Will people stop confusing what a safe space and a trigger warning is? Safe spaces are spaces like a student LGBT association's own space and not a class room. If you think you should have the right to get up in someone's face to 'debate' their sexual orientation or gender identity in every venue then I can't say I agree with you. Some places should be safe spaces where minorities (like LGBT) can be free to discuss matters among themselves for the same reason people need the same sort of space to discuss private matters with family/friends. As for trigger warnings, the fact PTSD does exist means you do need to take that into consideration. I do agree they're overused but beyond that point I think a trigger warning isn't any worse than a buying a DVD with an MPAA rating. If additional information is too much for you maybe you ought not be in college because last time I checked that's all you get is information overload (the paperwork alone to get into a college is mountainous even).
While I agree that there should be some places that are safe spaces, especially for people at risk of harassment/worse, it's become a tool for silencing dissenting opinions on the worst campuses, and simply overused in general.
Trigger warning are absolute BS. If half as many of these kids that think they have it actually have PTSD then we are doing something VERY wrong to our kids. PTSD is the new ADHD.
The problem is that that they have not been taught that you can at your core hate what someone is saying, and want to disagree violently, and still have a debate or discussion continue without shutting down.
They have been taught from early on that just because they have a thought, it must be their truth- so everyone is running around following their own religion.
Life doesn't have warning labels, shit happens, a parent's job is to raise a child who can handle life's trials (mostly) on their own. Parents are mistaking their kids for friends and doing none of the hard work of getting a child in control of their thoughts and emotions.
My 3 year old when angry/upset/injured generally resets by stopping, taking a deep breath, and gathering himself mentally. He does this on his own without prompting most of the time.
My 18 month old does the same with prompting. It wasn't easy or fun to take a wailing baby and coach them through calming themselves down, but now they can do it- and when life hits my 3 year old in the face, often literally, he practices tools to calm himself down and regroup that these 'adults' can't even manage.
Part of the problem, though, is on the other side: if a student says, "This (action) causes harm to members of these groups in this way," that student is using words to start a discussion about the topic at hand. It seems that many people find this discussion itself offensive -- polite people don't talk about racism, sexism, etc., because calling out someone's bad manners is worse than having bad manners in the first place. (That is what my grandfather taught me.)
A lot of the students decried in articles like the original are using calm, controlled, verbal arguments to represent their point of view -- but then that's represented as silencing. I guess I do see a generational gap. Young people say, "What you said is an example of a microaggression." Old people hear, "You're a racist so you can't talk, and mentioning this microaggression means I'm so afraid of conflict I can't compete with China in the new world economy, except I just started a conflict by stating the truth as I see it instead of shutting up and rolling over like I would have in the old days, so maybe I can compete with China...?."
I think what is troubling, if anything, to the 'old people' (and probably not just those), is that when arguments such as this starts getting validity beyond being appeals to civility - i.e. when someone is effectively able to stop discussion of a subject because they claim to be 'harmed' by it - it completely changes the context of the discussion and IMO, hinders constructive discourse. So, if safe spaces are to be a 'thing', then we have to be very clear that they must have a very well-defined limit, beyond which regular discourse can continue.
It's not that "old people" think they hear such things, in some cases those things are actually stated. That's the problem as I see it, the people who use calm, controlled, verbal arguments are drowned out by the idiots who think shutting down opposing viewpoints is justified. These idiots exist in all spectrums of discussion of any topic, some are just louder than others. The calm ones tend to, unfortunately, get lumped into that crowd.
> if a student says, "This (action) causes harm to members of these groups in this way," that student is using words to start a discussion about the topic at hand.
Are they? Which discussion are they starting? I don't think I've seen that lead to a discussion about whether it not it actually causes harm, but instead it's for starting a discussion about what to do about the harm that it's presumed to be causing.
> If half as many of these kids that think they have it actually have PTSD then we are doing something VERY wrong to our kids.
Yes, people who were raped or abused or assaulted could have PTSD, and yes it does mean we're doing something VERY wrong to them.
> Life doesn't have warning labels
Well, it could, right? Life didn't have a safety net until we created welfare and social security. Life didn't have training wheels until we created a robust schooling system.
Your kids sound great, but I think you're arguing against a particular subset of trigger warnings that everyone here would agree is dumb. There are uses that do much more good than harm.
When someone has been through a trauma we want to help that person recover. Their recovery is not helped by blanket avoidance of "triggers". Their recovery is helped by a cautious therapeutic programme of planned exposure, with support and follow up.
It's obvious that this is very different from how trigger warnings are currently being (ab)used. Trigger warnings are not being used to provide information to consumers so they can make an informed choice. Trigger warnings are being used to stop distribution.
Some law courses struggle to teach law around rape, because "triggering". Some sociology courses don't teach about suicide because "triggering".
The solution is to provide the warning, and to also teach the topic, and to make sure that the few people who need it have access to good quality support.
Do you have some source for the best way to help people recover from trauma? I have no idea how to do it, but I would be surprised if Dr. Phil style "throw them into the deep end until they get over it" is really the best way.
There is no blanket treatment for "trauma". One issue with patients is that often the will to fix things is missing, at which point nothing helps. Those people will argue, and in extremer cases even fight just to avoid getting exposed to the real world again.
First step is usually to index what the reactions are that make the trauma last. Those can go from violence, the will to fix it, over avoidance, to panic, and goes on quite a while. At an extremely high level you could perhaps say that you go over them, attempting to eliminate them one by one. But of course "fixing" panic reactions is done very differently (and much more carefully) from establishing the will to resolve the problem. Throwing in the deep end can work very well if the will to face the problem is the only problem. When we're talking about a situation that looks scary in movies but doesn't carry real risk (like non-venomous spiders) that will usually work, and in fact a lot of people will do just that without any help from a therapist. Best to verify beforehand though, as it certainly will make panic reactions worse. Panic is sometimes solved by role play, imagining, where possible, and planning out moves and counter moves before going anywhere near the real situation.
In a way a therapist only shares his own character with the patient. The theory is that this improves the patient, and the therapist is trained to experience minimal impact. It is advised though, that therapists pair up and have sessions with each other to verify that there is indeed only minimal impact, and fix if problems develop.
Throwing people in the deep end is usually unavoidable : people don't have the choice in the medium term, they have to face the real world, and therefore a good therapy should take that into account.
See this earlier comment, and the references cited therein, for information on how exposure, rather than avoidance, is better for treating trauma survivors: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8801995
> Yes, people who were raped or abused or assaulted could have PTSD, and yes it does mean we're doing something VERY wrong to them.
Yeah, I would expect some of the worst possible things that could happen to someone would leave a mental mark on the victim. I think most people would. These aren't the people I'm talking about and you know that.
>> Life doesn't have warning labels
> Well, it could, right? Life didn't have a safety net until we created welfare and social security. Life didn't have training wheels until we created a robust schooling system.
The more you hold someone's hand through life, the less they are able to do for themselves as adults. Research is continuing to prove this out, how helicopter parenting is destroying kids emotional IQ. They don't know how to deal with life, mom does that for them.
Things like outlawing two hand touch football, dodgeball, even tag and king of the hill at school in order to keep kids safe are rendering them unable to navigate social constructs on their own. Free play allows kids to participate in rule making and enforcing on their own, generating their own social constructs, and dealing with the consequences all their own. Think about all the shouting matches of "I tagged you, your out!" and "No you didn't!". These are all ridiculously important to the development of kids and it's the thing schools at all levels are cutting the most. Recess and PE are essentially gone from schools. PE teachers have been axed and the regular teachers, with no interest in or time to study PE now teach the classes. If kids start playing tag, they're suspended for aggressive anti-social behavior. It's possibly the most social thing they could ever do at a young age.
The notion that everyone should be coddled so that no one may suffer is not only belittling to everyone in society, basically affirming you believe that no one is capable of handling their own affairs without help at every step, but it leads to a bunch of people with their brains half turned off and under developed.
You want Idiocracy to come true? Don't worry about Trump, keep up with the safe spaces and trigger warnings. Keep screaming at your kid's teacher until they get that A instead of a C-. Keep letting your kid think that the world should be smooth sailing and if it's not you should give up. Keep that up and we'll have it during my kids' generation.
Ok, I think you're picking really easy targets. Nobody else here is talking about banning tag or bullying teachers or something. These aren't the people I'm talking about and you know that.
Can we move on from this pretty limited discussion? Most other comments here have made it clear that not every use of "safe space" and "trigger warning" is legitimate, and we all agree with these layups you're taking.
The greater point I was alluding to is that we (at least the US) generally try REALLY HARD to do things to keep our kids happy and safe. Not because we want to lobotomize them, because we love them. I'm a dad, I feel it every day, every time my kids go up the stairs my spidey sense is waiting to jump at any moment and catch them. I understand the emotional reasoning behind all of the things we are trying at the younger ages.
The problem with all these things we're trying to do is that we have the unintended consequence of really keeping them childish in many ways, and it has become very telling when you look at the level of public discourse today. It starts when they're young and is proving to have detrimental effects that carry on into adulthood as more and more studies come out.
People are becoming unable to maintain a collegial dialogue, like you and I are doing at this very moment (thank you), the notion of ideas that disagree with your own become unfathomable, even traumatic, and then you're unable to see where someone else is coming from. You then can't meet in the middle, because you have to be right and they have to be wrong, and then we're stuck. You can't even, as the kids would say.
I truly believe that to have the hard discussions we need that people need to feel safe to speak their mind. For someone who's lived a persecuted life, they may never be able to do that unless they're in a place they believe is safe. If that means that on campuses different student centers are labeled as such, so be it. That's fine. If the entire campus, all buildings, and all rooms are labeled as such, then where are we going to have a discussion where we disagree? Because taken to the logical extreme that we're seeing, to be a safe place, we can't have a disagreement, it would be too unsettling.
College campuses should be the root of these hard discussions. These are the institutions we're sending our kids to in order to engage in higher thought.
Yeah, this doesn't really seem like a big deal. If people don't want to engage with you, don't engage with them. It's not like you would have had a meaningful conversation if trigger warnings didn't exist, they still would have ignored whatever you said.
That's literally the opening line of the response. You conveniently ignored the meat of a well constructed point in an attempt to quickly show that OP agrees with you.
OP has correctly exemplified the idea of 'safe spaces' being used to silence debate and discussion. Thus allowing every individual to possess their own subjective truth, and conveniently dispose with hard realities when their beliefs are in conflict with said realities. This is exactly the same as the far right in America conveniently ignoring the reality of climate change.
I'm all for oppressed groups having a safe space and living their lives freely, but the danger here is individuals retreating to a 'safe space' every time life hands them lemons. We didn't progress this far in human culture by tip toeing around beliefs.
Nope, that's not what I said. What I said was people should have the right to speak among themselves in a space that doesn't include people who are being aggressive (aka being a jerk). It doesn't matter if it's a minority group's safe space or your friend's mancave. You got a right not to associate with people who are either inherently antisocial or easily agitated by the fact that you exist (like LGBT people). It has nothing to do with "subjective truth" or any other such nonsense. It has to do with the fact that people's rights of association should be fundamentally respected. If you think this is too much to ask then I suggest you move to another country (yes I'm going to use the love it or leave it meme) where the freedom of association is limited and/or prohibited because we Americans love to control how we associate and with whom we associate. And as for 'retreating', too bad if you demand everyone to live on your terms but until you PAY for everyone's time in kind then you have no say in what people can and will do for themselves.
I was indirectly pointing out that the OP had used the first line, not as a statement of belief, but as a token so that they could say the rest of what they actually believe.
Similarly, you say "I'm all for oppressed groups having a safe space and living their lives freely", followed by "but", followed by what you seem to actually believe. Which one of your statements is true?
You fail to understand that this issue is not binary. It is not required to be either fully supportive or fully against safe spaces. Safe spaces can be valuable. The original article, OP, and myself are showing a concern at the usage of safe spaces to silence debate.
We shouldn't train people to retreat when their beliefs are challenged. We shouldn't train people to hold their opinions as some strange mix of subjective absolute truth. We are all wrong sometimes, and we all need to be challenged.
I'm interested in knowing what would be a valid use of safe spaces, according to the OP.
The OP has clearly explained why they think safe spaces have gone too far, but they've not said under what circumstances they believe that they are proper beyond a general acknowledgement at the beginning of the comment. In order to know what's too far, it's important to know where the line is.
I said I am for safe spaces in general, though I feel they're being abused. What I decried was trigger warnings and the failing of the adults that brought up people that think they need a trigger warning.
> of course limited by laws prohibiting libel, Holocaust denial etc).
And here we see the really tricky cultural clash problem. Some Americans and most Europeans will say that there are obvious limits to free speech - holocaust denial, hate speech, fighting words, etc. But there's a sizable number of Americans (and probably a smaller number of Europeans) who'll say there should be almost no limits to freedom of speech. (Maybe a ban on distributing images of child sexual abuse, but just about everything else is fair game).
Here's an English politician - Luciana Berger, showing a sample of the anti-semitic hate speech she regularly receives. Some people say that's clearly not acceptable and that Twitter should ban those users (I tend to agree with them).
But a sizable number of people say it's fair enough - she's a politician, she's in the public eye, she can just block those users herself, she should put up with it, she should grow a thicker skin, etc.
This is why I think it's both important that there are places people can go to avoid free speech (safe spaces), and also why we shouldn't just blanket label entire buildings/campuses/cities as safe spaces.
If you were, say, a 20 year old female rape survivor it would be reasonable to expect that the campus Women's Center, which has been labeled a safe space for the purpose of my argument (and hopefully in real life), and expect that you wouldn't be confronted with someone standing at a pulpit declaring all the virtues of rape. Or denying rape, etc. etc. There should be buildings like this that are accessible to everyone. There should be support systems in place in society (college campuses included) that would allow someone to work through this, meet with similar individuals, and get proper help.
However, if there is a speaker in an auditorium who has been invited to discuss his new book detailing how a rape culture has propelled industrialized society forward, he should be allowed to present his argument in that space. You, and anyone else that wants to join you, should be free to protest the living hell out of that outside the auditorium. However crazy his argument may be, we have buildings and spaces that were designed to present them. On a college campus, there's probably 50 spaces to do this.
At least in the states, it's still really important to a lot of people that we can have 'crazy' people say 'crazy' things. If we want to keep that, it is important for people to be available to seek shelter from those crazy things, but we can't make the whole world a shelter.
You have no idea what you are talking about and are projecting your own life experience on the many people who have actually experienced trauma.It's not something that can't be measured. It's very real and has clear cut physiological risks.
The thing is, you have no idea what I've experienced- nor am I going to start comparing life stories. Nor do I know what you have experienced.
You are assuming that everyone has actually experienced trauma, I'm saying that what a lot of these people feel is traumatic because they weren't equipped with the tools to deal with it in the first place.
If you get in a head on collision in a 50 year old car with no seat belt, you will likely die at most speeds. If you do the same in a brand new car with all the safety tools necessary you can walk away completely unscathed. Or somewhere in between- each collision happens in it's own way.
We're taking our kids today and stripping out their air bags. I'm saying that if a discussion, even if heated, renders you generally traumatized AND you weren't a victim of some abuse or 'real' trauma, it's because the people who had a hand in raising you completely failed you. I'm not saying you're not traumatized, I'm saying you wouldn't have been if your parents, educators, and elders did their damn job.
I was extremely privileged to have good parents. My parents were very young when they had me and I got the privilege of living in a war zone as a child just old enough to remember it.
My privilege is that I experienced life events that many of these kids will never face anywhere near and my parents did their job raising me to be able to handle it.
So yeah, I had good parents that loved me, showed me that, and made sure I knew how to take care of myself and I was extremely privileged compared to the zombie parents 'raising' kids today.
What you're describing is the motte[1] of 'safe space' and 'trigger warning', that is, you are presenting a definition whose application almost no one could object to (of course I don't want to ban minorities or LGBT associating with each other, and choosing not to associate with other people), but the real life usage of the term (the bailey) is different, at least the usage that Bloomberg is referring to.
Yale and U of Missouri recently (last year) served as examples of using 'safe space' to constrain other people's freedom of association. Demanding that the entire university serve as a safe space (even under your definition) is completely different from demanding that there exist a safe space somewhere in the university. The latter may as well be a foregone conclusion, nobody is going to force the student LGBT association off of campus, but the former means the LGBT association has a mandate to censor any student anywhere on campus.
Errm, how will you open your mind, if you are able to discuss with others, to read challenging ideas, to take on-board another point of view, when you are hermetically sealed in a "safe space"? Surely they are unsafe spaces, as they close off the world, fostering very singular view points?
Safe doesn't mean sealed. It just means safe. Let's say you want to learn to fight. Wouldn't you rather do it by going to a professionally run 'safe' MMA gym where you can get guidance, learn from your mistakes and try different things safe in the knowledge that no one is going to cave your skull in just because you can't yet defend yourself. Surely that 'safe' environment is a much better environment to learn in than just going to 'unsafe' biker bars and picking fights with random people. I'd even wager that you'll learn more and faster in the safe environment than the unsafe environment.
Easier than if you're forbidden from opening your mind at all ? Safe spaces are about preventing people from saying what they think. That's their purpose.
I see it more like setting some common ground rules. If you want to rugby tackle people you won't be welcome to basketball practice. Doesn't mean you're being prevented from rugby tackling people, just that everyone would be happier if you went to rugby practice instead.
How does someone get PTSD these days? It was originally the territory of civilians and soldiers who spent an extended period of time in an active combat area. I'm not saying that other things can't lead to PTSD, but if it becomes too watered down then we would need a new term for the physical and mental symptoms that a soldier might experience after 6 months or a year in daily front line combat.
Makes sense. Maybe it's a question of severity. In WW1 British doctors thought it was a physical neurological condition caused by the concussion of artillery shells. They noticed that soldiers had trembling “rather like a jelly shaking”; headache; tinnitus, or ringing in the ear; dizziness; poor concentration; confusion; loss of memory; and disorders of sleep.
While there are many things that can cause a person to suffer from this (life and limb type scenarios) I'm questioning the validity of wide spread self diagnosed "PTSD".
I just cut and pasted those from a Smithsonian article. Docs saw those symptoms in soldiers that hadn't been near shelling which clued them in that it wasn't caused by the concussion from artillery. Anxiety attacks in 1915 were probably just labelled as cowardice.
I'm not sure why you're downvoted. Sexual assault frequently leads to PTSD:
>One study that examined PTSD symptoms among women who were raped found that almost all (94 out of 100) women experienced these symptoms during the two weeks immediately following the rape. Nine months later, about 30 out of 100 of the women were still reporting this pattern of symptoms [1]
And is depressingly prevalent:
>Nearly 1 in 5 (18.3%) women and 1 in 71 men
(1.4%) reported experiencing rape at some time in
their lives. [2]
Btw, is there any serious explanation other than blatant racism why rape is so prevalent in India, e.g. compared to China where the male/female ratio is grossly on the male side...
India has more than 10 ethinic regions, languages, etc. Many places in India are tribal, without internet, without running water, without roads. There are also many cities that have infrastructure. India is probably as ethinically diverse (or even more diverse) as Europe. When access to education and infrastructure expands to the darkest corners of India, the situation will improve. Pre-existing citizens tend to be stuck in their old ways.
I can buy into that if we can also have the rest of space "safe" for the expression of ideas, as opposed to this phenomenon of SJW's ruining public presentations attended by hundreds of people by screaming "take your hate elsewhere" and other such childish nonsense.
>As for trigger warnings, the fact PTSD does exist means you do need to take that into consideration
Maybe if I didn't see "trigger warning" and "PTSD" (outside the context of battle) thrown around multiple times a day I could take both more seriously.
The odd thing is that "safe spaces" were created because of the intolerance he describes. People are so afraid of expressing their point of view because of the reactions they'll get - including actual bodily harm - that they feel they have no choice but to shelter with like minded individuals.
Pretty standard "We should work together to make the world a better place" for most of it, no? I can appreciate the sentiment. Wisdom isn't bestowed by education, nor simply by age, but through experiences and reflection. Oh, and having some good associates in life, instead of bad influences.
Found this quote combination pretty telling:
>If we want to stop demagogues, we have to start governing again, and that requires us to be more civil, to support politicians who have the courage to take risks, and to reward those who reach across the aisle in search of compromise.
...which sounds good! Then, soon after:
>Today, people choose cable TV channels and websites that affirm their own political beliefs rather than ones that inform and challenge their beliefs. As a result, we have grown more politically cloistered and more intolerant of those who hold different opinions.
That right there's the problem - people aren't choosing to work together. His observation is the result of, essentially, our own choosing. I read through the rest of the speech looking for practical advice (e.g. 'vote third party!' or 'turn off the tv!') but found it lacking. Definitely identifies the root problem, just empty on the whole having it figured out and giving guidance on how to solve it.
The only times I've heard of safe spaces and trigger warnings is when people bitch about them. Can we get a safe space were we don't talk about them and a trigger warning about trigger warnings so I never have to look at a bullshit oiece about them?
It's probably related to your location. My guess is you're not on a coast and don't live next to a college or deal with 18-22 year old kids where they feel empowered.
A gracious unwillingness to burden acquaintances && passersby with one's own neuroses is now "privilege". Likewise, being annoyed at having to walk on eggshells around unstable hysterics on campus is a "persecution complex".
I do my best to empathize with the obviously distressed.
That does not extend to humoring the slingers of pseudoclinical quasi-academic cant like "privilege" or "persecution complex" or "trigger warning". That kind of tedious priss-spigot sanctimony needs to be shown the back of a hand.
This violates the HN guidelines. Please don't escalate incivility like that, regardless of how provocative someone else's comments may be. Instead, please (re-)read site guidelines and post civilly and substantively or not at all.
If people telling you to watch your language triggers you to the point of making violent threats then you are over privileged. Dismissing others as hysterics and wanting to backslap them demonstrate a lack of empathy.
In general, when a smug moral imperialist tells me to watch my language, I see it as an invitation to dial the taunting up to eleven. Why resort to violence, when it is so easy to make them press their (very accessible) Emotional Self-Destruct buttons?
Also, being slapped by a Badthinker such as myself would confirm their Sacred Victimhood; my handprint on their gob would be like stigmata on a medieval saint. Deep down, they'd love it in a very disturbing way that I refuse to participate in.
As to my so-called 'privilege', I suppose I can cop to being raised in a milieu where we desired to do no insult to others, on the assumption that we would be given reciprocal goodwill and consideration, unless we were explicitly looking for a fight.
(That is what used to be called 'carrying a chip on one's shoulder', if you are unfamiliar with the idiom.)
The practice of actively courting offense as a method of social signalling would have been seen as perverted and maladaptive.
This isn't about actual psychically wounded people who may need support, or therapy or drugs. This is about filth that use other people's mental anguish (real or imagined) as the base cosmology of a faith of their own creation. It has it's own dogma, and part of being Elect is to denounce heretics. Guilt-tripping innocent people into feeling bad about maybe thinking a crank or malingerer is...a crank or malingerer.
However, given the nullity of soul in most of Misery-Worship's practitioners, once you've heard one denouncement, you can script the rest. It's like listening to a chi-com cadre loudly quote Mao at you from the little red book, or having a particularly inept Scientologist try to audit you.
(Quick, search and replace "trigger" with "charge" and "privilege" with "Body Thetan" and "othered" with "exteriorization". The parallels are eerie...)
If I tell you to use my preferred pronouns is that just cause for taunting? I've had people say so in various instances offline and online. So I can't say there's really any room for that sort of behavior (at least offline).
As a thirty year sufferer of PTSD, I think I have a lot to contribute here.
As someone who, for a very long time, had to worry greatly about the possibility of being triggered as it could result in hours of lost time or days of emotional turmoil seemingly without cause or apparent reason, the current concept of avoiding triggering others is utterly and completely useless.
What triggers me as a PTSD sufferer is not the same as what triggers others. It could be a phrase or a seemingly benign picture, anything which may be associated with the cause of PTSD and doesn't actually have to have anything to do with violence or suffering.
In my experience I've found that standard NSFW or NSFL markings are sufficient for most as they typically classify things which would cause the kind of mental & emotional echoes that torment PTSD sufferers beyond the little things which cannot be accounted for. Ultimately there is no knowing what can do it for any particular individual.
Last but not least, I find the trigger marking epidemic somewhat offensive. We are not children for you to care for. I am already very isolated in my ability to tell people about these experiences since they are so far outside the common reality as to be incomprehensible and quickly becomes the abnormality to avoid or curse. I do not need to be further maligned by an ignorant society's attempt to fix the world for me. Fix the world for the children who are getting PTSD today and leave me the hell alone.
It doesn't look like Bloomberg knows what he's talking about. We all need safe spaces and many of us have them. My living room is a fine example -- it's a place where I can moderate the amount of s*(^ I get, and it's useful in providing a buffer against the rest of the world. I love my living room in part because I choose who I invite in, and because I can ask people to leave if they're jerks or I just don't want to listen to them. The point is the rest of the world is not this way -- but I have great discussions in my living room that would not happen elsewhere due to all the yelling. We all need those places.
To argue that this makes people "soft" or uncompetitive in the world economy is ludicrous. We all know the rest of the world isn't safe; that's the point of the contrast. But why should college be just like the rest of the world? Sometimes you want to have a discussion about history that doesn't involve a yelling match about current Israel-Palestine relations. Just because that is unlike the real world doesn't mean it's a bad idea.
> We all need safe spaces and many of us have them. My living room is a fine example [...]
That's not quite the same thing; your living room is your private space, in property that you either own or rent. I don't think that's under any debate; you don't need the notion of "safe space" to control who can enter and what can be said inside. The discussion is more centered around safe spaces in public property—or at the very least, publicly available property. So on school campuses, for instance; clearly the school owns the land, but (a) they're not necessarily the ones setting up the safe spaces, like you are with your own living room, and (b) while nobody needs to be in your living room other than you and your family, students have legitimate business being and operating on campus. And of course, there are all sorts of variations—is it okay in student common areas? Is it okay in classrooms? Is it okay in club rooms? Is it okay if the university sets aside a room for that purpose? Etc, etc.
At many schools, "safe spaces" are designated by clubs sponsored by the university that meet in university-owned space in a building designated for student activities. That seems appropriate. Classrooms, by contrast, should be professional and constructive places where people agree to argument for the purpose of learning.
I work at a university. I hear from, say, a transgender student that math class is tiring because they have a peer who keeps humming "Lola." I can tell that student to stop taking away from class discussion, but I can't create a "safe space" in my math class by magic. I'm glad my student has a place to go to in the student activities center to figure out a response -- I don't want to be the point person on that! I just want to teach math. Students need other places where they can feel welcome and supported, even if people here on HN feel that it's somehow cowardly and unintellectual to want a place where they're normal, because student drop out otherwise -- the stats are clear.
But to stretch my analogy, very few people live in the living room only. Classes, academic activities, sports teams, your dorm where an evangelical pro-lifer is stuck with a girl who already had an abortion in one room and where a gay farmer boy and a sheltered foreign student from Saudi Arabia are in another room -- those are where your ideas and beliefs are challenged!
If I take a car to an establishment labelling themselves as a 'Car Wash', and their washing method consists of flinging mud all over the car....said establishment isn't a very good car wash, is it?
