Safteyism

Question 1

Safetysim

Answer 1

a cultural trend that emphasizes protection and safety

Question 2

What are the effects of safetysim?

Answer 2

-correlated with increasing rise of mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression, and suicide
-has made people less resilient

Question 3

Safetysim and parenting

Answer 3

has led to a paranoid style of parenting and creating people who are fragile

Question 4

Safetysim and schools

Answer 4

-students now cooperating with administration when there is speech they don’t like

Question 5

What did safetyism begin with?

Answer 5

Began with physical safety but expanded to emotional safety

Question 6

Why do we need struggle?

Answer 6

-As a species we benefit from struggle and it is important to becoming a mature person
-Study with peanuts shows importance of being exposed to danger; in 90s children were avoided being given peanuts because of fear of allergies but found that not consuming peanuts during early infancy developed peanut allergy (17% compared to 3%)

Question 7

Problems with Safetyism (9)

Answer 7

1. Silencing
2. Neorotic
3. Rewards performance
4. Has no limits
5. Catastrophizing
6. Trivializes and Excuses Real Violence
7. Patronizing, especially to minorities
8. Distracts from real problems and solutions
9. Undermines intellectual pluralism and diversity

Question 8

Silencing

Answer 8

-ends conversation
-inherantly incompatable with free speech; it is a censoring machine

Question 9

Neurotic

Answer 9

-makes you adopt a victim mentality
-if you’re constantly looking for things to make you feel bad, you will find it
-creates a world of perpetual anger
-anyone who offends them is a bigot

Question 10

Rewards Performance

Answer 10

-rewards overreacting
-claiming that you feel unsafe gives you power

Question 11

Has no limits

Answer 11

-people cause it to shut up anything

Question 12

Catastrophizing

Answer 12

-blows misunderstanding out of proportion
-Ex: asking where someone is from

Question 13

Trivializes and Excuses Real Violence

Answer 13

-if words are violence, people are using physical violence as “justified” self defense

Question 14

Patronizing, especially to minorities

Answer 14

-doesn’t treat people as humans by assuming that people are fragile and can’t handle debate
Ex: portrays women as delicate

Question 15

Distracts from real problems and solutions

Answer 15

-problem is false and harmful ideas
-suppressing them doesn’t make them go away; need speech to prove that ideas are wrong
-bad ideas must be confronted
Ex: Marriage right for gay community won through debate

Question 16

Undermines intellectual Pluralism and diversity

Answer 16

-diversity of ideas (too little in universities)
-uncomfortable but necessary for arriving at the truth