
In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas - gmays
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/judith-shulevitz-hiding-from-scary-ideas.html
======
iplaw
This article is from March 2015, and shows that the writing has been on the
wall for quite a while. The "safe spaces" movement is a plague, and I am sick
of it. I hold extremely diverse viewpoints which span the political spectrum.
Socially liberal and fiscally conservative. How can liberals claim to be
accepting of all viewpoints but, in reality, only accept those that align with
their pseudo-personal-Utopia outlook? It's bonkers.

There is no right to not be offended.

There is no right to not be uncomfortable.

Welcome to real life, where you must be resilient to criticism and offense and
countless other negative occurrences and feelings.

~~~
fnovd
I don't have a problem with safe spaces. To me, they're like office break
rooms. Sometimes you just need a minute to disengage. But, if you're spending
your whole day in there, I'm going to question why you show up to work in the
first place.

~~~
Zikes
Safe spaces as I've seen them implemented are exclusionary and discriminatory.

A women-only safe space is sexist, as the implied "safety" of not allowing men
implies that men are inherently unsafe. A POC-only safe space is racist, as
the implied "safety" of not allowing whites implies that whites are inherently
unsafe.

If anyone were to even suggest the opposite implementation, a men-only or
whites-only "safe space", then the discriminatory nature is immediately
apparent and everyone rallies to shut down the idea before it ever reaches
implementation.

Edit: Oops, I've invaded HN's safe space. Disagree with me all you like, but
as we learned earlier this week it's not the votes that matter. Tell me why
I'm wrong, I'm genuinely interested in hearing your opinion.

~~~
mLuby
The US Presidency is such a "men-only (almost) whites-only" safe space, as are
most circles of power in this country.

~~~
Zikes
Article 2 Section 1 Clause 5 of the Constitution

> No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States,
> at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the
> Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who
> shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen
> Years a Resident within the United States.

I don't see anything there about genitalia or skin color.

But since it's a "safe space" I think I'll pop in there and relax for a bit.
It's time I escape this mediocrity and claim the power of my white male
birthright.

~~~
Zikes
I apologize for the snark at the end. I am easily goaded.

------
samsolomon
> I don’t see how you can have a therapeutic space that’s also an intellectual
> space.

College should be a place where your beliefs should be challenged. If we've
learned anything, echo chambers are strong and becoming stronger. The only way
to combat that is with adversity.

~~~
st3v3r
What if that belief is that you're fine being an LGBTQ person, and the
"challenge" is from people who believe that you shouldn't exist or have the
same rights as others?

~~~
DarkTree
Then oddly enough, it becomes less about you being challenged and more about
those who believe you shouldn't exist being challenged. Colleges are great for
exposure to peers with varying backgrounds and beliefs and are great for
fostering understanding of each other's viewpoints. Isolating your group to
spaces of the same people will probably strengthen that demarcation and lessen
the incentive (and the ability) for those with hardened beliefs to understand
the other side's viewpoints. Sometimes all it takes is befriending one LGBTQ
to melt that belief.

~~~
makomk
What if, sometimes, LGBTQ people want to achieve things _other_ than
challenging people who believe they don't exist - things like, say, arranging
financial support for people who've been disowned by their family for being
gay and are in danger of becoming homeless, or even just having a friendly
chat with other LGBTQ people about their experiences? That's what the LGBT
space at university was used for when I was there.

~~~
cmdrfred
Feel free to do so on their private property as has always been their right.

~~~
fnovd
Many universities _are_ private property, and students have a say in how they
are used, hence school-sanction safe spaces existing in the first place.

~~~
cmdrfred
As long as they receive no public funding I don't see a problem with it, but
you don't get to take federal dollars and put up a no whites allowed sign on
the door.

------
11thEarlOfMar
I am 50+ and this whole safe space movement is really perplexing. No, people
should not be subjected to hurtful circumstances, but at the same time, they
are a fact of life.

Being a world citizen is a dicey proposition, and my gut reaction is that
further insulating ourselves is the wrong way to go. I can't imagine how a
military comprised of soldiers who have grown up in this movement can be
expected to deal with the events of war.

If a person is truly emotionally wounded and sensitive to common messages from
typical life events, they should be afforded therapy so they can cope.

~~~
ipnon
I am 20+ and this trend seems to indicate that people are growing decreasingly
familiar with traumatic experiences in their lives, which also seems to
indicate a general increase in average quality of life.

~~~
CaptSpify
I wonder if one could liken it to allergies. Your body is so insulated from
bad things that your immune systems kicks in when it's not needed. This trend
seems similar, as it seems to me that those who have had real and damaging
traumatic experiences need these safe-spaces less than those that have had
pseudo-traumatic experiences.

I have no statistics to back this up, though, and would welcome evidence in
either direction.

~~~
Pigo
All indications are that this is the safest time in history to be alive. The
headlines give us all a sense of terror because it useful to some narratives,
but any articles citing studies and statistics show otherwise. We're just much
more aware of horrible things due to the proliferation of information.
[https://goo.gl/yQkFXx](https://goo.gl/yQkFXx)
[https://goo.gl/J9ib0x](https://goo.gl/J9ib0x)

------
Pigo
It's sad that this is old news now. But I'm sure the people who started these
universities are still rolling in their graves. These free-thinkers celebrated
civil discourse, and built universities to foster the marketplace of ideas. As
iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

------
nofinator
Has there been any empirical research done on this? Whenever this topic comes
up on the Internet it is very charged and full of assumptions. I suspect that
the creation/utilization of safe spaces and trigger warnings is actually
rather low in a country with almost 14 million students in higher education.

------
dorkrawk
"What will they do when they hear opinions they’ve learned to shrink from? If
they want to change the world, how will they learn to persuade people to join
them?"

This seems like an important quote for those who are sad/disappointed/angry
about the US election results.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
This is pretty key. To persuade someone, you have to understand what they
believe, and why they believe it. When you approach a conversation with "the
other side is stupid/backwards", their response will be that YOU are just
stupid/backwards.

One of the things very few partisans seem to want to admit right now, is that
the other party is NOT just a bunch of hateful people. That both parties are
made up of humans who, for the most part, want to make better lives for
themselves and others around them. Mostly people who want to make this country
a better place, but obviously disagree on what that "better place" looks like.
And those beliefs are built on their life experiences, both what they've been
told and what they've been through. And that one person shouting at them and
telling them they're wrong isn't going to magically change that. And trying to
invalidate their lives by going after their social class or their "privilege"
isn't going to help anyone, and is tone deaf to the fact that people at all
levels of class experience the same emotions, the same level of panic, fear,
and trauma.

~~~
rdiddly
In other words, everyone reaches their conclusions because of reasons that are
understandable. This is exactly what gets shut out when people resort to
"othering" people they don't understand, out of laziness.

------
teh_klev
From last time around:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245862](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245862)

------
a_lihu
Why safe spaces? Diazepam doesn't work anymore? It seems there is an urgent
need of psychiatric facilities around or in the campuses.

------
solidsnack9000
It is the same inclination to shut out the big bad world that is driving the
religious right.

------
st3v3r
Nobody is hiding from "scary ideas". They're hiding from the fact that other
people flat out believe that they shouldn't exist.

