Dangerous Spaces

What a fantastic youth!

I've never been nearly witness to a generation that is as socially enlightened, open-minded, and fiercely protective of every and all human rights. I say nearly witness because I'm an internet hermit, and I seldom witness anything firsthand anymore. 

It's necessary to proliferate ideas that seldom have a chance to heard. I won't disagree with that. There are an enormous amount of people who have suffered in silence. We have so many communicative opportunities afforded to us by a variety of mediums and it's important to have these channels utilized by people who were unable to speak in the past. Those in power, those who crafted society for their sole benefit, cannot silence the outcries of injustice with the ease with which they once did. We are able to access new views to further our worldly perspective. This is a beautiful thing. 

But I think that things can get a little dangerous when we begin to take personal offense to information. When we begin responding to facts at a visceral and emotional level, we run the risk of atrophying our abilities to effectively defend our viewpoints. When we begin to indulge our narcissism as an unequivocal right, imposing vengeance to assuage our wounded egos, we begin to silence avenues of intellectual and emotional growth. And I think that safe spaces won't change the fact that the world will always be a perilous place. Knowledge is our greatest defense, even if this is knowledge that disgusts us or enrages us. 

I firmly believe that everybody is entitled to their opinion. I also firmly believe that nobody is entitled to force-feed their opinions to their opponents merely because we feel threatened by the absolute contradiction of our beliefs. 

We shouldn't shit on people merely because they disagree. And I will be the very first to admit that this is INCREDIBLY difficult. I am guilty of disliking something because it's the total opposite of something I feel emotionally and personally bound to. 

I would like to stress that I am writing this as nothing more and nothing less than you. I am writing this because I have had the luxury of months of free time to think and observe society from a point of unexpected isolation. And I have had time to analyze my own visceral reaction to the phenomenon of safe spaces and using P.C. as a linguistic means to an end. 

Before you start ripping me to shreds, which you may at this point, know that it will only give fodder to my self-indulgent martyrdom.I am not trying to defend hate speech nor am I trying to trivialize the experiences of those who have been the target of violence and hate due to their respective beliefs, race, sexual or gender orientation.

 Nor am I saying that the only way to identify with and defend groups who have been marginalized is to have been a firsthand victim of injustice. There are people who haven't experienced the hardships of life who take it upon themselves to defend those who have been left behind by the good nature of men. These people sacrifice themselves and their comforts because they have such a strong sense of altruistic conviction that it cannot be ignored or they have been financially blessed to the point of guilt and have seen past the addiction to greed in order to offer some type of monetary relief to those less fortunate. 

I am not talking about philanthropists and school teachers, public defenders or social workers unseen and living meager, unfortunate enough to understanding the futility of their constant fight. Not in the sense of personal reward or altruistic reward, but in the sense of the bigger picture, swimming upstream against a bureaucratic current that benefits the ones already favored by fortune. These are a different breed of people, and these people are an increasing rarity in a world that caters to the profits of narcissism. 

I am talking about the students who have been given every advantage in life. Students who have managed to skirt any inconvenience and were spoiled by the entitlement bestowed upon them by enlightened and frightened parents, terrified that trauma of birth would prevent them from wholly realizing the potential of their self-esteem. Atoms preferred by the chaos of the universe, more worthy than any other in existence.

I mean the students who feel safe rather than incredibly infantilized by toys and nursery rhymes when their lectures take a darker turn. The students who scream and accuse professors of bigotry for merely mentioning the presence of racism in American History. Students who sign up for classes only to be hurt by the content, bewildered that their specific sensitivities have not been taken into consideration on the syllabus. 

Now, if a student were forced to attend an outrageously bigoted and uproariously pious university, I could understand a need for a safe space away from judgement and sexual orientation reeducation courses. But these are not the students that are demanding asylum from unpleasant ideas. 

These are students who have the privilege to receive the highest standard of education. And I believe that this isn't a symptom of societal rebellion but narcissism run rampant. 

These people have taken knowledge and studies to be true so long as they not only align with their beliefs but with their exact emotions. Appropriating suffering to reflect their own minute experience. 

We must have opposite viewpoints in order to strengthen our own with reason. We have always thought our liberal and progressive views to be ( for the sake of argument) the correct views because these were views based in a humanitarian reason, balanced by weighing perspectives of others, grounded in the belief that all human life is equal regardless of religion, sex, race, or disability. 

And we laugh at bigoted views because they demonstrate inflammatory ignorance, views based on feelings and brainwashed ideologies that do not seek science or logic to defend themselves but the name of God or some other tradition. Out-dated views that cherished punishment as our first form of entertainment. 

But attacking institutions of knowledge and professors dedicated to academics and the proliferation of education employs the same tactics we should be critical of. Instead of finding a means to arms ourselves against things that displease us or that we find morally reprehensible, we attack them in the name of the Other to disguise our egotistical indulgence. Simply reciting works of art that are controversial becomes an act of hate, silencing all and any viewpoints. Worse still is attacking an individual and reducing them to something less than human because we don't agree with them or find them to be hideously misinformed with no hope of retribution. I know it can be tempting, but if you are one to champion the equal value of human life, you cannot disregard your consideration the racists, perverts, and murderers. Otherwise, concede to your moral paradoxes. 

When we don't even want to acknowledge the existence of the opposition to our beliefs, we cannot strengthen ourselves with sound reason against what we find to be wrong. We become marred by our self-interest and lash out without reason and respect, sinking to the levels of touchy brutes. 

We are not arming ourselves against the unpleasant truth of the world. We are not learning coping skills to deal with the reality of life. We are asking to be coddled and complacent. And there will be products and services that you will purchase because they will revere your comfort and you won't have to question their origin. You will cease to question anything and fail to realize you've been taken advantage of by the ones you rally against.