Does such a thing as a “safe space” exist? We’d like to think so — home, church, a favorite restaurant, libraries or public meetings, the arms of a loved one. The idea that one’s home is one’s castle lends itself to that premise, as numerous castle doctrine laws announce across the nation (Virginia sadly does not share such scruples as of yet).
So when we send young men and women to university, safely ensconced by academics, many parents who are subsidizing the education of these young adults want the same sort of space — neutral if not positive, non-judgmental and respectful, the sort that encourages free inquiry without consequence or fear.
…if only the world were that way.
Katherine Timpf over at National Review opines on the idea that 21 year old students — in this case, one Joseph DiZoglio — have an idea as to what the demands of “safe places” really are:
Just replace the word “oppression” with “discussion,” and he’s right on the money. (By the way, that wouldn’t even be a huge leap considering the fact that college students have referred to common expressions like “you guys” as “oppressive.”)
These days, whining and playing the victim puts you in a greater position of strength. It’s a way to gain influence, respect, and power without having to actually know anything.
After all, if someone dares to question a “cultural sensitivity” or “pro-diversity” activist, he’s labeled a racist bigot, an evil old white guy who spits on the poor, or — if he dares to challenge a feminist — a rape apologist. Knowing that anyone who tries to argue with them will be attacked is also how these people are able to casually spread false narratives (like we see with much of the campus-rape discussion) without having to actually prove anything.
Hence the pitfalls of inventing a series of ideas and concepts such as microaggressions and the like. Any critique, and effort to demand a degree of introspection that is not put forward in the most polite and non-offensive of terms, is deemed a violation of that space deemed safe.
One might consider that properly formed consciences should always be formed in the forge of challenge. Not the sort that most leftist academics have pushed on others, but the sort that reconciles differing opinions alongside others.
Unfortunately, even that is frowned upon nowadays. Conservatives seem to be poorly equipped to recognize their own cultural bastions, while liberals are very quick to reward narratives that drive home their spheres of influence — their spaces that are safe.
The problem here is that the world has little interest in “safe” anything. Ideas can be ridiculed. Concepts can be criticized. Feelings will be hurt.
More to point, these so-called safe spaces are anything but. They prolong the idea of the infantile and adolescent, allowing those who nestle themselves into the folds to believe that such spaces are reality. One should ask themselves how the free marketplace of ideas will tolerate the idea of a safe space at all? Should it?
Of course, there are safe places in this world: empires of the mind, literature, groups of like-minded individuals. Yet anyplace that implies safe as something that denudes criticism isn’t a safe place at all. To the contrary, it is a form of ill-equipment and poor preparation for intellectual and moral rigor.
