Nietzsche touched somewhat on the paradox of tolerance with the last men; a society in which everyone is pacifist, living comfortable. Conflict and challenges have been eliminated. Individuals are tired of life, take no risks. A life where no intolerant people exist.
Suffering is necessary for life, he argues ("That which does not kill me makes me stronger") and that likely includes the tolerance we extend to others.
How much suffering should society endure by intolerant members to ensure it grows into something better? A difficult question (there is probably no answer).
IMO some intolerant individuals, must exist in society for society to progress and grow, to drive progress for the sake of leaving the intolerant behind and to show us a mirror of our worst selves and a starting line we must grow distant to.
I guess the meta consideration for Nietzches world is that it also must be that case that everyone tolerates that world and that no one is intolerant of it, because if any individual is intolerant of that particular world and that particular life they will chose not to live it and break that world.
What I take from this is that there is just an endless dialectical loop that will play out ad infinitum where one group will vie for power over another and at some point succeed and they in turn will have the same thing happen to them.
I disagree it's progress. I think it is just constant change. I also think it's likely unavoidable, so I don't lament about it too much.
Actually when I read Why Nations Fail was the first time I realised that things don't only go in the direction of progress and that sometimes all the progress a society has made is erased and things revert. That got me to consider that it will happen to us at some point too.
Actually, though this is an interesting point to philosophise on and I find Nietzsche a fun thinker. I guess what you are alluding to saying that this endless loop is always driving forward progress (or maybe your distinction is that it is always progressing and that isn't necessarily a value judgement on whether the 'progress' is good or bad, just that the situation is always becoming different), is that perhaps and I think that in some way this is the case that our actions and the record of it sort of acts like a ratchet. That is, it turns one way and once it turns that way it doesn't turn back the other way. That's analagous to 'some things can't be unseen' I suppose. Even if it's all reset you can't negate how far we did come this time.
>or maybe your distinction is that it is always progressing and that isn't necessarily a value judgement on whether the 'progress' is good or bad, just that the situation is always becoming different
That would be part of it, not all progress is what we think of as good but it's progress, evolution of the status quo.
Suffering is necessary for life, he argues ("That which does not kill me makes me stronger") and that likely includes the tolerance we extend to others.
How much suffering should society endure by intolerant members to ensure it grows into something better? A difficult question (there is probably no answer).
IMO some intolerant individuals, must exist in society for society to progress and grow, to drive progress for the sake of leaving the intolerant behind and to show us a mirror of our worst selves and a starting line we must grow distant to.