Regardless of intent, there is a negative connotation associated with ‘safe spaces’.
There are truths which seem self-evident in our society, discrimination exists in our world, human beings should have opportunities, and do onto others as you would have them do onto you. We accept these truths as axioms in our everyday discussion, and when consideration is given against those ideas we feel incredibly aggravated at the source. And rightfully so, as I would contend that all of those three are obvious. However, I believe that there is no way many of us could justify their truth to somebody dedicated to dismantling their foundations. I’ve spent a large chunk of my life surrounded (about 40% of the population I’m guessing) by people who would challenge our axioms. This is an issue. Discussion can only get us so far toward the change in the world we seek to empower. When we neglect to consider the inconsiderable, we nullify our ability to understand the opposition and thus the source of our problems. As an example, in one of my classes we were discussing patriotism and how it can be used as a rationale for institutionalized racism. I can tell you that patriotism is merely a scapegoat reason given to the public when in reality there is a fundamental belief system instilled at a young age whose justification relies on challenging the very axioms we take for granted.
We need to consider the inconsiderable, not because it may make us change our opinions and become bigoted, not because we want to spread their message farther, but to understand the complexity, intent, and basis for the problems we face today.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War
College safe spaces act to keep us insulated from the enemy, and instead of being focused on winning the war, we are focused on winning the battles. I want our generation to make a change, but the way of attacking by discussion of agreed upon axioms prevents us from learning why we are right. In my major of math, we will often consider our intuition wrong and try to derive truths from our incorrect vacuous ‘facts’, we will then see exactly the error in this misguided intuition. Proof by Contradiction. In the current state of affairs, by shunning and being disrespectful to people who disagree with our most sacred beliefs we are not only limiting ourselves this technique, but causing the opposition to be silent yet retain their beliefs. In order to most effectively make change we need to understand where we want change, and why that change hasn’t occurred. College safe spaces prevent this.
“The solution to our student’s weakness, so many critics all too often suggest, is bold, direct, repeated engagement with ideas that civil society has already deemed noxious, hateful and politically dangerous.” – Matthew Pratt Guterl
Matthew provided an excellent article promoting safe spaces, and I think introduce many of the problems which need addressing. The one I will tackle is that which this quote is suggesting. That without safe spaces there is no removal of oneself from repeated engagement with ideas which are hateful, noxious, and politically dangerous.
I completely agree that currently with our discussion first mentality to tackle issues we leave ourselves vulnerable against ideas which are hateful, noxious, and politically dangerous. However, I think that change is hard. With true change noxiousness should not be enough to deter us from our truths, because if it is, then we were not dedicated enough to the cause and likely had extrinsic pressures guiding us rather than intrinsic pressures, the power of motivation can be inspiring. Politically dangerous I disagree with however, by allowing dangerous ideas we can learn how to combat them in the real world. There comes a time when we need to prepare ourselves for dangerous ideas, and I can think of no better time than college.
Hatefulness is the biggest issue, should we allow ourselves to gain knowledge at the expense of potentially safety, and how much knowledge gained does it take for the tradeoff to be worth it? Surely if we gained so much knowledge that it helped make a resounding change for the future generations, then our safety now is not as important as the new safety gained for future generations. But are safe spaces a permanent or temporary fix?
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/08/29/students-deserve-safe-spaces-campus-essay
First off, I would like to say that I do not believe in safe spaces. I feel like they do more harm than good. I believe that peoples beliefs should constantly be challenged and questioned. If you afraid of your beliefs being attacked and changed, then are you really sure in your beliefs? I always like to have my beliefs questioned and challenged because my stance on some issues are not as firm as others and I like to hear others opinions on matters. Additionally, I have steadfast beliefs in other areas that I like to be questioned to share my beliefs on the matter and hopefully let others see why I believe what I do. However, I do agree that people should not take an aggressive approach and just attack others on their opinions, but rather hold the discussion in such a way that promotes the exchange of knowledge.
-Kyle McKelvey