The Closed Society
14th July 2023
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To the Western ear, the phrase “closed society” brings to mind hermit kingdoms like North Korea or totalitarian societies like the old Soviet Union. That is because the ideology of the American empire is the open society. The open society is tolerant and open to minorities while the closed society is intolerant. The former is always good while the latter is always bad, very very bad.
The open society is not the norm for human organization. In fact, the very idea of human organization requires both discrimination and intolerance. All human organizations must have rules to determine who is outside the group, who is inside the group and how this is enforced. An organization where anyone can come or go as they please is just an ad hoc mob, not an organization.
Therein lies the debilitating contradiction in the open society. If the goal is a society where all opinions are tolerated and given a fair hearing, it means tolerating ideas that run counter to the open society ideal. This is where Karl Popper’s famous phrase, “the paradox of tolerance”, comes into the conversation. In order to maintain the tolerant society, you must be intolerant of intolerance.