An Actually Serious Post About Finding A Non-Terrible Idea Buried In The Idea of "Safe Spaces"
I guess I've made it clear that I think that PC/SJ ideas are, in the main, not only extremely wrong, but often (a) downright stupid and (b) destructively stupid, at that.
But, I do think that there are a few of those ideas that have tiny fragments of something non-terrible in them. It takes some excavation...but almost nobody is wrong about everything. (Sorry...this is about as charitable as I'm currently able to be to The Great Satan...)
Take the idea of "safe spaces."
First, clear away the terminological chicanery. PC/SJ terminology is typically loaded with PC-friendly presuppositions, and is engineered to covertly and rhetorically win substantive victories. The term contains a presupposition--or something like a presuppositions--that such "spaces" represent refuge from danger. This is almost never the case. "Safe spaces" are set up in order to (i) protect their denizens from encountering views with which they disagree, and/or (ii) provide them with areas in which to "recover" from possible exposure to such views. The idea is, quite clearly, to help isolate delicate leftist snowflakes from views they might find upsetting--or to help them "recover" from such exposure. Actual danger and actual safety are actually never at actual issue. "Safe space" is a misnomer, and not an innocent one. The term is a part of one of neo-PC's big ideas: that disagreement with their orthodoxy not only causes violence, but actually constitutes (!!!!) violence against left-preferred groups (non-white, LGB, etc.) (And that idea is undeniably insane.) If we take a room and designated it an area that's free from any disagreement with the left, and call it a safe space, we in some sense agree with and bolster the view that disagreeing with the left is tantamount to doing violence to them.
As usual with the PCs, you've got to clear away the nefarious terminological shenanigans before you can really get started on the substance.
As for the substance, though: seems to me that it's sometimes ok to designate topics that are in play. If I'm teaching a class on Plato, and I've got a student who tries to turn every class into a class on Descartes, or Carnap, or Jesus, or whatever, it's ok for me to rule that out. As long as it's done for roughly the right kinds of reasons and roughly in the right kind of way, I don't see a problem. Astronomy classes are about astronomy, not about literature. So, to whatever extent this point is central to the "safe space" idea, I think it's ok. Am I missing anything?
Seems to me like the problem with "safe spaces" (other than the jargon) is that they seem to be too numerous, too dopey, too tied up with the general progressive project of shutting down the free exchange of ideas and the development of self-reliance, too interwoven with the general project of turning the entire campus into a dreamy lefty dystopia. Selectively / intelligently / reasonably used, the idea of focusing discussions by ruling some topics out is...well...not at all new and not at all bad. But I don't see anything wrong with, say, Campus Crusade stipulating that most of their discussions aren't going to address atheist objections, nor the Maoist society ruling out any discussion of the Cultural Revolution. I don't thing that universities ought to be doing that stuff in ways that systematically promote a progressive agenda...but I don't see an inherent problem with some versions of the idea in some kinds of cases.
But, I do think that there are a few of those ideas that have tiny fragments of something non-terrible in them. It takes some excavation...but almost nobody is wrong about everything. (Sorry...this is about as charitable as I'm currently able to be to The Great Satan...)
Take the idea of "safe spaces."
First, clear away the terminological chicanery. PC/SJ terminology is typically loaded with PC-friendly presuppositions, and is engineered to covertly and rhetorically win substantive victories. The term contains a presupposition--or something like a presuppositions--that such "spaces" represent refuge from danger. This is almost never the case. "Safe spaces" are set up in order to (i) protect their denizens from encountering views with which they disagree, and/or (ii) provide them with areas in which to "recover" from possible exposure to such views. The idea is, quite clearly, to help isolate delicate leftist snowflakes from views they might find upsetting--or to help them "recover" from such exposure. Actual danger and actual safety are actually never at actual issue. "Safe space" is a misnomer, and not an innocent one. The term is a part of one of neo-PC's big ideas: that disagreement with their orthodoxy not only causes violence, but actually constitutes (!!!!) violence against left-preferred groups (non-white, LGB, etc.) (And that idea is undeniably insane.) If we take a room and designated it an area that's free from any disagreement with the left, and call it a safe space, we in some sense agree with and bolster the view that disagreeing with the left is tantamount to doing violence to them.
As usual with the PCs, you've got to clear away the nefarious terminological shenanigans before you can really get started on the substance.
As for the substance, though: seems to me that it's sometimes ok to designate topics that are in play. If I'm teaching a class on Plato, and I've got a student who tries to turn every class into a class on Descartes, or Carnap, or Jesus, or whatever, it's ok for me to rule that out. As long as it's done for roughly the right kinds of reasons and roughly in the right kind of way, I don't see a problem. Astronomy classes are about astronomy, not about literature. So, to whatever extent this point is central to the "safe space" idea, I think it's ok. Am I missing anything?
Seems to me like the problem with "safe spaces" (other than the jargon) is that they seem to be too numerous, too dopey, too tied up with the general progressive project of shutting down the free exchange of ideas and the development of self-reliance, too interwoven with the general project of turning the entire campus into a dreamy lefty dystopia. Selectively / intelligently / reasonably used, the idea of focusing discussions by ruling some topics out is...well...not at all new and not at all bad. But I don't see anything wrong with, say, Campus Crusade stipulating that most of their discussions aren't going to address atheist objections, nor the Maoist society ruling out any discussion of the Cultural Revolution. I don't thing that universities ought to be doing that stuff in ways that systematically promote a progressive agenda...but I don't see an inherent problem with some versions of the idea in some kinds of cases.
posted by Winston Smith at
11:41 AM
3 Comments:
I think your modest defense of safe spaces is really a redefinition of the term as basic pluralism. The examples of Campus Crusade and a Maoist Society are pretty clearly ok for pluralist reasons to me, at least, and there is a sense that pluralism permits those groups a "space" to do their thing.
There are two problems with the redefinition though. First, the justification for pluralism isn't really about safety at all. It's about giving people freedom within reasonable, non-conflicting boundaries. Second, the boundaries of the safe spaces are deliberately not limited by PC types. The entire university is supposed to be a safe space in their mind, which in fact destroys any pluralism and creates the Leftist monoculture that makes the current university so perverse. This is really a derivative of the subtly authoritarian appeal to safety made from the get go.
The other point is that some places are perfectly healthy when made into a monoculture. Small towns for instance. But the university is in fact degraded by being made into a political monoculture, because some degree of intellectual diversity is needed as a mutating agent to keep intellectual consensus evolving (think the huge whiffs in social psychology). This to me is the most important problem, PCs are actively destroying the institution they have come to colonize, and the fact they have no interest in realizing that shows just how dangerous and fanatical they are.
I kinda think I already agreed with both those points in the post, tbh.
Oh I misunderstood then. It would not be the first time.
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