To be 100% clear: do you think that you are accurately and fairly describing the rationale for university safe spaces when you say it’s “the concept that it is preferable to avoid coming into contact with people that you disagree with”? Do you really think you’re well-informed about that rationale and that you’re treating the rationale fairly?
It’s possible, I suppose, that MrDibble is attributing to malice what can adequately be explained by ignorance. Help us understand whether you think you’re being fair and accurate here.
To be fair, I’m not attributing it to malice. To be malicious, you have to actually care.
That’s why I called the making light being done there “bullshit”, Frankfurt’s technical term.
From a UK perspective, yes. The concept of “safe space” meaning having to shelter from credible threats of violence is not my understanding of what that term has come to mean.
Right at the start I asked for clarification on that. back in post 70.
No “making light of” no “mocking” but even after seeking that clarification. no answer was forthcoming.
I further clarified myself here.
Which is clear is it not? and not in any way “mocking”. It is an appreciation that we may be talking about two different things.
If the term is being used in relation to physical harm then that is serious matter and a criminal matter and not something that I’m familiar with. That is not the way the term has been used in my experience.
Here is an example of what I am familiar with. and how the term is typically used in the UK.
From that link
Safety in this sense does not refer to physical safety. Instead classroom safe space refers to protection from psychological or emotional harm…
People can have all the private ‘safe spaces’ they wish. Public spaces are public.
So, you read that link, right? Including this passage:
And this is what you’re characterizing as " it is preferable to avoid coming into contact with people that you disagree with", correct?
And you think your characterization accurately captures what’s going on in that link?
I’m trying to wrap my head around what’s going on in yours.
Generally, as soon as the term “safe space” is mentioned, a certain personality type falls over themselves to get in comment about how young people these days are babies (and by contrast how tough and macho they are). This behavior is also strongly correlated with those who find compassion or empathy as either a weakness or baffling.
I don’t see what problem you are having with it. I don’t happen to agree with all the content or recommendations of that article but I offer it as an example of how “safe spaces” in the UK are talked about. Primarily that it is not commonly an issue of physical safety. Don’t take it as gospel. It was merely the very first one in a google search.
Do a search for “safe spaces in universities UK” and read at your leisure. You’ll find the results skew more towards the ideological form than the physical safety one.
If the additional suggestions in that paragraph you quoted, about exposure to ideas (and people, I would add) are also followed though then that would of course be great.
Unfortunately that is not how the conversation has progressed in the UK. More often we’ll hear the term used in connection with attempts to stop people speaking, to prevent the voicing of uncomfortable or contrary opinions as they run contrary to the concept of a “safe space” even though such speech does not represent any credible physical threat.
You’re right. I did bring my own life experience into the conversation. Importantly, it wasn’t my college life experience that I was primarily referring to. It was one much earlier and I did not make that clear. But that’s irrelevant, and I won’t make that mistake again.
I think that the notion of safe space goes beyond fear of direct attacks and discrimination, although that is the most dramatic example of its necessity. Even on a super liberal campus where every white person is fully woke and doesn’t have a racist bone in their body, there still would be justification for blacks to form their own dorm or social societies.
There are significant cultural differences between blacks and whites, not better not worse just different, and there is a degree of comfort that comes from being able to hang around with groups of people of your own culture. That isn’t to say that you are scared or unwilling to be exposed to other people who are different than you, just that its nice to hang out with a bunch of people who get you, who immediately understand your cultural references and who you feel comfortable with. Shouldn’t whites have the same sort of place? Sure, and they do, its called every other fucking place. Its not that blacks are wanting any particularly special treatment, its that they want the same opportunities that whites have, a place where their culture is the dominant one.
Disclaimer: I am a white guy who doesn’t have a whole lot of personal experience in this stuff, and so am at great risk of whitesplaining. If anyone with more direct experience wants to tell me I’m full of shit I will accept their correction graciously.
It’s not about a space for disallowing arguments over whether The Wolf of Wall Street glorified bad behavior or whether Fall or Summer are the best season. Sometimes, you just need a break from people like these:
Dude, it’s your cite, and what you said you think represents “safe spaces” where you’re from, and it almost precisely contradicts your summary of it. It explicitly talks about how safe spaces aren’t comfortable, and how people in them confront issues that make them uncomfortable.
That’s not even remotely the same thing as a place where you don’t come in contact with people you disagree with.
As near as I can tell, several things are true:
- You see no middle ground between “safe space” being a place where one takes physical refuge from violent attackers, and “safe space” being a place where there’s no disagreement, despite your own cite describing such a middle ground.
- You didn’t actually read your cite, and may be embarrassed at offering it.
- You don’t have any actual idea what folks mean when they talk about “safe spaces.”
It’s very difficult to carry on a conversation with you when you’re ignorant of the terms you’re using, then offer a cite that contradicts your usage, then say not to take the cite at gospel.
A better course of action would be to admit you’re not well-educated on the topic of safe spaces, stop opining on them until you educate yourself, and then educate yourself. Obviously I can’t make you do that, but at least consider it.
Great! Even better would be to recognize how your life experience doesn’t really prepare you to comprehend viscerally why safe spaces might be necessary. But if you’re at least not using your life experiences to discount their utility, that’s a start.
QFT, because here’s the thing that a lot of people here don’t seem to grok;
The SDMB is, itself, a safe space.
We have rules that are intended to protect the users. We don’t allow harassment. We don’t tolerate racism or brigading or trolling or bad faith argument. And when people break those rules, the powers that be kick them out and make sure they stay out.
The behavior that these college kids want a safe space from is the same kind of behavior that would get you banned from this site.
If only…
No, this is totally wrong.
There is a vast difference between the internet and a coffee lounge on campus.
On the internet, creating “safe space” is necessary because of the technology- millions of totally anonymous people can participate, and any one individual can totally ruin a conversation. So a moderator has the right to kick you out of the room.
But in real life, conversations are not between millions of people. We are talking about college campuses, and student coffee lounges. A few friends who already know each other, sitting around a table. Maybe a new person joins the group at your table. If you don’t like him, you may ignore him, or ask him to move to a different table–but you are not allowed to kick him out of the building.
And as you see in [url= https://www.sott.net/article/458725-White-male-students-forced-from-multicultural-space-at-Arizona-State-because-whiteness-is-not-a-culture]
this video of the event[/url]
the new guy doesn’t even approach your table, but just sits at a different table using a laptop with a political sticker that you don’t like.
Sure, he’s being obnoxious. But-newsflash!–the world is full of obnoxious people. Learn to deal with it… College is for learning.
Students should not be learning they have a right to expel anyone who they don’t like.
Allowing this type of “safe space” on campuses is dangerous.
Try that at Starbucks and see where it gets you.
How, pray tell, is that “dangerous”?
If anything, my life has been improved by expelling from it anyone I don’t like.
And society is well served when you protect your “right” to expel anyone who voted for a different party. No, there’s nothing dangerous about that at all. Gee, why bother with elections? And let’s get rid of that unnecessary First Amendment, too.
Ah, so my not wanting to sit at the same table as a white supremacist is morally equivalent to Stalinism. Gotcha.
The guys in that video did not want to sit at the same table as you.
They chose to sit separately, in a PUBLIC space, built and paid for by government funds on the state university campus.
It was obnoxious behavior, but free speech should still be protected.
We’re not on the way to Stalinism, but we do appear to be on the way to a new McCarthyism.