Things the Right get right

[Mr. Tea]

The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma. Emma Hall, a junior, rape survivor and “sexual assault peer educator” who helped set up the room and worked in it during the debate, estimates that a couple of dozen people used it. At one point she went to the lecture hall — it was packed — but after a while, she had to return to the safe space. “I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs,” Ms. Hall said.

This was done because a speaker - herself a woman - was invited to a debate, and they thought she might question the validity of "rape culture" as a concept.

There's two very dangerous things going on here: one is the equation of 'ideas I don't agree with' with 'verbal violence', and the other is the equation of 'verbal violence' with physical violence. Come on, you've got a brain. Doesn't that worry you a bit?

 

[luka]

i'm talking about the concept not particular individuals.

 

[luka]

that story is no different from the sun trying to demolish political correctness by making up stories about primary schools banning baa baa black sheep for being racist

 

[Leo]

People who then justify their domination of discussion by believing it's a product of superior cognitive ability and 'critical thinking'

good thing dissensus doesn't have any posters like that.

 

[Mr. Tea]

that story is no different from the sun trying to demolish political correctness by making up stories about primary schools banning baa baa black sheep for being racist

As far as I'm aware, the events it describes did actually happen. Have you got good reason to think it's made up?

Anyway, the main point remains. Do universities have a purpose other than making young people feel good about themselves for three years and eventually qualifying them for a desk job? Genuine question. Maybe they don't any more.

 

[luka]

I don't think it invalidates the concept. Do you? Nor do I think getting boring people to shut up so quieter more interesting people can be heard is bad for anyone's intellectual development (acknowledging the irony Leo alludes to)

 

[firefinga]

As far as I'm aware, the events it describes did actually happen. Have you got good reason to think it's made up?

Anyway, the main point remains. Do universities have a purpose other than making young people feel good about themselves for three years and eventually qualifying them for a desk job? Genuine question. Maybe they don't any more.

It's no coincidence this "safe space" fad is popping up now. Those kids want to extend their closed (insert any current social media fad) groups into the real world (or their "real world" which is colleges). Of course, they'll have a rude awekening after graduation, exacerbated exactly BECAUSE of the hermetic nature of the said "safe spaces" environment.

 

[Leo]

that was a weak attempt at a joke on my part. while there have been some critical thinkers here at times, they're different from (and generally less offensive than) the type of person luka described.

 

[luka]

It's no coincidence this "safe space" fad is popping up now. Those kids want to extend their closed (insert any current social media fad) groups into the real world (or their "real world" which is colleges). Of course, they'll have a rude awekening after graduation, exacerbated exactly BECAUSE of the hermetic nature of the said "safe spaces" environment.

but this is perilously close, i think, to the notion you should brutalise kids cos the real world is brutal. toughen em up school of child rearing. university is and should be a bubble.

 

[luka]

and of course im not suggesting universites arent full of cossetted, precious, nuerotic, histrionic primadonnas... always have been always will be

 

[luka]

but i do want to defend the concept in its original form and i do think they were created becasue they were necessary and still are necessary reagrdless of whatever inanities have been perpetrated under their name.

reactionaries use these inanities to tar the whole concept with. i think thats to be resisted.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I don't think it invalidates the concept. Do you? Nor do I think getting boring people to shut up so quieter more interesting people can be heard is bad for anyone's intellectual development (acknowledging the irony Leo alludes to)

It's a subjective judgement who's boring and who's interesting, and the idea that student activists are 'quiet' is pretty hilarious.

 

[luka]

It's a subjective judgement who's boring and who's interesting, and the idea that student activists are 'quiet' is pretty hilarious.

who said anything about student activists? im defending the concept of the safe space.

 

[luka]

try to be less emotionally reactive and your critical thinking skills will improve

 

[luka]

your being manipulated by stories which are deliberately designed to further a reactionary agenda. your sympathies and insitincts lean reactionary anyway but at least be more aware of whats going on and whos leading you by the nose

 

[Benny Bunter]

Tricky one this. One the one hand women absolutely need safe spaces and they do tend to get get talked over by blokes. And I do think its fine for professors to give trigger warnings if they want to for controversial subjects (though I don't think it should be mandatory for them to do so). But...

The no-platforming thing has actually been very damaging for feminists and has succeeded in shutting down important debates that need to be had. The two examples that spring to mind are Germaine Greer being no-platformed and vilified simply for believing that transwomen aren't real women. The other one is Julie Bindel who gets smeared and no-platformed on a regular basis by universities for being a transphobe for writing one article donkeys years ago that was also critical of transgender ideology, and being a 'whorephobe' for criticising the sex industry.

That last example is particularly absurd as she recently got np'd from a debate on...censorship. What's more, the debate was against Milo Yiannopoulos! (who also got banned from the debate, but only after Bindel did).

So these are people who have worked tirelessly for women's rights and the fight against male violence for decades, who give talks unpaid all over the world on a huge range of subjects that affect women, yet they get jeered, smeared and np'd now at universities in Britain when they show up for talks that have absolutely nothing to do with transgender. Its totally fucking ridiculous and tbh a lot of the blame has to be laid on the student unions and LGBT groups who have fallen under the control of clueless liberals.

 

[Mr. Tea]

who said anything about student activists? im defending the concept of the safe space.

...which have been brought into existence by student activists.

 

[luka]

point being?

 

[luka]

does a safe space serve only student activists?

 

[luka]

just accept my point and tell me im right the we can move on. the safe space is a neccassary concept notwithstanding any abuses and inanities commited in its name, which may, i suppose, be many, but are almost certainly overstated by a reactionary media.