I was following your argument until this part: "All the anti-safe-space discussion on Hacker News lately is truly, horribly, fucking disgustingly indicative of the inherent sexism and flat-out hatred that worms its way through developer culture." I don't see how you made this connection. The way it's worded seems to imply that holding opinions that safe space have issues in practice would lead to being sexist and have hatred (which I presume you meant against oppressed groups generally for which safe spaces are added). I disagree strongly with this.
At this point, I realize you're trolling, but in the interest of anyone else reading I feel it's appropriate to reply. I'm someone who pretty universally supports the rights of others to be themselves, however that might be, and be treated with respect as a human being.
That said, the term "safe space" is something I've never personally encountered being used in the context you present it in. When a group of like-minded people come together in a private space, they don't then declare "This place is a safe space for $x people". It's obvious that everyone present is of like-mind, and those who are there for purposes other than discussion of the topic at hand can be expelled through social means as a consensus action of the group without any need for authority involvement.
Meanwhile, I often hear the term "safe space" used by people when they want to take over a shared space to insulate themselves from people who might disagree with them or maybe even be bigots towards them, while in public. I am not in any way arguing that bigotry is socially acceptable, but it is protected speech, and while it is perfectly appropriate to tell people that their bigotry is offensive, inappropriate, and unwelcome, it's not appropriate to ask that an authority come in and forcibly establish a zone in a shared space where-in some speech is okay and other speech is not.
My opinion, which I think is largely in-line with the person you replied to, is not one born out of hatred or bigotry, it's born out of concern about the death of dissent. It's a concern that our culture is shifting to one where everyone lives in an echo chamber and is intolerant of any ideas not of their own making. It is perfectly acceptable as a society to be intolerant of intolerance, and that includes both intolerance based in bigotry as well as intolerance based in delusion. This is not an argument in favor of people "just taking it" when others behave in inappropriate ways towards them, but it is a plea for reason around dissent. Respectful disagreement is not offensive or inappropriate, even though some people may use disrespectful terms in their dissent which themselves are offensive or inappropriate, that does not mean that all people who disagree are inherently offensive. It is not oppression to disagree with someone, it is oppression to prevent dissenting opinions.
Given that so much of the influence and respect people in the public eye have these days is based on the appearance that they're socially/politically appropriate, it's very clear how claims of victimhood can be used to intimidate. In some cases, I don't have much sympathy for those who have come under fire since they are in a position to clearly state their position and walk away relatively unscathed, but some people unfortunately are not in that situation. Take for instance, the two Yale professors who clearly argued for school administrators to allow students to define their own standards and for students to have a discussion, instead were reviled unfairly by some students who instead want administrators to use their authority to impose speech controls. Unfortunately, those Yale professors have less influence with which to save themselves than the administrators who more often come under fire.
Perhaps the most confusing thing to me about this whole situation is that in most cases the people calling for "safe spaces" are people who are part of marginalized groups or are saying that they act on behalf of marginalized groups. The social concepts surrounding free association, free speech, and dissent are there to protect marginalized groups. It allows them to exist, gather, and discuss their ideas, thoughts, experiences, and feelings and to publicly disagree with people who are in the majority groups and be protected from the oppression of being silenced by authority while doing so. It seems strange to me that the people claiming to be proponents of marginalized groups would want to take away these protections from anyone.
I could write more, but I don't think it would lend anything else to the point I'm trying to make. If anyone reading this is unable to understand the difference between free association of like-minded people in private spaces vs trying to enforce speech controls on everyone, including those who may not be like-minded, in a shared space, and why the latter might be concerning to many for reasons that do not originate from any personal hatred or bigotry, I will attempt to clarify further. Otherwise, I hope the above is well-stated enough to put forward that position.
> it's not appropriate to ask that an authority come in and forcibly establish a zone in a shared space where-in some speech is okay and other speech is not.
How do you feel about your HR department and their anti-discrimination and harassment policies? :)
You get more protections from harassment in the workplace than students get on campus.
Tolerance of intolerance (e.g., hate speech) leads inevitability to the extinction of tolerance itself. Discussions on why intolerance exists and what can be done to combat it are precisely why safe spaces exist. And yes, I believe university campuses should be exclusively safe places. Hate speech itself has no place in an institute of education - just as it has no place in the workplace. Discussions about hate speech, on the other hand, absolutely do.
> Tolerance of intolerance (e.g., hate speech) leads inevitability to the extinction of tolerance itself.
I would argue that this is an unverified and overblown statement. In fact, I don't even see why this would eventually lead itself to be true, unless you already consider bigotry and hatred to be the majority norm in a very pervasive sense. I could write more on the matter, but others have done some considerable study on the matter [1]. I would say that overall being tolerant of intolerance is a good thing, because these people naturally exclude themselves from social structures and circles of power where they are expected to maintain a leadership role towards those they are bigoted against. Further, by integrating intolerant people with those of us who are tolerant, there is more chance for them to learn why their hatred may be misplaced, and for us to learn where the boundaries of our own personal expression should be.
Thinking merely that we must "stamp out all hatred" is in fact a form of hatred in itself. You can't fight fire with fire here.
> I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate* people like that.*
I strongly suspect your definition of "harass" borders on what I would call academic discourse.
A university and a office are two very distinct environments. University is designed to create an environment for learning, growing, debating, being challenged in ones preconceived notions, and in some ways, it's also a crucible to help prepare young adults to enter society as productive members.
To apply the same standards of a workplace to an academic institution is ridiculous. In fact, in many ways we want workplaces to become more like university. It's another example of the friction and the push back against efforts to sterilize the workplace (trying to prevent it becoming the next "safe space").
The poster you're replying to stresses again and again that this refers to public spaces. Even so, I'm not sure discrimination and harassment reach the same bar as discussing things like abortion in the abstract, for example.
Personally, I'm not sure I'd support anyone harassing another personally, although if speech isn't intimidating to a person, you can't say it's harassment, I think (IANAL).
Yep. But public spaces in context of the larger discussion at hand refers to universities as well.
Nobody's saying that we should turn main street of podunk, OH into a designated safe place (though, it says a lot about the culture in america that it is decidedly NOT a safe place to be if you're LGBTQ/POC/etc).
Bigotry is a belief structure. Discrimination and harassment are actions, which may or may not be based in bigotry. I am in no way advocating that it is okay to discriminate against or harass people based on their identity. Speech can be an action, but it can also just be speech. It's not a simple line, but I think it's well defined in the law and well understood in society the difference between a statement of opinion, which may or may not be bigoted, and harassment.
Also, I'd like to point out that you're awfully focused on my statements around bigotry. Bigotry is a consequence of humanity, but it's also something that can be changed through education and discussion. The very reason why it's important to protect dissenting speech, is because it's a protection for society against bigotry. The movement that's currently happening around "safe spaces" is not merely a reaction to bigotry, it's also a reaction to dissenting opinions, ignoring the latter for the former because the former makes an easy target to argue against due to its inappropriateness and unpopularity does not change the facts of the matter.
I think part of our misunderstanding is that we disagree on what is entailed in a "discussion" and what is entailed in the term "safe space". To me, a discussion must have, among other things, diversity of thought or position. This implies that there will be dissent. In the usage of the term "safe space" that I've experienced, dissent was not allowed, in fact it was in some cases violently rejected. If there is no room for dissent, then what exists within is not a discussion, it's a group affirmation. You do not walk away from a group affirmation having learned anything, although it might make you feel better about yourself. A discussion provides the possibility of learning something, gaining awareness of other viewpoints, understanding of someone who is different than you, and perhaps the possibility of convincing someone else to change their viewpoint to share yours.
On a university campus in a shared space, I'd very much hope that any discussion that occurs about any topic, but especially topics of politics and social mores has room for dissent. For instance, I'd hope that my dissenting opinion regarding the existence or establishment of "safe spaces" would be welcome, if not applauded in a discussion about identity politics on a university campus. At the same time, if I were on said campus and I heard someone expressing a grossly bigoted opinion, such as something which is blatantly racist or sexist, I would confront them and provide them my dissenting viewpoint to their bigotry and hope that it were welcomed, if not embraced by the person who I was having the disagreement with. University life is supposed to be about having your viewpoints that you grew up with challenged, meeting new people who are different than you, finding out about the vast diversity of opinions and thought that exists in the world, and opening your mind to the possibilities that life holds. When we use social means to censure people and demand the cessation of dissent in the name of not causing offense, we trade away the possibility of teaching students about the vast possibilities of the world in favor of not rocking the boat.
