An obsession with safe spaces is not just bad for education

I was raised by journalists and academics. To me, there's no question that universities must be neutral platforms and good journalism reports what's there without taking a side. But I am a straight white man from a middle-class family.

A supporter of the movement will tell you that the elevation of free inquiry and free expression to "value" status, as something with intrinsic worth and deserving of protection, was a fraud perpetrated by white men to sustain their power. A good many of my acquaintances actually believe the idea that there is objective truth that you can uncover scientifically is a similar fraud, so that white male academics would have access to tools like rational arguments or pointing out logical fallacies to better oppress everyone else.

To these people, the only thing that matters is the subjective "lived experience" of people who are not straight white men. Everything else can go to hell. Viewed in this light, their actions actually make perfect sense.

The desire to feel safe and worry-free is instinctive and powerful, but at the same time I believe we should not let the pursuit of that state get in the way of what makes life actually interesting and a unique experience; risk, failure, sadness, anger, and all the other "negative" things are just as important to experience as happiness and the feeling of security.

Yeah, this particular thing isn't terribly new. This was around in the 1990's, and quite possibly even earlier than that.

I assume you mean the way he was treated was disappointing, not that he acted as a role-model for young, inexperienced and still developing students.

When you say he was mistakenly expecting reason, I think if he was having a discussion with each individual he would have been convincing.

When it comes to hanging out with people I live by a (perhaps mean-spirited) rule - the larger the group of people you're talking to, the fewer topics you can delve into deeply. If you have one person you can find a common topic that you can share and dive into. However if someone else joins the two of you, you now need to find a common topic between the three of you. The likely outcome is that it will need to be more popular and less esoteric, thus probably less interesting. Now have a group of people: discussion will be centered around what's on TV etc and political or philosophical discussions need to be watered down heavily or cut out of the discussion. I think a similar thing is going on here - the crowd, collectively, is dumb. Even if it's composed of smart individuals.

Repackaging a Reddit comment I wrote:

Actually, let's back up a bit and talk about Elihu Yale, the namesake of the university, who was a slave trader[0]. Anyone who is oppressed by living in a Calhoun building, should have first thought about how they'd feel about spending years on a campus named after a slave trader, putting his name on their résumés and personal history for the rest of their lives, giving money to such an institution (either now, or later as alumni donations), building a career on the name of a man who enslaved their people. Yale has also been funded by slavery[1]. To be honest I had no idea this was the case, but I had a feeling if you dig deep enough, pretty much everything has a past that is looked down upon from the modern view.

Bottom line is that if you're looking for offense, you'll find it everywhere. You can decide to either reboot the entire society because it's all irrevocably tainted by people with some negative elements of their legacies, you can choose not to go to Yale because it's named after a slaver, or you can accept that it's just a name after all and doesn't have any actual oppressive effects on your life.

[0] http://digitalhistories.yctl.org/2014/11/01/elihu-yale-was-a... [1] http://www.yaleslavery.org/Endowments/e2schol.html

I do not know of any black people at my school who openly criticize this recent string of college protests (the debate seems to be predominantly centered around blacks in these incidents). Surely, if this pain is something only black people can understand and they are so united in this movement, then it suggests that their grievances ARE legitimate.

... and yet, something feels wrong here. Something feels wrong when I see hyperbolic signs like "our culture is not a costume" or retroactive counterarguments like "it's not only about the Halloween Costumes". Something feels wrong when I see people sharing FB statuses with #concernedstudent1950 when it implies they support the demands made by the student group [1]. Something feels wrong when my peers believe that whites cannot be the victims of racism, due to their racial privilege. I don't have a good response to your points, but I'm interested to see others' replies to your comment.

At any rate, all I'm sure of is that the political climate has dramatically changed in the last 2 years.

[1] http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/columbiatribune....

I disagree with the point being made that not alienating students (and minority students in particular) is more important than free speech, but...

if you are downvoting because you don't like what is being said then that speaks volumes for what you really think about the importance of free speech, and your actions are essentially the same as the students trying to shout down the professor.

x0x0, I disagree with you, and think that free speech is more important, but have my upvote.

Arguing in favor of both simultaneously is completely incoherent.

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/194874/per...

You know what.... all races behave badly sometimes and make others feel bad. It's not a white phenomenon. People should be more sensitive towards others. But others should also be less quick to take offense at every perceived or imagined slight. That's just how it's gotta be for this all to work out. Otherwise it's a cycle of negativity with no forgiveness and no progress towards an integrated society.

Saint Patrick's Day.

For someone who drags up history, are you really going to pretend that Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly aren't the reason we can protest in the first place?

https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/rights-protesters

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/civil-rights-first-amend...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independe...

etc.

One of the more interesting philosophy courses centered on whiteness and critical race theory, and was taught by a brilliant professor named George Yancy. I remember talking with him as we headed out of the building one night, and we were debating terminology after he had shared an interesting story about walking down the sidewalk while traffic was backed up beside him. As we was walking, he noticed that a number of drivers were reaching over and locking their doors (again) as this black man in suit with a red hat was walking near them. A really stupid little action on their part that made them feel safer—conscious or not—but one that was kind of mind-boggling to him as he walked. It wasn’t just one car, but a large number of them even though it looked like the doors were already locked. Racist? Definitely; he was shoehorned into this stereotype of a “black gangster/thug” that might try to carjack them in broad daylight or otherwise threaten them. They took preventive action to protect themselves from this perceived threat, and the general consensus was to label the action as racist. But the question I asked him was whether the term worked in this context. When we hear the term “racist,” the first thing that comes to mind are images of the KKK. Lynchings. Slavery. Overseers trying to “cure” drapetomania (mental illness causing slaves to run away) by “whipping the devil” out of their slaves (interesting how the cure for supposed illness matched up with their normal practices so perfectly). No one wants to be lumped into that sort of company, so the immediate response is to deny it. “I’m no racist! [insert reasons X,Y,Z here].” He felt that there’s definitely a difference, but that the label still worked because it sought to critique racism in its less obvious forms. In other words, the shock of having one’s actions compared to the horrors of the past helps pin down racial privilege behind the scenes that isn’t even given conscious thought.

My argument was that the term is so loaded that it prevents that introspection from occurring. Worse yet, it whips up a frantic frenzy to avoid the charge that serves to further mask that privilege from being seen. Consider an authoritarian state where neighbors are in a rush to inform on one another, constantly pushing further in an all-out effort to avoid becoming the focus of the state’s secret police themselves. Rather than address the substance of the critique, the individual being critiqued is so concerned with the label associated with the critique--"racist"--that they avoid hearing the critique at all.

The end result is that two groups find themselves looking at the same term and using two radically different definitions for it that are, effectively, mutually exclusive. And the worst part is that neither group realizes that they give such radically different meaning to the same term, leading to confusion and pain for all involved while stifling even the hope for meaningful progress. Neither group will ever be able to fully understand these differences without sustained dialogue between them. That dialogue may be painful at times, but it’s still necessary if you hope to see any sort of change or progress. That’s where free speech comes in.

The students at Yale, and those supporting the broader push for “safe spaces” in general, are missing this point to the point where they're undermining the very progress they seek to achieve. Not just because they’re mocked in the media, but because they’re preventing it from occurring in the first place. What good is it to push for everyone to feel “safe” on campus (again, it comes down to how we define yet another word) if those outside that group don’t understand what it is that makes them feel unsafe in the first place. Authoritarian efforts to force this issue, to carve out the so-called safe space by squashing other voices can only end in one thing: the creation of a new, sacred cow. You aren’t creating a dialogue that fosters genuine understanding and respect. You’re purposely avoiding it, which only serves to take the sacred cow in your midst and have it set aside and ignored out of fear of giving offense. The end result is that those you believe to be marginalized are marginalized further.

Nowhere in the Christakis email does she “salt the wound.” It’s an intellectual effort to engage a debate about Halloween costumes and the nature of interpersonal communication in this context. Agree with her or disagree as you wish. But engage her points; don’t make up this interpretation in order to justify ignoring and silencing her in the first place.

Race relations and progress with them have never been easy. Much of their history is written in pain and blood. Why would anyone be so foolish as to think that you can force this issue and avoid the discomfort that comes with engaging with one another? It's an attempt to take a shortcut that avoids the very reasons for the journey itself. Even if you succeed, you only manage to mask the very issues that concerned you in the first place.

If I find Mexican clothing nice, let's say, and I wear it to a "let's celebrate Mexico" party, how on earth is that offensive? Is it also offensive when the people of some other country wear American clothing and use red solo cups at their parties?

I mean, isn't that precisely what protesting something is?

(That said, there are definitely I think good and bad ways to protest, and also reactionary protests that escalate way past what's acceptable)

I agree that can be an issue, but I think that's also stretching the normal definition of "safe spaces" quite a bit. And I'm wary of articles like this that take that stretched definition, and apply it across the board.

Here's my tip - when someone does or says something that hurts you, examine why you feel the way you feel and treat it with amusement. I'm a minority that has dealt with racist comments. It is what it is. Do the words hurt me? No. I'm amused at how ignorant some people can be, and I move on with my life and write some code.

Some people are assholes. Some assholes are white and some aren't. We can't rid the world of assholes but it would sure be nice if they reformed themselves. In the meantime, there are no safe spaces in the real world. We should ask people to be polite where we can but that's as far as it goes.

I just laughed it off (which probably didn't help), and I didn't feel threatened by it at all (but my coworker didn't, so we went out next station, which looking back was probably a good idea).

To get to the point, I don't think insults from someone (words) can hurt unless one of the two conditions is satisfied:

(1) The words (or circumstances) indicate that the insulting person may escalate from words to actual physical attack

(2) The words may cause the bystanders to stand with the insulting person

In my case, I didn't felt threatened by (1), which was probably a little risky. It seems to me that we consider case (1) hurtful because it's a potential risk and we want to avoid it. The real emotion here is fear of being attacked.

In case of (2), I didn't worry about that either (in fact, there was a girl sitting next to me who was apparently very sympathetic to me laughing it off), because the person that did the name calling had obviously low social status.

But I think the reason we find (2) hurtful is a slightly different one; it's a status problem. If we want to be part of some group, we may be disappointed by that group rejecting us. It's not just a question of pure survival as in case of (1), it's our own emotional projection (of our status) that makes it hurtful.

Another example, I can imagine a girl being more hurt by somebody criticizing (with a sexist insinuation) her at work than somebody low status catcalling her on the street. The latter is much more risky, but the first can hurt lot more because that's where her aspirations are.

I wonder if you agree or not and what you think context of your situation was?

To sum up, I think there are two very different reasons why we consider words "hurtful", and each only happens in specific circumstances, which should be recognized (although they might be subjective). And while I do think people should be protected by law from potential risk in case (1), I am not sure if people should be protected from finding that they have low social status in the group they want to belong, as in (2). If anything should be protected at all then it's the potential to gain social status.

I remember being called a "white monkey" by a black girl in school when I was a kid. In that class, I was the minority, the only white kid. I don't think that experience affected my life negatively. Roll eyes, move on with life.

Spoken like a true first world child who has never experienced the sectarian violence, highly infectious diseases like TB/malaria/hiv, starvation, lack of clean drinking water, and the psychological effects of practically insurmountable poverty. These arent theoretical possibilities but facts of life experienced by billions of humans, the vast majority of whom have practically zero chance of escaping the cycle unless they happened to be born to well educated or wealthy parents.

I apologize for how offensive my comment is to you and your PC Principal, but christ, how can you think a perceived verbal assault on American college students (who are supported to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars a year by their parents and/or Freddi Mac) can even possibly compare to the life and death situations experienced by billions of people in the world on a daily basis?

The pen is mightier than the sword because a pen will move armies with swords. Not because someone might get their feelings hurt.

Addendum: Speech is probably more thoroughly weaponized by calling for censorship that it is by calling someone by offensive phrases.

Adults don't need institutions to protect them from name calling and hurtful words. Children do.

Actually, in contrast to what you're saying, words hardly matter at all. What's important is intention of the communication, not necessarily it's form. You can be the nicest-spoken lady/gentelman and have a vicious effect on the well-being of people or whole communities, by being hypocritical, judgemental or manipulative.

For a concrete example, black people are usually OK with being called "niggers", as long as it's by other black people; I assume that's because they assume different intentions than when a white person says that word (which is quite racist, ironically).

I understand what you're getting at, but that is hilariously untrue and a perfect representation of the delusion that the social justice movement operates under.

I realize it's an inflammatory article (Harvard and Yale having their differences, what else is new) but it's definitely a unique take on this phenomenon from a historical perspective.

Nobody really gives a shit until you start policing others so you can't get offended.

I don't think it's a coincidence.

I think that would be valuable to discuss but we need to know what that principle is. I haven't seen anything that informs me about it. For example, one person in this discussion said they are basing their conclusions on one video they saw of one incident at one college.

My experience with similar issues in the past is that what most people discuss, in any forum, doesn't turn out to be true - they are solving problems that don't exist.

I'm guessing it's defined someplace, if not in the by-laws then either by the school or by the groups that use them. Maybe it's a statement of principles of some group. Also, the idea of a 'safe space' may be based on certain papers or books or research. And that would apply to other issues besides 'safe spaces', such as the effects of racism on the educational environment, etc.

It would be useful to see links to some of the student groups' own statements; I only see second-hand information and not even many quotes or interviews with the protesters themselves.

Yeah, experimentation with new ideas like blackface and rape jokes.

I think the main issue with arguments against is that they rely on some black and white vision of the world (also ignoring that you can have places that aren't "safe spaces" to do your experimentation). Darwin would not have been limited by safe spaces. But hey, maybe KKK recruitment would.

At that point, everything is a spectrum between the banal and the monstrous. You just draw the line in different spots from others.

I've thought of that often. The more time went by the more I found the adults around me were ultimately fallible. The older I've gotten I've questioned my capacity as well. Am I being a good adult? What qualities to I aspire to have?

The people I see make it the farthest have the toughest hides. Life doesn't just throw shit at you from time to time it is a waterfall of crap. There is never a right time and waiting for it doesn't help. The adults I like the most set boundaries on life and work. They generally complain a great deal less. They have just as much to complain about, but choose not to waste time on trying to change the things they can't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer

O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, The courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other

I've fallen back to that recently. I've focused my energy on things that I can do to make a difference. For me, for my family and friends.

I haven't figured it out. You've no doubt heard of the programmer's imposter syndrome? Well I'm starting to believe that some of the best adults feel like adult imposters.

I could ramble for a while on this I guess.

If society shifts such that most 18 year olds act like children, them perhaps 18 is no longer the appropriate age to consider someone an adult.

I'm not arguing that this is a good or bad thing, but childhood has been lengthened before and it appears to be happening again. There's nothing magic about 18, it's a function of the culture and if the culture changes...

>What does it even mean to be an adult?

Most definitions of adult say something like: an adult is someone who is independent, self sufficient, and responsible for their own actions.

Now obviously being an adult (in the social sense) is more of a spectrum than a binary distinction, and those attributes I listed are more goals than hard requirements.

I think the easiest to define mark of adulthood come when you're attempting to provide for yourself (and perhaps others). For many, college is essentially four years of an all-expenses paid vacation. This is hardly a time of maturity. It's fun as anything for sure, but at this point most people are consuming from the world and contributing little back.

Kids who have to work (for more than just spending money) or who have to play a large part in taking care of their siblings seem to grow up faster.

This is admittedly a somewhat boring answer to the question, if anyone thinks they have a better version of what adulthood is, I'm interested in hearing it.

In cultures where a person was considered an adult at 15, there were older people behaving badly. And in cultures where a person is considered an adult at 18, there are older adults behaving badly.

This is not about adults killing or stealing or just acting like asses. This is a very specific issue. 18 year olds demanding that colleges treat them like children in order to protect them from being offended.