There are numerous terms that seem to be "infecting" the minds of the masses as far as I am concerned. I do not see their inclusion in our collective consciousness as actually solving problems. They just create an entire slew of new problems while leaving those that would wield the terms ill equipped for facing reality.

Safe Spaces as the term is used today is one that I am increasingly coming to dislike. I've written a few things here or there about it. I view it as a people seeking to pretend reality is not there, and designate areas where certain thoughts, words, attitudes, etc supposedly cannot exist.

We historically have had such safe spaces. Though typically the only one that could be said to exist is within our own homes. You have the right to tell people to leave your home if you do not want them there. This is part of the concept of private property which I personally fully support, but others do not.

The new safe spaces seems hell bent on defining areas outside of your home as safe spaces. They seek to define what kind of speech, ideas, etc are permitted within "public" areas.

If you think about the long term ramifications of this type of a process you might begin to see it as something to dread. This is not for only one reason. Yes, one of the reasons is that by being able to restrict access to public areas based upon speech, and thought how long will it take until one of your interests is no longer permitted in this safe space? Like wise, are there great neon signs that tell you what is permitted in one safe space and the next as you walk around? How do you know that your ideas, your hair style, your clothing, etc are not permitted in this safe space or that?

I consider those the low hanging fruit for potential problems that arise from the concept of "safe space". When it is applied to your own house (aka private property) then that is rather easy to deal with. As you move throughout "public" spaces this can be difficult to know or gauge. In an attempt to make safe spaces and supposedly make environments "less conflict" related for people they actually add a new type of stress. The stress of knowing whether you and how you act "fit in" to the various safe spaces. Are you transgressing without knowing? What if your speech is something you consider very important, but you are no longer permitted to convey information?

It is the creation of public areas where people are effectively plugging their ears like children throwing a tantrum and saying "nah nah nah you can't talk about that here, we cannot hear you, nah nah nah".

That as I stated is the low hanging fruit. The perhaps less obvious one is what this does to people. Does it equip them with facing reality? I tend to think it makes it easier for people to live in fantasy land and makes them not need to learn how to deal with problems when they occur in REALITY. I believe this effect is becoming increasingly apparent in society. I look around and see it as a growing mental mold spreading across society.

The thing that inspired me to write this was when a coworker mentioned their young children were watching Deadpool with them, and another saying he let's his children watch horror movies and such and they are all very young.

My children are all adults now, but they were young children in the wake of the Columbine Massacre and things like that. This is when a lot of the violence in movies, violence in music, violence in video games panics really began hitting society full force. I read the police reports with a CRITICAL THINKING mind and I saw that in the case of the Columbine event two kids from a fairly wealthy family went on the killing spree. I noticed the news was putting emphasis on the fact they played Doom a lot back then, and that they were clearly trying to recreate that game in reality. At the time I shook my head, because I was a gamer. Doom was kind of old by then and these kids were from wealthy families. If they wanted a more current game that advocated extreme violence they should have been speaking about titles like Postal by the game development company Running With Scissors.

Image from Doom

Image from Postal

After looking into this further I learned that both teenagers were on a number of pharmaceutical drugs (which later studies would point out can have psychotic side effects in some people). They were from families where they may have been able to buy things but it was clear the parents did not really keep tabs on them or interact with them that much. They also apparently were the targets of quite a bit of bullying at school.

I'll tell you now. As a youth I got into physical fights, and I also had some bullying events where I didn't fight. I cannot remember any of the bruises from my physical encounters. I do still have scars from psychological bullying and I see the way some of those events impact some of my decisions even today.

Anti-Violence Backlash

At this time there began a rather large back lash against letting kids watch violent movies, play violent games, etc. It was being pushed everywhere, and even by social workers and other people in "authority".

This was the environment I raised my six children in.

Yet I ignored that. I let my children play video games of any type I happened to have. I let my children watch horror movies, and violent action movies. I as a person made it clear that there was a difference between fantasy/imagination and reality.

My children were some of the most peaceful and non-aggressive kids on the playground. On the flip side some friends of mine were raising their children and sheltering them from ALL violence possible. Their child was perhaps the most violent child on the playground, and he wasn't the only one I noticed this in.

My children did not get a rush from violence like a person might get excited about exposure to something taboo. They kept their head straight in the face of violence and danger, and the lines between fantasy and reality were not blurred for them. Those that were sheltered from it on the other hand seemed to get very excited by any violence they encountered and their mind would be slightly disadvantaged by things they had not learned to control. They might even enjoy that rush they got from the exposure and seek to recreate it.

This reaction and these results to me seemed rather obvious at the time as even back then I tried to look at things more long term, and I didn't look for scapegoats to make myself feel comfortable.

Source: Reference.com

Source - Many collage made by me - searched for psychological bullying

I see this anti-violence movement as an early version of the "safe space" concept. The term "safe space" takes it much further than that as they can arbitrarily decide anything makes them uncomfortable and is not desirable and seek to ban such things from public areas. I see the anti-violence issues that were pushed as causing more psychological damage to children. In my day children might punch each other in the nose and get a bloody nose and move on and that short experience they learned from and usually would not end up in again. The psychological stuff still lingers with me today at age 46. So we have created an environment with our anti-violence "safe space" where psychological bullying can go on mostly unchecked. We also then decide to treat the side effects of this with pharmaceutical drugs. When things go wrong, we look for scapegoats rather than taking a good look at all of the evidence and doing a little Reality Check.

I don't swear a lot, but there is one that has been very popular with me lately "Fuck safe spaces!"

EDIT: Relevant section from South Park episode on Safe Spaces...

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