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Sam Harris Podcast Episode on Safe Spaces
- Thread starter activepassive
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I listened to the interview. The interviewee mentions the statistics, and claims that where they see the effects are in the post-millennial generation at universities specially on the west coast and in the north east.
The primary example given for an over the top response is a head of student relations who was pressured into resigning after reaching out to a Hispanic student to meet her and discuss how to improve live on campus for those who did not "fit the [university name] mold". A claim is made that college presidents and faculty are aggressively limiting what they say to avoid such bad-faith interpretations. The interviewee claims this happens from both left and right wing students on campus but the examples given are both left wing (claims the majority is accusations of humanities faculty by humanities students).
The interviewer spend most of the time talking about how his research in psychology suggests the approaches taken by the students are harmful for those with PTSD (although he also says that cases of PTSD as opposed to trauma are low on these campuses). Another major point is that the "intent doesn't matter" response to accidental harm opens a person up to a lot more perceived harm and therefore a lot more anxiety.
Anyways, that's my second hand summary. I don't think the word "safe space" is mentioned for those arguing against it here. It's primarily the firings of humanities faculty, and the potential psychological effects of the perceived philosophies being touted.
The primary example given for an over the top response is a head of student relations who was pressured into resigning after reaching out to a Hispanic student to meet her and discuss how to improve live on campus for those who did not "fit the [university name] mold". A claim is made that college presidents and faculty are aggressively limiting what they say to avoid such bad-faith interpretations. The interviewee claims this happens from both left and right wing students on campus but the examples given are both left wing (claims the majority is accusations of humanities faculty by humanities students).
The interviewer spend most of the time talking about how his research in psychology suggests the approaches taken by the students are harmful for those with PTSD (although he also says that cases of PTSD as opposed to trauma are low on these campuses). Another major point is that the "intent doesn't matter" response to accidental harm opens a person up to a lot more perceived harm and therefore a lot more anxiety.
Anyways, that's my second hand summary. I don't think the word "safe space" is mentioned for those arguing against it here. It's primarily the firings of humanities faculty, and the potential psychological effects of the perceived philosophies being touted.
Are we doing the Jordan Peterson thing where THAT ISN'T WHAT HE MEANT and nobody can have an opinion until they've read and come around to the orthodox view on all of daddy's sacred scriptures
I am not against the existence of space spaces per say, I think the title of this thread has tainted the discussion as a typical anti safe space rant.
I am more concerned with teaching kids that they never have to have their ideas challenged, even outside of "safe spaces". That's all. And there may be no mental health issue at all related to this idea, I just think it is an interesting discussion.
I gather from this post the implication that you think these kind of discussions AREN'T has at so-called safe places and that being the case, that they "don't prepare people for the real world." When in fact it's kinda the opposite. That's exactly the kinda stuff that does get discussed in "safe places" all the time and is kinda part of the point of them: to allow such discussion to occur in the first place.
They certainly ain't about sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending the world doesn't suck in any case. Believe me, we fucking know it and aren't under even the slightest pretense otherwise, even when we're at safe-places. The idea that that's what safe places are about, the idea that they're just about people denying reality and just running away from reality and pretending problems don't exist is kind of part of the fucking problem in the first place since those mystical safe-places are boogeymen that do not exist, are not, and never will be what they're actually about at all and that's all just a bunch of gibberish and hogwash.
The usual context for these discussion has the "idea being challenged" as someone's basic identity or right to live and be happy, i.e. people are saying that we need full exposure to bigotry at all times because reasons.
What are some ideas that you see that need to be challenged?
Imagine saying "you are not seeing what he's trying to say!!!!!" About Sam "Race Realism" Harris lmao
This is like being concerned with ghosts eating too much cholesterol.
Guess there are race realist sympathisers in ERA lol.
Calling Sam Harris out for what he is=having a "moral panic attack".
Yeesh..
Here is the quote with extra context
Here I'll even bold the important parts.
Go explain what he meant if he actually wasn't comparing Vox and the Salon to the KKK.
Safe Spaces are not about a lack of challenging ideas, they are about a lack of challenging existence.
LGBT Safe Spaces are spaces LGBT people can go where no-one will deny them their right to exist.
BAME Safe Spaces are spaces BAME people can go where no-one will deny them their right to exist.
You think minorities are coddled? You think we don't spend the vast majority of our lives knowing people "don't agree" with us existing? Trust me: We fucking know. No Safe Space is going to remove that knowledge. It's in us deep. It's there when we can't sleep. It's there when we're walking alone. It's with us every day.
We know our existence will be challenged. We know the idea that we should be treated equally will be challenged. We know it because we live it. Safe Spaces give us somewhere to exist for 5 fucking minutes without that challenge.
It's nice. Safe Spaces are nice. The people who argue against Safe Spaces are, in my experience, disingenuous assholes who don't want uppity minorities to have anything nice.
This isn't about hate speech, in fact I think you can have strong free speech protections while also banning some hate speech as many European countries have done.
This is more about things like microaggressions, and attributing malicious intent to every idea that you disagree with. This can make you feel more attacked and feel that the people out there are more evil and despicable than they may be. (Yes there are truly terrible people out there, not defending them, but do we group people in with them that should not be?)
It's always mindblowing when somebody brings up basic bigoted talking points as if they're brand new revolutionary arguments for why maybe some demographic does deserve to be hated.
Can you give me an example of something you view as valuable, enlightening discourse that would be banned in a safe space, or is this purely a nebulous boogeyman
One example from the podcast: POC are often asked where they are from, with the assumption being that they or someone in their recent ancestry immigrated. How do you interpret this?
A. The askers are explicitly racist
B. The askers are prejudiced due to a deep systemic racism, this is a micro aggression. They would probably make other biased actions in other contexts.
C. The askers are rude, ignorant people but not a symptom/sign of evil.
I'm not sure which is correct. I think the interviewee is arguing taking option B makes students feel more vulnerable when C is closer to the truth.
A. The askers are explicitly racist
B. The askers are prejudiced due to a deep systemic racism, this is a micro aggression. They would probably make other biased actions in other contexts.
C. The askers are rude, ignorant people but not a symptom/sign of evil.
I'm not sure which is correct. I think the interviewee is arguing taking option B makes students feel more vulnerable when C is closer to the truth.
You are mis-characterizing the issue. This isn't about banning ideas in safe spaces or getting rid of safe spaces at all. It is about the general concept of having the right not to hear things that make you unconformable. And if someone says something that makes you unconformable they are attacking you or have malicious intent.
This very thread is an example. Some people are assuming I am trying to promote bigotry just be virtue of having this discussion. Why do people jump to malicious intent?
I hate whenever this topic comes up. Like we have conservatives controlling boards of education and rewriting textbooks and curriculum to suit their worldview, and you want to tell me some fucking kids who just want to be left alone for a bit are the actual threats to intellectualism? I don't fucking believe you.
Having someone else, presumably an authority, do your talking for you is a good way to a) test the waters and see if people are receptive to the idea before you start putting your own thoughts out there and b) failing that, gives you some level of plausible deniability in the event that people rightly decide that Sam Harris is a butthole who isn't worth listening to. "Hey, I didn't say it, this *other* guy did. Don't shoot the messenger!"
pro tip... if your "nuanced discourse" is a conversation that would be banned in a safe space then its probably not a conversation worth having
Makes me sad seeing so many people write off Jonathan Haidt immediately. Sam Harris I can understand on many aspects why you wouldnt want to listen (though I do think he has been somewhat mischaracterized at times).
Sometimes it really does feel like there's a lack of any sense of curiosity or discussion. Wish people were at least more willing to discuss the content.
Sometimes it really does feel like there's a lack of any sense of curiosity or discussion. Wish people were at least more willing to discuss the content.
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There are some issues of free speech on campus that do need to be addressed, for instance, criticism of Israel have lead to professors being fired and students being punished.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-spee...st-attack-free-speech-israel-palestine-debate
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/...sors-angry-tweets-on-gaza-cost-him-a-job.html
https://www.thenation.com/article/w...tion-because-of-their-pro-palestine-politics/
For anyone that listened, were these things talked about?
https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-spee...st-attack-free-speech-israel-palestine-debate
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/...sors-angry-tweets-on-gaza-cost-him-a-job.html
https://www.thenation.com/article/w...tion-because-of-their-pro-palestine-politics/
For anyone that listened, were these things talked about?
Their voters are largely uneducated so they made an enemy out of intelligence.
This is a completely made-up problem that doesn't exist and is only brought up by pearl-clutching centrists who don't even understand what safe spaces are for. Give me a fucking break.
It's hard to understand safe spaces when your world is a safe space.
Safe spaces aren't inherently good or bad. It totally depends on the specifics; they can be abused. But just because you might be excluded from a safe space shouldn't automatically trigger screeching. Example, a women's support group for victims of sexual violence might exclude men because men are generally the perpetrators, etc. Getting all pedantic about it is just being willfully ignorant of the context in order to attempt reductio ad absurdum.
Safe spaces aren't inherently good or bad. It totally depends on the specifics; they can be abused. But just because you might be excluded from a safe space shouldn't automatically trigger screeching. Example, a women's support group for victims of sexual violence might exclude men because men are generally the perpetrators, etc. Getting all pedantic about it is just being willfully ignorant of the context in order to attempt reductio ad absurdum.
And that's a boogeymen because nobody in the world in the world beliefs that kids should never, in any way, have their ideas challenged. Nobody is actually teaching their students that (except, ironically, for people like racists, Nazis, eugenicists, etc who go so far to believe that the mixing of the races is fundamentally bad, diversity is bad, and minorities should be rounded up and killed or shipped off to their own country. Those tend to be the ones least open to challenging ideas and see the whole thing, and even education itself, as bad). Not happening.
This is also why people still think you're talking about safe-places BTW. It's not just the thread title, but also because talking points like "they're teaching kids to never have their ideas challenged. Never ever never" are typical anti-safe-place talking points and don't really make much sense outside of that context.
So if that's indeed not what you're talking about, it makes even less sense to bring that up since it's not a thing to begin with, so why rail against it as if it were? Why is this where your efforts are directed, at boogeymen and ghosts?
I am talking about the article that Albatross posted on the first page. The words "safe space" do not appear in the article. I didn't come into this thread to try to argue against safe spaces or to say we need to get rid of them.
If their concerns are unfounded, then so are mine. I just thought it was an interesting question.
How much of a boogeyman is it really though? In left leaning spaces such as this people literally come into threads like this to say that they won't engage with ideas or to say that we shouldn't engage with them.
Don't get me wrong, in the broader context, fuck Nazis and I don't think we need to grapple and debate with shit like White nationalism, but I see a lot of concept creep happening where ideas that are even mildly out of line with popular notions are instantly treated with hostility rather than a conversational discussion based tone.
What about that example though? How's that actually fit with your prior posts? Is that one of the "challenging ideas" that kids apparently need to be exposed to that they currently aren't? Because, like, POC are constantly exposed to that "but where are you REALLY from" nonsense regardless, whether get like it or not. Don't need to be taught about it in a college class or anything---it's a basic day on the life.
So, like, who does "exposing kids to these challenging ideas" really benefit here? 'Cause it sure as fuck ain't the person of color in that situation, because they know all about it and can tell you themselves they're exposed plenty enough to stuff like that regardless. And it's not like their interlocutor will get much benefit either, because with an example like that, they've clearly already made up their mind for whatever reason and are fishing for a particular answer, so what's the point if asking to begin with? There's no benefit to anyone there, so why is it so important that people are in fact "exposed" to microagressions like that as if there's some benefit to either person, that minorities aren't exposed to that stuff regardless, and there's any point or benefit to the whole thing at all?
Unless you seriously believe that minorities DON'T get exposed to that stuff regardless and thus it just come up in the classroom to prepare them or something? Or is this a "the burden is on minorities to reach out to people and teach them to stop being racist/sexist/etc, even through unintentional microagressions and the like, and the burden is in them and then alone to do that, while I stand back and do nothing and that's why they need to be exposed to it--causr the only way to fight back is if minorities carry all the weight themselves and if they don't their to blame for what happens to them" type of argument?
'Cause yeah, if that's the direction things are going, you can miss me with all of that noise.
And if the answer is none of the above, that you know that minorities do get shit like that regardless all the time, and agree that the burden should NOT in fact be on them and then alone to fight back against stuff like that then we'll what's the problem again? 'Cause I ain't seeing one.
The guy in the tan suit? That's not Jordan Peterson that's Michael Roth arguing against the motion
People came into this thread with background knowledge and experience with the primary source (Harris) originally in the OP.
They also likely have plenty of experience with the theories he expounds in various forms from various similar sources.
None of that is an example of 'not engaging with ideas'. It is recognizing 'ideas' that have been around for a long time, understanding the intellectual dishonesty behind them, and making a decision on how to legitimize them going forward.
I don't think that example supports his point. In the interview, it was an example given of how a different perception of a stimulus can lead to an increased rate of incidence for a person and how that may be contributing to (reportedly) increased rates of mental illness on campus.
That is my point.
I am not talking about needing to be "exposed" to challenging ideas. But how you respond to being exposed to them.
Lots of Americans did not attend college and jump at the chance to bash it. Lots of Americans jump at the chance to attack what they don't understand in a pathetic attempt to elevate themselves above others because they have self-esteem issues.
Succintly put and everything that needs to be said on the subject.
It's fair to not want to bother with Harris based on previous experience, and the posters who just say "Harris, pass" make sense. But it's weird to come into the thread and post responses to points made in general about safe spaces by other parties when the interview/article are really talking about a different phenomenon. Of course, you could claim it is dogwhistling (is that the term?) and using university firings/mental illness as a more approachable way to talk about actually wanting to propagate hate speech. But nobody in that thread has made that argument, they've mainly been responding to a fictional demand (in the context of this interview/article) to remove safe spaces to the benefit of hate speech.
*edit* I've mainly been trying to state points from the interviewee for the benefit of those who didn't read, but since I'm getting engaged it's probably important to state my own perspective:
+ I am pro safe spaces, including exclusionary ones in many contexts
+ I do think that university professors have been pressured into resigning for willfully misrepresented speech (probably moreso by right wing students).
+ I am pro hate speech laws
+ I think Harris is biased and often wrong but he is very good at providing thought experiments that force you to be much more careful about defending your opinions. And I do think he is willfully misread as well on occasion.
+ I think nonviolent protest of speakers on a college campus is noble.
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Sure and maybe if it had just been Jonathan Haidt maybe people would be willing to discuss it more, but why even bother making an appearance in here? Like is it some sort of self important pronouncement? It just frankly seems like shitposting.