If a house cat is released to the wild after getting used to being a house, it will have much less chances for survival than a feral one in an opposite situation. Humans are not all that different. We create safe spaces all the time with the intention to protect and help ourselves but when we are introduced to real world situations most of us barely make it.
A safe-space, according to god-almighty google, is a place or environment in which a person or category of people can feel confident that they will not be exposed to discrimination, criticism, harassment, or any other emotional or physical harm. In other words it is a place which protects someone from being...human. As I explained in earlier posts, we all discriminate each other all the time, we criticize just about every single thing — animate or inanimate, and we intimidate each other either consciously or unconsciously due to the necessities of our antagonistic economic system. I won't even touch the "or other emotional or physical harm" since this statement is as generic as one-ply toilet paper.
Humans create safe spaces all the time in an attempt to introduce parameters that do not apply in real life. In time, it creates a cult of inclusiveness where only certain behaviors are accepted. Some safe spaces might not appear so "safe" at the beginning but bare in mind that a safe-space is simply a metaphor for describing a restrictive social ecosystem.
Perhaps the most infamous of safe-spaces are schools and in particular, modern academic environments. The student finishes high-school and decides to further their education and dreams by paying someone else to do it for them. Much like a summer camp, there is specific curriculum, activities and behavior. Much like any camp, there are specific rules of behavior, that if followed, everyone feels more safe and secure. But, as we all know, a summer camp or an academic environment has nothing to do with real world activities.
Now don't get me wrong. There are skills in these safe-spaces that might be proven extremely useful in the real world. Reading, writing, socializing, information acquisition, survival skills. Thing is, the context which they are presented has nothing to do with real world applications. This changes everything. I could take a stick and teach you how to sword fight. In fact many teachers start with just that. Nonetheless, every expert sword fighter knows that it is far from holding a real blade in an actual face off. This is what academia, monasteries, the army or any other safe-spaces do. They teach you skills in an environment that has nothing to do with reality, believing nonetheless that it does relate to reality. This makes the individual more unfit for the real world since most situations cannot be observed in such spaces.
A good example for or learning without a safe-space environment is the Swiss apprenticeship model. Switzerland has been employing such system for quite some time now. If someone wants to learn something they simply engage with the profession through a real job instead of going to school and learning about it. Education comes secondary. In this way, the person is exposed directly with real world challenges. Along with their teacher, they learn what is necessary at that point in time instead of what a group of people think it is necessary as a result of given sequence of past events.
The reason so many young people today walk unarmed into the real world is because they were lead to believe that they could work their dream job — because this is what they paid for. They fail to understand that a university is a business, much like a restaurant where you order and they deliver. This is how we ended up with institutions trying to create a safe space for the customers, letting them foolishly study whatever they thought it is good to study. This is how we ended up with so many bullshit majors that have no real world application. As a result, people graduate and wonder why greedy capitalists don't employ them. They truly think that it is the job of society to fulfill their dreams.
A safe space dismantles every piece of conditioning real life provides. Life is full of surprises, uncontrolled events that can change things dramatically. Studying and learning about a subject in a safe environment is completely different from experiencing it in real life. For one, a subject or behavior in a controlled setting is not what it looks like. It is much like almond milk. It looks like milk and it might taste a bit like it but it has nothing to do with actual animal milk. Drinking almond milk produces an entirely different nutritional cascade even if it looks like regular milk. Most safe spaces today are much like almond milk, trying to pass as regular milk.
A soldier leaves the training camp and joins the real world to find out that his behavior is not even recognized or appreciated. Sure, it might get the approval of a patriot or the sexy look from the next door girl with daddy issues, but the real world does not work like an army training camp. Heck, not even war works like an army camp. From this perspective, a real life setting is a safe-space in comparison to a war zone, so an army camp might be more fitting for preparation.
When it comes to academia though, real life has nothing to do with it's environment. An academic environment works much like a kingship. A tenured professor can only be dethroned if he dies. A few handful people monopolize knowledge and rules, most of the times based on the merit of producing X number of papers and jerking by peer-reviewing each other. This mentality is then passed along to many students that start believing that quantity is valued more than quality. In an academic environment you are successful if you produce more and more papers. In the real world a single paper can make all the difference. In the real world you can de dethroned if someone better comes along and nothing is ever taken for granted. Say that to a tenured professor and he will mobilize every union known to man. Most post-doc students that end up slaving in academia never had a real job for this very reason. They believe that the outside world works much like the closed jerk circle of academia.
The result? As more safe-spaces are created in belief that they are preparing people for the real world, most find themselves hopeless. This is how we ended up with the farce of post-modernism where substance of anything is left lingering in mid-air. Entitlement flourishes as more and more safe-spacers demand the real world to change and become much like their safe-space. They talk about revolutions and changing the system but in reality they just want to transfer the qualities of their safe-space to other environments. The real world though is indifferent to small scale environment manipulation. They get a bitch-slap in the face and then they start picking up imaginary enemies to justify their position. They form groups that revolve around cultural marxist utopias trying to tackle inevitabilities of human nature. The mini safe-space groups become so many that they end up fighting each other in parliament in order to get funding and privileges. Self destruction ensues.
Life is a bitch. The best strategy to make it is learn the tricks by going balls to the wall. Adapting to a changing environment is the only "safe" strategy. We can hardly change ourselves sometimes. Trying to change the behavior of others will always be pointless. Safe-spacers express nothing more than the refusal to live in the real world. Unfortunately for them, life has many ways teaching them otherwise.
Like steemit these days?
very much so
I remember back in the 90's when my kids were little and they would say every once and awhile, "That's not fair." My response was, "Who said life was fair?"
Sure I got bullied as a child but I am stronger because of it. Maybe I should have told my parents but I knew that if I made a big deal about it I would be bullied even more.
It makes me sad to see that everyone spends so much time on their devices that they don't see the ridiculousness of the situation with "safe spaces."
Great essay!
This was good :)))
Goodness this is a masterpiece. Cannot stress how much you've written thats on my mind, just really, really brilliantly. Half the time in university the shit you learn may be somewhat beneficial, but thrown into a workspace setting its abou relearning new things and re-adapting. though this depends on the major, I see it happening a lot and from the experiences of my friends and myself.
Please keep posting your stuff is great!
The only reason "Safe Spaces" and the SJW's can exist at all, is because of the welfare state. Those people have never done anythig productive in their lives, and feel miserable that they can't compete with hard-working people. Their ultimate goal is to bring the whole society down to their level... but ironically enough, then the welfare state will cease to exist, and only the strong, i.e hard working people will survive.
Perhaps it is better that way?
I love the image you posted up there. It really describe the "safe-place" in the right way.
Safe-place could also be described as something ( place, system, etc ) in which the society call it as something "normal" . At least that what I see in my surrounding.
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It's true. I wish years ago we would've spent less time academic-ing and more time just being immersed into real non-simulated clinical environments. Which they did, I just think some of the curriculum could have been cut even more for increased off site clinical work. Instead of wound debridement on an orange for too many hours, have us start there (with an orange just to get the general idea) then send us to a wound clinic where we could try hands on under the scrutiny of a skilled clinician who could stop us immediately if we were about to screw something up. That always annoyed me. The orange aint nothing like a real life patient who may or may not be in a good mood or may or may not be cooperative
Where I've been, to what uncomfort zones, now I'm bragging about that positions I've been to. Some never came back. Left us alive and continued to live. :)
This is quite a tricky subject. I've been telling my wife about this problem, and we are figuring out a solution as we go. Even learning history in school is a problem. I find this surprising, since the subject is just a matter of teaching about recorded facts, and trying to extract lessons from it. My wife argues that the kids might be too young to get exposed to the facts, and might not build patriotism as a result. I call that false-teaching, which is not only useless, but also counter productive. Our kids deserve to know the truth, be guided to process the truth, and learn from the truth.
The best way indeed is schooling them where they'd get real-life experiences in the workplace and communities.
Enjoyed reading your post,totally agree with what you were saying about safe spaces especially schools and colleges.Some of the things taught in schools have no use in the real world,others will simply be irrelevant due to new technologies changing the way industries are run.
Great post! We really are living in a dangerous society thanks to universities producing braindead morons who get triggered by facts and reality.
God help us if this stupidity continues!
A mind is a terrible thing to waste and the schools kill the true creativity of the mind.
If they are not taught how to handle any real life skills they are then prodded to not just join groups like themselves but get put on mind numbing drugs so they can disconnect with reality.
Hands on experience trumps academia.
Great topic! Sharing.
You are so right, the curriculum at universities do not prepare students for the working life.
Some of the stuff I see in the US... It's no wonder South Park created such a great season lol.
I think the phenomenon is probably temporary though. No facts to back that up, just a feeling society will out-grow this weird, radical-left phase...maybe I'm just hopeful
Great content. Thanks. Resteemed :)
Many mothers since childhood raising children, especially boys, under greenhouse conditions. And then they wonder, why they are unfit for life=))
nc post bro...you have really good points pointed out on youre post,I trully agree with you.
This is very true ! I shudder to think, as a thoughtful "Gen-X'er", of the generation coming down the pike that will care for us (?) in our twilight years....(ready the death panels....)
This is so true as most people from rich families creates safe spaces for their children in universities and work place. Just like Switzerland, Germans has a work based job training plus part time education that trains young people to better understand the job. Great post, upped...keep it up.
Life is indeed a bitch, when it comes to getting what you want and the accidents that happen to you throughout your life. As you said @kyriacos there are individuals who for various reasons have rejected the society they live in (atleast in the form they think it has) and are trying to shape these so called 'safe-spaces', isolated islands offering comfort and protection from the outsiders.
And there exactly lies the fundamental issue to the majority of today's problems. The inevitable social clash that is happening, deriving from each individual's possible divergence from the current political,social and economical situation.
The people who, for some reasons (and those reasons are a huge discussion) fail to comply with the mainstream choices are creating their own world, as they see fit. That would be quite a healthy result from a sociological point of view, as the very own existance of the human cognition results in different world views and therefore different social constructs.
But it doesnt end there. And I really wish it would. It doesnt end there because some particular groups are not satisfied with just their differentiation from the rest. They believe that their existence and the prolongation of it, needs to happen on the cost of other groups survival and they are consciously acting based on that thought.
The terryfing question is: is life just a challenge of raw primitive survival both in the individual and group level or we can do better than that?
I agree with you man!!
This is a brilliant analysis. It's as if the Buddha, instead of leaving the nursery, demanded that his palace be taken with him everywhere he went. Thousands of years ago this would have seemed absurd. Now kids are pampered enough to think it's possible.
My theory is it all starts with those godawful child safety seats. It's not enough that kids get driven around in a steel and upholstery carriage. They've then got to be put into a special throne, strapped in and tied down just so, as if they were both as valuable as a Fabergé egg and as fragile. For the first decade of their lives they have to be fussed over like this. It's required by law!
These are formative experiences. Is it any wonder that by the time they leave for college, they're terrified of anything that smells of risk or harm?
As the wife of a former law enforcement officer and mom of 5, I agree with the child safety seats. I've seen way too many pictures of mangled babies who were ejected from a vehicle because they were strapped in with an adult-sized seat belt. I've also seen kids survive who were ejected in a car seat. It's a pain sometimes, but the seats and seatbelts were designed for adults, thus the need for car seats for little people.
Absolutely agree that all "safe spaces" - or any space for that matter, is relative. I feel far better living my life in the "real world" - that means outdoors, in nature - as much as possible. We all have this freedom of choice, even if we think we're "stuck" because we have to go to an office or work online at home, there are always other options to keep you out and about - like coffeeshops, coworking spaces where you can make friends and network, etc.
Long live the digital nomad life! ;)
Very good and very well-written. Upvoted and RESTEEMED...
Upvoted and also resteemed :]
I found this very interesting - good post - resteeming
Some people have accused home schoolers of this (we've been home schooling 20+ years). However, home schoolers in general have access to the real world all day every day! My children, specifically, are expected to chose a business at which to intern by the time they are 14 or 15. We begin a relationship with the owner or manager if we don't already know them. Most businesses will allow volunteers or interns at age 15 or 16. This gives the child an opputunity to interact with people of all ages, backgrounds, and education levels. We've had a time or two where I have had to intervene (a 30 year old was stalking my 17 yr old) but all in all the kids become adept at how to behave in a place that is not a "safe-space". When my oldest got to college, she was driven crazy by the "safe-space" kids. She described them as mentally and emotionally set back and severely lacking in disciplinary skills. She had graduated high school in the top 5% and with an AA in business at 17, while they were complaining that they had not been given enough time to complete a project (2 months) and expected the professor to extend the dates for them.
Or even Soy milk, supposedly healthy but chock full of phytoestrogens.
Your martial arts photo also brings to mind all of the "Black Belts" in modern Murica. While there are a few who actually earn them, most are merely the participation trophies of the businesses selling confidence and the illusion of being able to defend yourself (as long as you're defending yourself against someone who also has a participation black belt).
Is it just confirmation bias on my part or do you also see a correlation here to John Glubb's "Age of Intellect"?
Im all for safe spaces ..we dont have them here but its ok
Here on steemit?
It's good to be king. You reference a post where you talk about rights only coming with civil duties. Rights are earned. You make a distinction between privileges and rights. So far I can follow your reasoning. How are safe spaces anything other than earned? Safe spaces are buildings. Land is bought and they are constructed. Just like buildings they are rigid. Just like buildings they are given a facade. Some buildings fall to earthquakes. Some are demolished giving way to more functional ones. Sure, for an individual leaving one safe space for another is a horrifying ordeal especially if the roof fell down on you. Sure, we are all so ill prepared for war, I ask you, is that such a bad thing?
All those young people get destroyed, taken advantage of, and end up depressed and disillusioned when leaving their safe space hamster habitats. They have literally been robbed of every penny they have made and will make in the future, while paying off their student loans, in exchange for a skullful of propaganda and lies. It's the greatest scam ever and more and more kids fall for it because their parents have sheltered them so vehemently from reality that they can't recognise a predator when they see one.
Back when I was in uni I mentioned to my prof I wasn't sure if I should quit my job to take on another. I asked him if he knew who in the class was employed where. He told me that no one else in the class will face this dilemma as they were all unemployed and, in his own words, had zero chance at employment.
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STOPGood stuff. Not sure about the bit at the start concerning house cats and feral cats though. A young feral cat started calling our house home after striking up a relationship with our two pet cats.
Sadly, he was a little psycho who never managed to fit in. After attacking everyone in the house on a regular basis (cats, kids and adults) for about 3 months our patience was wearing very thin. Fortunately he went out one day and just never came back. I say fortunately because if he hadn't left when he did I would likely have had to take him to the pound...
I suspect I'd be much like this if I ever returned to college - incapable of not giving offense to someone. I am very thick skinned and just assume other people are the same. I try to say what I believe to be true regardless of how others may feel about that "truth". My attitude is not conducive to "safe spaces" where protection from opposing views seems to be encouraged. I suspect I'd be booted out if I didn't leave beforehand just like Errol (the feral, as we named him).
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It is audio only over skype. Does this sound of interest to you?
Great piece of writing. Chin-up people, we're arriving shortly at our utopia, when the thoughts and words of every member of the community are sufficiently policed (ie, everyone is aware of what he must think and say), then there will no longer be a need for safe spaces.
Very Good content.
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Thanks.