The Bastardization of "Safety"
Can words really make us "unsafe?" Stories from college campuses and Matt's writing class
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When the first humans walked the earth around 300,000 years ago, the average life expectancy was 33 years. Death was quite literally around the corner (Tupac voice). Wild animals, disease, and murderous opposing tribes competing for limited resources were the rule of the day. Disease and injury were often fatal, as medical treatment was non existent. Oh, and saber tooth tigers were a thing. Clothing and shelter were incredibly primitive, and thus mostly ineffective in protecting humans from the elements. Food was never guaranteed, as you only “ate what you killed”, that is if the thing you wanted to eat didn’t kill you first. Life was inherently dangerous.
As part of the writing class that I am currently taking here in Manhattan, there is an aspect of the class called “The Booth.” The idea is that each week a few of the students in the class upload a piece of writing that they are working on to the class portal for others to read. Then, at the next class the writer enters the “Booth.” This means that as we go around in a circle, the entire class gets to share their thoughts on the writer’s work. The good, the bad and the ugly. The best part? The writer is not allowed to speak, explain what they meant in paragraph 2, etc until EVERYONE has gotten through commenting on the piece.
The point of the exercise is that everyone gets an organic look at the authors work, the premise being that the writing should have to stand for itself. If you have to pre explain what you are doing in your writing, the piece probably needs some work.
Sounds cool right? We’re all here to get better at writing, and this “Booth” thing seems like a good way to work toward that. Teacher gets done explaining, and the whole class is on board…..almost the whole class. A discussion starts up about exploring a “safer” way to critique each others writing. Rather than letting everyone give feedback without the explanation or handholding of the writer themselves, the writer would be able to hop in at any time to defend themselves, explain themselves, etc.
If you’re in my writing class and you are reading this, I simply respectfully disagree with you. I do not think anyone’s safety was at stake in our writing class that day.
To our teachers credit, she pushed back on the idea, but in the end it was to no avail. I also hopped in and mentioned that if your piece is distributed, you are not going to be able to be in the room with every reader and micromanage the way that they read and interpret your writing. So now in our class, there are two different sets of rules for “The Booth.” Cuz…..safety. Or something.
That same day I went in “The Booth”, with the standard rules where I could not talk until everyone else had delivered their thoughts. I got some great pointers. I got a few things I may not have agreed with. I am marked safe. Everything is fine. No wild animals or deadly diseases threatened Matt’s life that day.
Throughout history, “safety” has generally been a word that has been associated with physical safety. Think the predators and hostile tribes referenced in paragraph one. Sticks and stones….you know the rest. You can disagree with someone, you can think they’re an asshole….but their words are probably not making you “unsafe.” Needless to say, if someone is literally threatening violence against you then that is an exception. If someone is threatening violence against your carry on sentence in your writing class, it is not.
Another exception I should point out is related to people who have been through real trauma. If you’ve been through a truly traumatic situation, sometimes words can feel “unsafe” if they bring up past memories of said situation. Note, “trauma” is another word that is often twisted well beyond it’s original scope. The word trauma typically refers to events like serving in a war or being a victim of an assault. Someone saying something you don’t like or not being nice to you on the playground one time is not typically associated with “trauma.”
Much of the pivot from physical safety to…..everything safety….can be attributed to the rise of “microaggressions.” The term was actually created in the 1970s by Harvard Professor Dr. Chester Pierce. It was originally used to describe subtle or even unintentional insults that Black Americans faced. Think of the classic “He’s very eloquent” that your grandpa delivers that everyone knows actually means “He’s eloquent for a black person.”
This stuff is of course very real, and is worth being aware of. It’s a bit of a “know it when you see it” concept, and it’s very hard to provide an exact definition for what qualifies as a real microaggression. The problem lies in the fact that the term has been bastardized into “If I squint hard enough, I think I’m offended (or dare I say…..unsafe?)” In psychology this concept is called “Hostile Attribution Bias.” For example, you might walk into a room where two people are laughing and immediately assume that they are laughing at you. I see it in real estate, where so many people’s default setting is that everyone is trying to screw them at every corner. Not a fun way to live.
Professor Jonathan Haidt’s best seller “The Coddling of The American Mind” presents the idea of the three great untruths:
The Untruth of Fragility – "What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker."
-We are stronger than we think. Exposure to challenges and stressors actually helps us develop skills and makes us stronger. Sheltering ourselves from anything “bad” or that we don’t agree with makes us into fragile beings. You’re not unsafe, you’re just in a situation where everything isn’t playing out precisely how you want it to. Welcome to Planet Earth.
The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning – "Always trust your feelings."
-"It doesn’t matter what was said or what actually happened, all that matters is how it made me feel.” Relying solely on emotions leads to irrational thinking and distortions of reality. We begin to interpret statements as “safe or dangerous” instead of “true or false.”
The Untruth of Us vs. Them – "Life is a battle between good people and evil people."
-We see this constantly in the form of “victim vs oppressor.” The perceived “weaker” party is often assumed to be good, while the stronger is the oppressor. Oversimplifications invite twisted versions of reality.
We cannot discuss microaggressions without discussing college campuses. Perhaps the most damaging part of the microaggression movement is that it removed intent from the equation. It no longer mattered what the speaker was saying, all that matters is how it made me feel (Untruth #2).
In 2015 at Claremont Mckenna College, a Latina student named Lisette Espinoza, wrote a piece in the school newspaper about how students of color felt unsupported at the mostly white university. Dean Mary Spellman then emailed Espinoza privately, stating that CMC was working to assist students "who don’t fit our CMC mold."
Poor choice of words? Yes, it was. Espinoza interpreted the wording as suggesting that students of color did not naturally “fit” at CMC. Naturally, instead of responding to the email or even setting a meeting, she did the grown up thing and shared the email across social media to spark a mob outrage across campus over a poorly worded email. Despite Spellman’s efforts to explain herself, she was forced to resign. Cancel culture and “victim vs oppressor” in action. Was Dean Spellman’s intent to tell Espinoza she “wasn’t a fit?” I can’t get inside her head, but it is doubtful. But intent didn’t matter anymore, all that mattered was how Espinoza felt.
A few years later on the campus of Middlebury College, political scientist Charles Murray was invited to speak. Murray has many ideas that I find offensive and generally gross, but that’s not really the point. The day of Murray’s speech, protesters packed the auditorium and refused to let him speak. He was forced to move to a livestream in a separate room. Next, he was physically attacked by students, leaving Murray concussed. The students defended their actions, stating that Murray’s “presence was inherently violent.” The people doing the concussing felt “unsafe” because of some words they didn’t agree with. They of course had every opportunity to simply not attend his speech. Better yet, they could have engaged in discussion and stated why Murray was wrong. No matter.
I heard a quote from a University Administrator the other day: “My job is not to make people feel safe, it is to make them actually be safe.”
Perpetual victimhood and the bastardization of “safety” is going to shut us all off from having real conversations. After all, if we block speakers because even one person claims to feel “unsafe”, we will have no speakers. We will also have no friendly or spirited debated among friends or even different sides of the political aisle. If “offended” is the default setting, life turns into one big contest to see who can be the biggest victim. Additionally, it creates a whole generation of fragile adults who cannot deal with the ups and downs of this thing that we call “life.” We are blessed to live in a country where free speech exists. It might be wrong. It might be untrue. It might be ridiculous. It might make you feel some type of way. It also is most likely not “unsafe.”
Love this one and the flow makes it very interesting. But I’ve gotta say that my favorite part was the caption under the Claremont picture. I laughed out loud. Both are great schools but…..spring baseball weather?
“A”
Well written.