalist” kin-based communities are the kind of community he strongly identifies with, and that (in particular) he considers necessary to maintain a libertarian order in the society broadly.

I can see no contextual reason to read Hoppe’s condemnation of tolerance towards homosexual as anything other than (1) in propia voce and (2) applicable to all would-be libertarian communities. If you have any evidence for a different reading, please offer it—in which case we will just move on to some other examples. (Ol’ Hans has supplied us with many.)

Otherwise, let’s just agree that Hoppe advocates intolerance toward homosexuals and move on to the next question.

I also believe that it is the actual actions that Hoppe is saying cannot be tolerated, not the desires.

That’s fine; I mischaracterized Hoppe on this point. “Homosexuality” is usually something that people use to refer to facts about a person’s characteristic sexual desires, but Hoppe is talking about “lifestyles” above. So that’s what he thinks we should be intolerant towards: the “lifestyle” of sleeping with members of the same sex. Fine.

So the question is: is Hoppe’s avowed intolerance towards people who actively sleep with people of the same sex reasonable or unreasonable?

Stephan, do you think that it’s reasonable to be intolerant towards someone solely because she or he sleeps with people of the same sex?