Paul Krugman repeats his Anti-Irish bigotry.

[Hortensis]

50. We're in an era of great intolerance -- of each other, period.

Sure, intolerance of bad behavior is necessary and is leading to real advances. But everything can be overdone, and if it's negative in this era it is.

We are living in mean times, the kind of mean times that bring down democracies; and the meanness infects everything, even the efforts of those who are trying to do good. Even poisoning and subverting the very idea of what is good, what it takes to be good.

Remember when toleration of the billions we live among was supposed to be a necessary virtue, even though sometims misused to enable wrong? Not any more.

In this mean, extremist era, aggressive intolerance is seen as a virtue. It has become a major weapon of both both the vicious bigots it once epitomized and those who once fought it.

This will pass eventually. Meanness will die down to await another coming, and kindness, decency and generosity of spirit will once again become expected and respected behavior. Putting the worst possible interpretation on everything people say in order to attack will be...frowned on.

Itm, talk on eggshells, yet with respect. As for destroyed cultural icons and erased identities, future generations will restore what they want back, no doubt restyled to current tastes.