The Ban Hammer of Censorship to provide false enclaves, called "Safe Spaces".

[TheBlackAdder]

.


There has been a growing trend on sites to shelter people from divergent thought, called 'safe spaces'.

Bill Maher would call them 'bubbles' that form an echo chamber of self-affirming distortions, forming rigidness.




This season's South Park did a nice piece to address this trend of avoidance, regardless of the price.

Below is a small clip of the song played in the middle of the episode.

.

[Kalidurga]

1. So what spaces should be unsafe?

[cali]

46. You grasp that this is not about physical safety, right?

It's more about ensuring that people aren't offended.

[Kalidurga]

50. Yes

Why should people have the attitude that it is okay to offend someone just because they can?

[merrily]

2. I see nothing wrong with safe spaces. Never have. To the contrary, they may even be necessary.

IMO, the people who have huge problems with safe spaces are acting like toddlers, thinking they are entitled to do whatever they want wherever they want. JMO.

Bill Maher, as intelligent and funny as he is, is someone who has a problem with boundaries, etc. Probably why he was a libertarian.

I've had a 100% availability for juries for a long time. I say pretty much what I want, though.

I got blocked from the Hillary Group solely because I clicked in from Latest Threads without noticing which group I was posting in. The post for which I got blocked was "The left of the Democratic Party is not the far left." Nonetheless, I have no problem with the block.

[Igel]

26. We have always had safe spaces.

They're called "homes."

We used to have safe spaces called "social clubs," where you could pick and choose who's going to be there. Same for schools and colleges.

What's new is demanding safe spaces in public spaces because some safe spaces do not yield as much money or prestige. This amounts to exerting hegemony and control over public behavior by others in spaces that used to be a commons, essentially ideologically privatizing the formerly public space. Some groups can be criticized in safe spaces; some cannot. Some speech is free; some is not. I've seen "safe spaces" in which some speech is all but coerced--it's a kind of ideological loyalty statement before saying something that might be understood as dissent, to blunt or defang it and provide cover against pariah status. It's an exercise of power to define what can and cannot be criticized and impose that definition on others.

Safe spaces, anti-blasphemy laws, and criminalization of anti-societal political speech are close cousins and all reflect a kind of totalitarian impulse. Nobody thinks they're doing bad things; but few totalitarians worth their salt have told the masses, "I'm doing this because, frankly, I like filet mignon and raping women with impunity, screw you." Usually the rhetoric is, "I'm doing this for your good, for the public good," and usually they believe it. Often the result of giving the powerless power over authoritarians is just a kind of enhanced totalitarianism--they learn their lessons, and enhance and expand their range of application while calling their worse version of oppression "good." Evil almost always shows up saying it's the good guy and there to help.

I've even heard calls for "safe space" neighborhoods, where you get redlining and restrictions on what cultural traits can be expressed so as to leave the way open for other cultural expressions. "This neighborhood has reflected ______ values for 70 years, and that must be continued without change" is fine if it's Latino or African-American, but one area 15 miles away in the same megalopolis that still celebrates its long-standing German heritage is called upon to reduce that in favor of a more "diverse" cultural expression. By "diverse" they do not mean Polish or Turkish. They treat cultural celebration as a zero-sum game, and want the resources by the German-heritage groups to be expended on their behalf, they want not just to share the stage but to liberate the stage.

[Hortensis]

37. "Safe spaces" are just like tables in a break room or cafeteria

where groups like to gather and indulge in group think. A prerequisite to membership is always conformity. "Omygod! Do you see that sweater's Kathy's wearing. WHAT was she thinking?" I know everyone can imagine the chorus of agreements that Kathy's sweater is the ugliest thing ever ("bless her heart&quot because we've all grown up surrounded by this, and many of us have always belonged to these kinds of social groups.

I've always been a bad fit in any group that requires submerging oneself into a group personality (I can do matching t-shirts, though), but many really need that conformity and support and are far happier and more comfortable in them than they could ever be without a group to belong to.

So, "safe places." IMO, no big deal unless they start lighting torches. In any case, nothing new here.

[JackInGreen]

3. I can understand the utility of a safe space both for dialogue or insulation

It's when they become safe spaces that allow, as above, 0 reality inside that isn't vetted and acceptable to the individual (as opposed to unadulterated facts) that I have to mock them.

[Tortmaster]

10. The last couple of issues of the National Review have had ...

... quite a few articles about safe spaces. You'd probably like those articles. I thought it was hilarious the way they whined and whined about them by saying how whiny safe spaces are.

Why whine about safe spaces? If you don't like them, don't go into one. The only people who I think would care enough about safe spaces to write disparagingly about them are the bullies who long for those few extra targets.

[Hortensis]

41. Agree with the last. There's a lot of frustrated complaining here

about a certain closed forum, for, I'm sure, just that reason. They care ridiculously and badmouth it incessantly because it IS a place safe from them. Now, I never drop by closed forums. Groupthink may be reassuring to their members but to me it's boring.

As for National Review's dissatisfaction that some groups might obtain a place where the majority couldn't follow and get them, of course. Get social conservatives in a group, and practically their first order of business is likely to be identifying someone to dislike so they can villainize and then righteously attack as a group, or "bully."

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. I Find it interesting that on this website the subject of the "Economy"...

Is a "Group" and not a "Forum".

And because I said something in a thread in that group that the SINGLE SOLE HOST didn't like, I got banned.

From the subject of the economy!



Bubble?

Yup..in fucking spades.

[LuvNewcastle]

5. lol!

You are hereby banned from the economy. From now on, it's bartering only for you, buddy.

[bluestateguy]

6. In a world...

where all of us can customize everything: our cable tv, our internet, our smartphones, our Facebook pages all too weed out people and ideas we don't like, isn't it not surprising the college kids who have been raised this way would demand a world free of ideas they dislike?

[Lordquinton]

9. In a world...

where minority groups face harassment at every turn, they have managed to carve out spaces where they can exist without fear. The college kids you mock wanted to attend school without the fear or literally being shot.

And the irony of complaining that other people "demand a world free of ideas they dislike?" So, you don't like their idea and want to world to be free of it?

[Tortmaster]

11. Because they can't step off campus ...

... and get a good whiff of racism and misogyny?

[Lordquinton]

15. They are so entitled

that they think they shouldn't feel in danger for their lives while at school.

meanwhile conservatives are busy re-writing textbooks to remove ideas that make them uncomfortable.

[Tortmaster]

17. When I was reading a National Review article ...

... about safe places and imagining myriad rebuttals, I didn't consider the textbook argument. That's a good one. Thanks.

[Lordquinton]

19. Look at their response to Starbucks not having "Merry Christmas" on their cups

They get so offended. hearing happy holidays? They threaten to murder over that. The mere fact that some want to deny others a safe space, that people should feel unsafe at all times, reveals far more than they realize.

[Person 2713]

23. +1

[Hortensis]

42. +1 too.

[Act_of_Reparation]

35. And look what happens when they are asked marginally difficult questions in a presidential debate.

Cry "bias" and threaten never to participate with the offending channel again.

[Lordquinton]

8. Safe space are mocked by people who don't need them

Last edited Mon Dec 21, 2015, 05:31 PM - Edit history (1)

and abused by the same types. Safe spaces are created by people who don't feel safe in the world, like LGBTQIA, or people of color who experience discrimination on a daily basis and cannot get away from it without creating a specific safe space. Some people abuse the concept of a safe space by turning it into a secret club that kicks out people they don't like, which is not what its intended to be.

If you don't get it, or don't need it, be thankful that your life is going well.

[Tortmaster]

12. Good answer.

[brer cat]

20. On target, Lordquinton.

The mocking by the folks who don't get it vividly make the point of why they are needed.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

33. +1

[one_voice]

43. +1

This is a good answer.

[MeNMyVolt]

53. Wow. Nailed it in the 1st sentence. +1

[TreasonousBastard]

13. There have always been "safe spaces"...

Long before the internet became apparently the sole venue for thought, New York City had over a hundred newspapers. Every ethnic and political group had at least one of their own and you had better toe whatever line each of them drew.

Same thing with groups of people who actually met together. Agree to the groupthink or get out. That's why there are so many Christian sects all over the country. Baptists who rebelled against Puritans discovered they didn't agree amongst themselves... In Williamsburg, if you don't agree with your rabbi, go off and start your own schul.

It becomes a problem when you decide your safe space is the only space, and others are the enemy.

BTW, I'm banned from two groups here not for trolling or fighting with them them, but for agreeing with them in ways they didn't like. Well, I thought I was agreeing with them.

[Fumesucker]

22. I got blocked from a group for inadvertently kicking a thread on that group

No text at all except "kick" in the subject line and the emoji in the body.

If I had realized the group the post was in I wouldn't have done it but I followed a link to the post and didn't check.

[Hortensis]

44. LOL. I'm also banned from one for agreeing in

ways they didn't like. I answered in "Latest Threads" and, being new, didn't notice I was intruding in a safe space. Three times I was clueless over a couple weeks until they clued me in with a swift kick.

[Tortmaster]

14. I wonder if 50 years ago how many of our ...

... grandfathers laughed at those new-fangled "no-patting-women-on-the-backside" movements or the "calling-grown-black-men-boy-isn't-groovy" campaigns or whether they learned something. Maybe if you listen, you will learn something?

[uriel1972]

16. Sniff... sniff.. I smell the scent of privilige. nt

[djean111]

18. I think that the people who are offended by "safe spaces" belong to the

authoritarian "someone is wrong on the internet" group. And/or the "people should do what I say because I am superior" group. Quite comical when those people post, really. They hatesss it when others don't do their bidding.

Plus, they don't really understand the concept of free speech.
Whoever actually owns a website, owns the free speech there, and can grant that to others. Just like someone can stand in the street and spout bullshit, but they cannot come into my house and do that.

[NCTraveler]

21. I have great appreciation for the limited...

Sexism, racism and bigotry allowed here. Don't get me wrong, it is alive and thriving here. But the admins try to keep it as whispers. I don't want to read some of the members thoughts here with zero filter.

[whatthehey]

24. Nothing wrong with needed safe spaces; plenty wrong with unneeded ones

Battered womens' shelters, minority frats, GLBT clubs, all serve a valid purpose. To allow either physical or emotional sanctuary, or both, for people facing consistent hostility demonization and marginalization from more powerful societal groups.

But silly cliqueish echo chambers set up just to avoid the horror and outrage of hearing a slightly different opinion in an internet forum from other anonymous posters who have neither more power nor an ability to harm? Utter hogwash. We even have "safe spaces" here for majorities who do the oppressing in the real world! AA groups? Go for it, but Christians ("interfaith" my ass)? What the hell do they need sanctuary from and space to safely vent against when they control every single branch of government in the US top to bottom with unassailable supermajorities and drive every single societal norm in every aspect of the public sphere? It makes as much sense as a whites safe space or straight safe space at DU. But Christ forfend somebody mock their sincerely held beliefs TM on the internet. I mean it's not like the entire site isn't set up to do that to Republicans or anything. Maybe they should get a "safe space" here too?

[AtheistCrusader]

36. .

[Hortensis]

47. They, of course, actually LIKE the "horror and outrage," it's

just that they want the reassurance of knowing others feel like them and the safety of belonging to a group that can sortie from the safe place in numbers to express their outrage.

Again with the social conservatives as an example, but a strong characteristic of that personality is that, although prone to hostility and aggression, they love to attack in numbers but avoid fighting alone. The more conservative, the more aggressive -- in groups. I haven't read about it in extremists, but I'm thinking far-left versions may have both aggression and hostility toward others, in this case mostly those who don't agree with them, in common with those on the right.

[hobbit709]

25. There's safe places and then there's cabal hideouts.

[LittleBlue]

27. What happens when these sensitive souls go into the real world?

And they find out that safe spaces don't exist outside of academia?

Frankly if one of my subordinates tried to pull the safe space stuff, I would see them terminated immediately. And if I googled a potential hire and found that he/she had participated in the safe space movement, I would bring it up with the partners and they wouldn't be hired. Hiring one of those types is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Who needs it when there are so many qualified people looking for work?

[LanternWaste]

31. Women's shelter's exist only on campuses?

"And they find out that safe spaces don't exist outside of academia?"


Women's shelter's exist only on campuses? Or (and I find this more likely), you're simply unaware of the scope of the meaning...

[LittleBlue]

38. We aren't talking about domestic abuse cases

These are spaces to prevent people from saying certain things. Not shelters that protect women. OP is talking about censorship.

Why bother replying when you can't possibly confuse the two?

[Lordquinton]

34. If hiring people who stand up for their rights

and fight against sexual harassment, and racial/sexual discrimination are lawsuits waiting to happen, then maybe you should do a full evaluation of your workforce for predators, and bigots.

[LittleBlue]

39. Nah, I'll pass

You can't be crying about safe spaces when we're working 70 hour weeks in busy season. If an employee is that weak, they won't make it anyway.

Best they stay in academia.

[Lordquinton]

45. And your company should probably be investigated for ethics violations

You just said that you were fine with bigotry, sexism and sexual harassment, where do you work so I can avoid it like the plague?

[LittleBlue]

48. LOL! You accused my firm of misconduct without even knowing our name

or anything about us. Armchair lawyers like you are hilarious. Keep me entertained. Continue posting your theories please!

[Lordquinton]

55. What is your motivation for wanting your employees feeling unsafe at home and at work?

It's been covered in this thread that it's primarily minorities, and oppressed groups that seek to create safe spaces, so you're saying, essentially, that you seek to not hire minorities and other oppressed groups.

You aren't thinking through what you're revealing about yourself here. You should probably be fired for unethical hiring practices. I'm being serious here, maybe stop laughing for a second here and actually take a look at what you've revealed about yourself in this thread.

[LittleBlue]

56. Straw man. They are perfectly safe

News flash: Hearing an opinion that differs from your own does not make you unsafe!

Either you understand that or you don't.

It's been covered in this thread that it's primarily minorities, and oppressed groups that seek to create safe spaces, so you're saying, essentially, that you seek to not hire minorities and other oppressed groups

Lies. You should stretch more if you plan to reach like that. Could pull a muscle.

You aren't thinking through what you're revealing about yourself here. You should probably be fired for unethical hiring practices. I

There is absolutely no law against it. We just can't discriminate based on race, sexual orientation, etc. We are perfectly within our rights to discriminate based on non-protected factors like what they advocate on their Facebook pages. We have the right to not hire people making fascist statements, just like we have to the right to screen people based on supporting the KKK.

Learn the law.

Are you a lawyer? What legal credentials do you have?

[kwassa]

28. DU is nothing but a giant safe space for Democrats. Safe from Republicans.

and you dwell within it.

[Hortensis]

49. Not so safe actually -- not from the anti-Democrat

far left or from conservative Democrats or "independents." It's a point as far as it goes, though. I don't think most people would want genuinely safe place, though, filled with civil, mostly agreeable conversation. Most would get bored and go find some real, even heated disagreement. Spice is life for political discourse.

[treestar]

52. The most open space would be something like a yahoo board

The likes of DU is to allow intelligent people to gather and find each other to talk to. It's harder out on a completely free board. In fact the tone gets so low there, yahoo ended up disabling it.

One can be exposed to many ideas within an enclave of such people.

[LanternWaste]

29. No doubt Bill Maher, Trey Parker and many other white males are baffled by the concept.

No doubt Bill Maher, Trey Parker and many other wealthy, white males are baffled by the concept.

[annabanana]

30. They're second cousin of the "Free Speech Zones" that people were

corralled into for protest away from valuable venues.

[Hortensis]

51. Those disgraceful "corrals," though, Annabanana,

were not their occupants' choice and were meant to defeat their whole purpose. I agree the end result could be the same if it turned out to be self-marginalization. Those "safe places" on campus might just turn into preferred social hangouts, or self segregation, and which group'd win that one?

[lumberjack_jeff]

32. Life is a trigger

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/28/i_wanted_to_be_a_supporter_of_survivors_on_campus_and_a_good_teacher_i_didnt_realize_just_how_impossible_this_would_be/

The next film to piss them all off was 9 1/2 Weeks. The film is about a S&M relationship between a character played by Micky Rourke and one played by Kim Basinger. At first Basinger’s character is drawn to Rourke and they begin an S&M style consensual relationship. As the film goes on, Rourke becomes abusive and the sex becomes non-consensual, but the beauty of the film is that Basinger is eventually able to let go and take something from the relationship–a heightened sense of her sexuality and desires. There’s an infamous scene with Rourke feeding Basinger a number of food items while she’s blindfolded. It’s basically a series of soft core money shots. It is a consensual scene. When conversation began in class, a white male student started talking about the scene as one of consent. Four hands shot up. One said, “no—it is clearly not consensual.” Other students concurred. They argued that if someone is in an abusive relationship, they can never consent to sex because they are being manipulated.

This triggered me. I was furious.

Sexual assault survivor support is about empowerment. The model says, “Hey! It’s not for you to tell the survivor what happened to them; that’s their story, they know, don’t fucking label it.” What these students were essentially doing was stripping every person in an abusive relationship of all their agency. They were telling every survivor that they were raped, even when the survivor may have wanted to have sex with their abuser. They were claiming god like knowledge of every sexual encounter. And they were only 20. If that. Their frontal lobes haven’t even fully developed.

[KentuckyWoman]

40. There's a difference between troll free zones and echo chambers.

Being anonymous and faceless on the internet is a two edged thing. Protects people from predators but also protects the predators. Yes, some people and some websites are just high five echo chambers. But many morph into that over time without intentionally doing so. The intent to protect people from bullies.


Most everyone is open to differing ideas and opinions when there is respectful give and take...... even when it is strongly worded. Few people will put up with bullies for long before they just move on to something safer or simply go create their own in an effort to do so.

[Agnosticsherbet]

54. I oppose any "Safe Space" defined by any government entity

Because they are inherently discriminatory and violate individual rights by the government. Private institutions or individuals that want to set up areas of discrimination are free to do so as long as they do not discriminate against a protected class.