Michael Bloomberg: Why Safe Spaces Are Terrible Mistakes

http://heatst.com/politics/michael-bloomberg-why-safe-spaces-are-terrible-mistakes/

by jackgavigan • 10 years ago

81 89 10 years ago

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).

noir_lord• 10 years ago

Trigger warnings are a good idea taken to a bad extreme.

    Life: May contain events you find distressing.

askyourmother2• 10 years ago

Trigger warning: University should be about open minds, not closed minds tucked away in "safe spaces".

dagw3• 10 years ago

Absolutely, and it's much easier to open your mind if you feel safe that you won't be punished and/or ridiculed for your ideas.

lujim3• 10 years ago

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.

kaitai6• 10 years ago

Rape is a common one.

alanwatts4• 10 years ago

Any near death experience (real or perceived) can do it

doki_pen3• 10 years ago

It turns out there are degrees of PTSD, it's not binary.

http://advocatingopportunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/...

manyxcxi7• 10 years ago

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.

mfringel4• 10 years ago

So you agree that some places should be safe spaces?

kaitai6• 10 years ago

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...?."

doki_pen3• 10 years ago

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.

http://advocatingopportunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/...

paulcole• 10 years ago

Life doesn't have warning labels

Yes, it does. They're call trigger warnings and when used appropriately quite effective.

burkaman4• 10 years ago

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.

mistermann2• 10 years ago

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.

norea-armozel5• 10 years ago

I have yet to find an accused SJW supporting what you've said. Not even on Twitter or Tumblr.

forgetsusername2• 10 years ago

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.

pliny• 10 years ago

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.

[1] as described here among other places: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric...

Symmetry• 10 years ago

The same author also gave a very persuasive defence of trigger warnings here:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/30/the-wonderful-thing-abo...

sitharus• 10 years ago

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.

Safe spaces are a symptom, not the cause.

soft_dev_person• 10 years ago

There's a fine line between "safe space" and "echo chamber", then.

kaitai6• 10 years ago

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.

lsadam06• 10 years ago

Because the point of college is to challenge your ideas and beliefs, not shelter and reinforce.

alanwatts4• 10 years ago

Depends on the college and the administration really.

kaitai6• 10 years ago

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!

mcphage2• 10 years ago

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.

kaitai6• 10 years ago

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.

forgetsusername2• 10 years ago

You seem to be confused about what's public and what's private. You're entitled to all the "safeiness" you want in the privacy of your home.

6stringmerc• 10 years ago

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.

nomoch2• 10 years ago

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?

reouereie• 10 years ago

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.

nomoch2• 10 years ago

In Australia, on a coast, deal with uni students all the time.

kelukelugames4• 10 years ago

People with privilege have a strong persecution complex. Complaining about safe spaces and trigger warnings is one way to feed it.

linksnapzz2• 10 years ago

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.

MacsHeadroom• 10 years ago

Sam Harris and Jonathan Haidt recently discussed this same topic: https://youtu.be/K92rOsjyLBs

It is well worth the 20 minutes of your life, especially if you are or were in college in the past 3 years.

MoreTuple• 10 years ago

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.

Michael Bloomberg: Why Safe Spaces Are Terrible Mistakes

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