Safe spaces for everyone?

Lexicus said:
Imagine being so privileged you think safe spaces are simply a matter of shielding yourself from ideas you disagree with
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You're so right, the people who need safe spaces to hide from the zombie apocalypse should not be overlooked.
 
My personal spatial safe space is the toilet. Good times. I feel like my bowels are unchallenged there. What is your spatial safe space, CFC?
 
Lexicus said:
Right-wingers are, in fact, creating 'safe spaces' on college campuses, in Facebook groups, and so on. For my part I see the need for safe spaces in some contexts but I do feel the concept is being taken too far (one article I read recently claimed that students at various colleges are now demanding racial segregation as a form of "safe space" which I find utterly ridiculous). I'm not exactly sure where the boundary resides between acceptable safe space and "taken too far" or how to theorize it, though.
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Constitutional law can help. Safe spaces serve a purpose, but do restrict the rights of others through exclusion from certain activities. Particularly at a public college, this can be problematic. So you apply a modified version of the 1st amendment freedom of speech test.

Does the safe space serve a compelling purpose?
Is the request tailored specifically for serving that purpose?

It doesn't have to be that complicated, although the criteria tend to be pretty subjective. The point is, I think, not to provide a clear cut answer in every situation, but to weed out the obviously ridiculous requests like full-on segregation, and to make sure to weigh the competing interests. Excluding people from activities for any reason is a very serious thing to be doing. That doesn't mean you can't do it, but you need to do it in limited circumstances, in limited ways, for a good reason.
 
metalhead said:
Safe spaces serve a purpose, but do restrict the rights of others through exclusion from certain activities.
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I'm not sure I agree with this. The original use of "safe spaces", IIRC, was to allow Vietnam vets to talk about their experiences. I don't think that excluding people from, say, a therapy session is an infringement on anyone's rights, and that is sort of where I'm approaching that question from. For the record I also believe that the concept of a "safe space" (much like "identity politics") has been defined far too narrowly. Labor unions provide a safe space for workers to talk about their particular issues without people butting in with nonsense. The classroom provides a safe space where people can (in theory anyway) ask questions and entertain ideas without being mocked or shamed.

metalhead said:
Excluding people from activities for any reason is a very serious thing to be doing.
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What do you mean by "activities" here, exactly? The way I'm reading your words, "excluding people from activities" could mean "paying customers only" which I don't think is what you're trying to say. In the context I'm familiar with, which is college campus safe spaces run by students in extracurricular activities (so not officially sanctioned by the school), I don't see how it infringes on anyone's rights to keep e.g. a meeting of activists free of people who are only there to disrupt the meeting.
 
Safe spaces are for people who cannot win free, fair, and open debates and anyone who calls for one, no matter their political affiliation, should be mocked, derided, and then shuned from any serious discussion.
 
Oerdin said:
Safe spaces are for people who cannot win free, fair, and open debates and anyone who calls for one, no matter their political affiliation, should be mocked, derided, and then shuned from any serious discussion.
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I have to suspect that most people can't win anything. I also have to assume that some sort of 'safe-spacing' is done everywhere, let alone to shield the actual people in power. Money buys a lot of safe-space.
 
Oerdin said:
Safe spaces are for people who cannot win free, fair, and open debates and anyone who calls for one, no matter their political affiliation, should be mocked, derided, and then shuned from any serious discussion.
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I excuse your ignorance :)

Lexicus said:
I'm not sure I agree with this. The original use of "safe spaces", IIRC, was to allow Vietnam vets to talk about their experiences. I don't think that excluding people from, say, a therapy session is an infringement on anyone's rights
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There is nothing inherently wrong with safe spaces. What you are talking about are ideological safe spaces, the most despicable parts of the internet, I agree
 
Oerdin said:
Safe spaces are for people who cannot win free, fair, and open debates and anyone who calls for one, no matter their political affiliation, should be mocked, derided, and then shuned from any serious discussion.
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Moderates say this, but when push comes to shove, they seem to behave like anyone else, shutting down debates and even misappropriating terms like "mansplaining" to mock and shame the people they are debating. Hell hath no hypocrisy like moderates who are convinced they are right.

So excuse me if I don't buy that statement.
 
aelf said:
Moderates say this, but when push comes to shove, they seem to behave like anyone else, shutting down debates and even misappropriating terms like "mansplaining" to mock and shame the people they are debating. Hell hath no hypocrisy like moderates who are convinced they are right.

So excuse me if I don't buy that statement.
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I love how your posts read like something a racist would say about races, but translated into a framework of ideological groups.
 
Try substituting with a race and see if it makes sense. I won't hold my breath.
 
Sure.

"Black people always act like they're the victims, but then they behave like thugs, robbing stores, getting in trouble with the cops, and then when they're shot because of it, they all rally together and go like "Black Lives Matter!" Hell hath no hypocrisy like Black Thugs who are convinced they're victims."

Really easy to see how your statements that generalize ideological groups as if they're all the same matches how racists generalize races as if they're all the same. Of course doing it with ideological groups isn't as bad because you choose to affiliate with them, but it's still very interesting to see how well your way of thinking matches that of racists.
 
That's laughable.

If you substitute enough words, you can turn a statement into anything you like. Clearly, just substituting "moderates" with "black people" is not enough.
 
To be fair to aelf, a political (or ideological) stance is something you actively choose to hold and it's also in your control to change it. The same can't be said for race. I think it's reasonably fair to be more judgemental about the former.
 
aelf said:
That's laughable.

If you substitute enough words, you can turn a statement into anything you like. Clearly, just substituting "moderates" with "black people" is not enough.
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It is an interesting discussion strategy to make up a straw man in your head, and then when the person does not actually try to argue for that straw man that you've made up in your head, you completely ignore their actual argument on the basis that they did not defend the straw man that was only in your head to begin with and completely ignore their actual argument.

Which was that you're overly generalizing ideological groups in the same way that a racist would overly generalize individuals of a race, and I think I've done what I needed to do to showcase why I think that way.

Manfred Belheim said:
To be fair to aelf, a political (or ideological) stance is something you actively choose to hold and it's also in your control to change it. The same can't be said for race. I think it's reasonably fair to be more judgemental about the former.
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True, as I said as well in the post above.
 
I consider "safe" to be something that I knowingly act upon rather than an arbitrary thing or place. It's best not to put faith in such things, especially the designated "safe places" that people talk about today.
 
warpus said:
How do you even fit into a toilet though? I silpped once and my butt went right in the bowl, but I can't imagine fitting an entire human in there
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See my signature.
 
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