Hacker News Reader

Part of the problem, though, is on the other side: if a student says, "This (action) causes harm to members of these groups in this way," that student is using words to start a discussion about the topic at hand. It seems that many people find this discussion itself offensive -- polite people don't talk about racism, sexism, etc., because calling out someone's bad manners is worse than having bad manners in the first place. (That is what my grandfather taught me.)

A lot of the students decried in articles like the original are using calm, controlled, verbal arguments to represent their point of view -- but then that's represented as silencing. I guess I do see a generational gap. Young people say, "What you said is an example of a microaggression." Old people hear, "You're a racist so you can't talk, and mentioning this microaggression means I'm so afraid of conflict I can't compete with China in the new world economy, except I just started a conflict by stating the truth as I see it instead of shutting up and rolling over like I would have in the old days, so maybe I can compete with China...?."

I think what is troubling, if anything, to the 'old people' (and probably not just those), is that when arguments such as this starts getting validity beyond being appeals to civility - i.e. when someone is effectively able to stop discussion of a subject because they claim to be 'harmed' by it - it completely changes the context of the discussion and IMO, hinders constructive discourse. So, if safe spaces are to be a 'thing', then we have to be very clear that they must have a very well-defined limit, beyond which regular discourse can continue.

Agreed!

It's not that "old people" think they hear such things, in some cases those things are actually stated. That's the problem as I see it, the people who use calm, controlled, verbal arguments are drowned out by the idiots who think shutting down opposing viewpoints is justified. These idiots exist in all spectrums of discussion of any topic, some are just louder than others. The calm ones tend to, unfortunately, get lumped into that crowd.

> if a student says, "This (action) causes harm to members of these groups in this way," that student is using words to start a discussion about the topic at hand.

Are they? Which discussion are they starting? I don't think I've seen that lead to a discussion about whether it not it actually causes harm, but instead it's for starting a discussion about what to do about the harm that it's presumed to be causing.

> If half as many of these kids that think they have it actually have PTSD then we are doing something VERY wrong to our kids.

Yes, people who were raped or abused or assaulted could have PTSD, and yes it does mean we're doing something VERY wrong to them.

> Life doesn't have warning labels

Well, it could, right? Life didn't have a safety net until we created welfare and social security. Life didn't have training wheels until we created a robust schooling system.

Your kids sound great, but I think you're arguing against a particular subset of trigger warnings that everyone here would agree is dumb. There are uses that do much more good than harm.

> that everyone here would agree is dumb

Trigger warning: I don't agree. And I think your tone is a bit aggressive.

Yeah, this doesn't really seem like a big deal. If people don't want to engage with you, don't engage with them. It's not like you would have had a meaningful conversation if trigger warnings didn't exist, they still would have ignored whatever you said.

> Yes, people who were raped or abused or assaulted could have PTSD, and yes it does mean we're doing something VERY wrong to them.

Yeah, I would expect some of the worst possible things that could happen to someone would leave a mental mark on the victim. I think most people would. These aren't the people I'm talking about and you know that.

>> Life doesn't have warning labels

> Well, it could, right? Life didn't have a safety net until we created welfare and social security. Life didn't have training wheels until we created a robust schooling system.

The more you hold someone's hand through life, the less they are able to do for themselves as adults. Research is continuing to prove this out, how helicopter parenting is destroying kids emotional IQ. They don't know how to deal with life, mom does that for them.

Things like outlawing two hand touch football, dodgeball, even tag and king of the hill at school in order to keep kids safe are rendering them unable to navigate social constructs on their own. Free play allows kids to participate in rule making and enforcing on their own, generating their own social constructs, and dealing with the consequences all their own. Think about all the shouting matches of "I tagged you, your out!" and "No you didn't!". These are all ridiculously important to the development of kids and it's the thing schools at all levels are cutting the most. Recess and PE are essentially gone from schools. PE teachers have been axed and the regular teachers, with no interest in or time to study PE now teach the classes. If kids start playing tag, they're suspended for aggressive anti-social behavior. It's possibly the most social thing they could ever do at a young age.

The notion that everyone should be coddled so that no one may suffer is not only belittling to everyone in society, basically affirming you believe that no one is capable of handling their own affairs without help at every step, but it leads to a bunch of people with their brains half turned off and under developed.

You want Idiocracy to come true? Don't worry about Trump, keep up with the safe spaces and trigger warnings. Keep screaming at your kid's teacher until they get that A instead of a C-. Keep letting your kid think that the world should be smooth sailing and if it's not you should give up. Keep that up and we'll have it during my kids' generation.

Ok, I think you're picking really easy targets. Nobody else here is talking about banning tag or bullying teachers or something. These aren't the people I'm talking about and you know that.

Can we move on from this pretty limited discussion? Most other comments here have made it clear that not every use of "safe space" and "trigger warning" is legitimate, and we all agree with these layups you're taking.

The greater point I was alluding to is that we (at least the US) generally try REALLY HARD to do things to keep our kids happy and safe. Not because we want to lobotomize them, because we love them. I'm a dad, I feel it every day, every time my kids go up the stairs my spidey sense is waiting to jump at any moment and catch them. I understand the emotional reasoning behind all of the things we are trying at the younger ages.

The problem with all these things we're trying to do is that we have the unintended consequence of really keeping them childish in many ways, and it has become very telling when you look at the level of public discourse today. It starts when they're young and is proving to have detrimental effects that carry on into adulthood as more and more studies come out.

People are becoming unable to maintain a collegial dialogue, like you and I are doing at this very moment (thank you), the notion of ideas that disagree with your own become unfathomable, even traumatic, and then you're unable to see where someone else is coming from. You then can't meet in the middle, because you have to be right and they have to be wrong, and then we're stuck. You can't even, as the kids would say.

I truly believe that to have the hard discussions we need that people need to feel safe to speak their mind. For someone who's lived a persecuted life, they may never be able to do that unless they're in a place they believe is safe. If that means that on campuses different student centers are labeled as such, so be it. That's fine. If the entire campus, all buildings, and all rooms are labeled as such, then where are we going to have a discussion where we disagree? Because taken to the logical extreme that we're seeing, to be a safe place, we can't have a disagreement, it would be too unsettling.

College campuses should be the root of these hard discussions. These are the institutions we're sending our kids to in order to engage in higher thought.

When someone has been through a trauma we want to help that person recover. Their recovery is not helped by blanket avoidance of "triggers". Their recovery is helped by a cautious therapeutic programme of planned exposure, with support and follow up.

It's obvious that this is very different from how trigger warnings are currently being (ab)used. Trigger warnings are not being used to provide information to consumers so they can make an informed choice. Trigger warnings are being used to stop distribution.

Some law courses struggle to teach law around rape, because "triggering". Some sociology courses don't teach about suicide because "triggering".

The solution is to provide the warning, and to also teach the topic, and to make sure that the few people who need it have access to good quality support.

Do you have some source for the best way to help people recover from trauma? I have no idea how to do it, but I would be surprised if Dr. Phil style "throw them into the deep end until they get over it" is really the best way.

There is no blanket treatment for "trauma". One issue with patients is that often the will to fix things is missing, at which point nothing helps. Those people will argue, and in extremer cases even fight just to avoid getting exposed to the real world again.

First step is usually to index what the reactions are that make the trauma last. Those can go from violence, the will to fix it, over avoidance, to panic, and goes on quite a while. At an extremely high level you could perhaps say that you go over them, attempting to eliminate them one by one. But of course "fixing" panic reactions is done very differently (and much more carefully) from establishing the will to resolve the problem. Throwing in the deep end can work very well if the will to face the problem is the only problem. When we're talking about a situation that looks scary in movies but doesn't carry real risk (like non-venomous spiders) that will usually work, and in fact a lot of people will do just that without any help from a therapist. Best to verify beforehand though, as it certainly will make panic reactions worse. Panic is sometimes solved by role play, imagining, where possible, and planning out moves and counter moves before going anywhere near the real situation.

In a way a therapist only shares his own character with the patient. The theory is that this improves the patient, and the therapist is trained to experience minimal impact. It is advised though, that therapists pair up and have sessions with each other to verify that there is indeed only minimal impact, and fix if problems develop.

Throwing people in the deep end is usually unavoidable : people don't have the choice in the medium term, they have to face the real world, and therefore a good therapy should take that into account.

Hang on - nothing I said can be seen as "throw them in the deep end until they get over it"!

For people with mild symptoms you should do "watchful waiting" if the trauma happened less than 4 weeks ago.

Single episode "debriefing" after a traumatic incident should be avoided.

People should have access to early intervention trauma-focussed psychological therapy

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg26

(Although this guidance is going to be re-written soon).

See this earlier comment, and the references cited therein, for information on how exposure, rather than avoidance, is better for treating trauma survivors: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8801995

So you agree that some places should be safe spaces?

Some places (e.g. shelters for abused people) must be "safe spaces" to protect their occupants.

Common public places however must remain open for debate and free speech (of course limited by laws prohibiting libel, Holocaust denial etc).

> of course limited by laws prohibiting libel, Holocaust denial etc).

And here we see the really tricky cultural clash problem. Some Americans and most Europeans will say that there are obvious limits to free speech - holocaust denial, hate speech, fighting words, etc. But there's a sizable number of Americans (and probably a smaller number of Europeans) who'll say there should be almost no limits to freedom of speech. (Maybe a ban on distributing images of child sexual abuse, but just about everything else is fair game).

Here's an English politician - Luciana Berger, showing a sample of the anti-semitic hate speech she regularly receives. Some people say that's clearly not acceptable and that Twitter should ban those users (I tend to agree with them).

But a sizable number of people say it's fair enough - she's a politician, she's in the public eye, she can just block those users herself, she should put up with it, she should grow a thicker skin, etc.

https://twitter.com/lucianaberger/status/725635171295330304/...

Working out which laws are useful to follow, and which are probably a bit too restrictive, would probably be helpful.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-emirates-court-idUSKCN0PA1...

Or insult my old employer, even if I'm not in the country when I do so?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/uniteda...

This is why I think it's both important that there are places people can go to avoid free speech (safe spaces), and also why we shouldn't just blanket label entire buildings/campuses/cities as safe spaces.

If you were, say, a 20 year old female rape survivor it would be reasonable to expect that the campus Women's Center, which has been labeled a safe space for the purpose of my argument (and hopefully in real life), and expect that you wouldn't be confronted with someone standing at a pulpit declaring all the virtues of rape. Or denying rape, etc. etc. There should be buildings like this that are accessible to everyone. There should be support systems in place in society (college campuses included) that would allow someone to work through this, meet with similar individuals, and get proper help.

However, if there is a speaker in an auditorium who has been invited to discuss his new book detailing how a rape culture has propelled industrialized society forward, he should be allowed to present his argument in that space. You, and anyone else that wants to join you, should be free to protest the living hell out of that outside the auditorium. However crazy his argument may be, we have buildings and spaces that were designed to present them. On a college campus, there's probably 50 spaces to do this.

At least in the states, it's still really important to a lot of people that we can have 'crazy' people say 'crazy' things. If we want to keep that, it is important for people to be available to seek shelter from those crazy things, but we can't make the whole world a shelter.

That's literally the opening line of the response. You conveniently ignored the meat of a well constructed point in an attempt to quickly show that OP agrees with you.

OP has correctly exemplified the idea of 'safe spaces' being used to silence debate and discussion. Thus allowing every individual to possess their own subjective truth, and conveniently dispose with hard realities when their beliefs are in conflict with said realities. This is exactly the same as the far right in America conveniently ignoring the reality of climate change.

I'm all for oppressed groups having a safe space and living their lives freely, but the danger here is individuals retreating to a 'safe space' every time life hands them lemons. We didn't progress this far in human culture by tip toeing around beliefs.

I did not ignore the rest of the argument at all.

I was indirectly pointing out that the OP had used the first line, not as a statement of belief, but as a token so that they could say the rest of what they actually believe.

Similarly, you say "I'm all for oppressed groups having a safe space and living their lives freely", followed by "but", followed by what you seem to actually believe. Which one of your statements is true?

You fail to understand that this issue is not binary. It is not required to be either fully supportive or fully against safe spaces. Safe spaces can be valuable. The original article, OP, and myself are showing a concern at the usage of safe spaces to silence debate.

We shouldn't train people to retreat when their beliefs are challenged. We shouldn't train people to hold their opinions as some strange mix of subjective absolute truth. We are all wrong sometimes, and we all need to be challenged.

I appreciate your concern. I'm also very interested in hearing your opinion on what the role of safe spaces should be, and where they are proper.

Are you actually interested, or looking for a way to extend your disingenuous argument?

I'm interested in knowing what would be a valid use of safe spaces, according to the OP.

The OP has clearly explained why they think safe spaces have gone too far, but they've not said under what circumstances they believe that they are proper beyond a general acknowledgement at the beginning of the comment. In order to know what's too far, it's important to know where the line is.

I said I am for safe spaces in general, though I feel they're being abused. What I decried was trigger warnings and the failing of the adults that brought up people that think they need a trigger warning.

Nope, that's not what I said. What I said was people should have the right to speak among themselves in a space that doesn't include people who are being aggressive (aka being a jerk). It doesn't matter if it's a minority group's safe space or your friend's mancave. You got a right not to associate with people who are either inherently antisocial or easily agitated by the fact that you exist (like LGBT people). It has nothing to do with "subjective truth" or any other such nonsense. It has to do with the fact that people's rights of association should be fundamentally respected. If you think this is too much to ask then I suggest you move to another country (yes I'm going to use the love it or leave it meme) where the freedom of association is limited and/or prohibited because we Americans love to control how we associate and with whom we associate. And as for 'retreating', too bad if you demand everyone to live on your terms but until you PAY for everyone's time in kind then you have no say in what people can and will do for themselves.

I was never addressing a post you made. We're not having the same conversation.

Okay thanks, sorry of the confusion.

Safe spaces are children moves...

>Life doesn't have warning labels

Yes, it does. They're call trigger warnings and when used appropriately quite effective.

Do you have any supporting evidence for this?

Not trolling here; I'm genuinely curious.

You have no idea what you are talking about and are projecting your own life experience on the many people who have actually experienced trauma.It's not something that can't be measured. It's very real and has clear cut physiological risks.

http://advocatingopportunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/...

The thing is, you have no idea what I've experienced- nor am I going to start comparing life stories. Nor do I know what you have experienced.

You are assuming that everyone has actually experienced trauma, I'm saying that what a lot of these people feel is traumatic because they weren't equipped with the tools to deal with it in the first place.

If you get in a head on collision in a 50 year old car with no seat belt, you will likely die at most speeds. If you do the same in a brand new car with all the safety tools necessary you can walk away completely unscathed. Or somewhere in between- each collision happens in it's own way.

We're taking our kids today and stripping out their air bags. I'm saying that if a discussion, even if heated, renders you generally traumatized AND you weren't a victim of some abuse or 'real' trauma, it's because the people who had a hand in raising you completely failed you. I'm not saying you're not traumatized, I'm saying you wouldn't have been if your parents, educators, and elders did their damn job.

It sounds like you are coming from a place of extreme privilege. Many many many people have terrible parents.

I was extremely privileged to have good parents. My parents were very young when they had me and I got the privilege of living in a war zone as a child just old enough to remember it.

My privilege is that I experienced life events that many of these kids will never face anywhere near and my parents did their job raising me to be able to handle it.

So yeah, I had good parents that loved me, showed me that, and made sure I knew how to take care of myself and I was extremely privileged compared to the zombie parents 'raising' kids today.