Comic Strips

The term paradox was used because it comes from the "so much for the tolerant X" instances during mid XXth century. It's the incorrect assumption that tolerance is somehow a foundational principle of some ideology, mainly left, socialist and communist ideology; just because they were protesting intolerant policy and stances from the right. The right stupidly believes that this means that the left advocates for unlimited tolerance of everything as an extension of fundamental freedoms, like free speech and free thought.

This was at a time when the debate on the lawful limits of freedom in democracies was raging. In comes Karl Popper and produces the formal philosophical formulation of the paradox. He starts at freedom and demonstrates that in order for a free open and peaceful society to exist, then they must be tolerant, but, they must not held tolerance as a tenet, instead being intolerant of any intolerance. It is important as the first philosophical formulation of liberal democratic thinking. It actually distances itself from communism because, according to Popper, communism and even socialism will always end up in bloodshed, violence, and suffering.

The concept of social contract was not unknown to Popper, but it was not necessary for his argument to make sense. For, since Weber, it's understood as a given that wherever humans happen to live in community, some form of social contract will exist. Popper is not concerned with the existence of the contract, but to argue about its content.