Safetyism is an approach to policy that seeks to prioritize feelings of safety. According to its critics, this comes at the cost of academic intellectual rigor, open debate and free expression of ideas. The term "safetyism" is pejorative, and it is not self-applied by its proponents. While Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff popularized the concept in 2018, and described it judiciously, use of the term may dovetail with conservative or right wing talking points in its effect on the Overton window.

Safetyism seeks to regulate some speech or intellectual environment by minimizing a certain array of ideas or beliefs that make some or most people in that environment feel uncomfortable.[1] The term was popularized in the book The Coddling of the American Mind, about the rise of this approach in higher education in the United States.

Definition

Safetyism is an ideology (set of beliefs held by a group) or culture (beliefs and norms for a society) that places self-perceived safety, especially the feeling of being protected from disagreeable ideas and information, above all others.[1] It is based on the belief that it is harmful (including, but not limited to, being medically harmful[2]) to experience uncomfortable emotions.[3] Compared to prior generations, one of the main differences is the belief that the world should not be organized according to what is right or wrong, but according to what is safe or unsafe.[4]

The term was coined by Pamela Paresky[5] and promulgated by the free-speech advocate Greg Lukianoff and the social psychologist and proponent of viewpoint diversity[6] Jonathan Haidt in their 2018 book, The Coddling of the American Mind.[7] They described its status as "a sacred value", meaning that it was not possible to make practical tradeoffs or compromises with other desirable things (e.g., for people to be made to feel uncomfortable in support of free speech or learning new ideas).[8]

Lukianoff and Haidt say that underneath safetyism lie three core beliefs:

Development

The belief spread across universities in the United States and Canada, beginning with elite US universities, during the early 21st century, and especially accelerating in 2013.[1][6] It has been compared to scope creep and the overall expansion of the concept of safety in other areas, such as school programs to address severe bullying being slowly expanded to provide adult intervention for ordinary, one-time incidents.[10][11]

The desire to promote these feelings of safety resulted in universities promoting practices such as content warnings (e.g., telling students in advance that the homework contains disagreeable information about racism), safe spaces (e.g., a designated room where students who support trans rights can avoid those who disagree), and bias-response teams (e.g., university employees who can be called in case of non-criminal racist speech).[4]

Later, the idea spread to other academic areas, such as academic publications.[1] Proponents of safetyism say that certain provocative and unpopular ideas, such as proposing that self-determined transracial identities be socially accepted in the same way that self-determined transgender identities are, are so inherently threatening, harmful, or emotionally damaging to any marginalized students and scholars who might read it, that academic journals should not publish the ideas.[1]

Outside of academia, safetyism has been used to justify the removal of monuments to slaveholders and racist historical figures, rather than countering the historical expressive speech glorifying them with modern expressive speech condemning them.[12]

On the political left, safetyism is used to suppress criticism of trans rights; disagreement with the liberal political viewpoint is claimed to harm trans people.[1]

On the political right in the 2020s

Policy discussions

While commonly associated with liberal and progressive values, safetyism is used by actors on some on the political right as well, on a handful of issues.[1] Safetyism is used to reject criticism of Israel and anti-racist ideas and organizations, such as critical race theory and Black Lives Matter. Disagreement with the conservative political viewpoint is claimed to harm Jewish people and white children.[1]

Personal victimhood by prominent figures

Conservatives who have been accused of engaging in safetyism to protect themselves from criticism include the former US president Donald Trump, due to his "inability to withstand even the slightest criticism without lashing out" against less powerful people,[13][14] and Bret Stephens, who complained about the existence of safe spaces at universities, but also accused another Jewish person of antisemitism for jokingly calling him a bed bug.[13][15]

Proponents

People who support safetyism are more likely to self-report cognitive distortions (e.g., assuming the worst), to believe that words can cause harm, and to approve of trigger warnings.[3] By contrast, detractors, such as Greg Lukianoff, believe that words and ideas alone, unless they are turned into action, can never cause real harm.[2]

The idea of safetyism has been applied to physical health and used to object to things such as improving road traffic safety[7] and measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19.[7][16]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Howard-Hassmann, Rhoda E.; McLaughlin, Neil (August 2022). "Ideacide: How On-Line Petitions and Open Letters Undermine Academic Freedom and Free Expression". Human Rights Quarterly. 44 (3): 451–475. doi:10.1353/hrq.2022.0023. ISSN 1085-794X. S2CID 251239148.
  2. 1 2 Lukianoff, Greg (4 September 2018). "Playing it Safe" (Interview). Interviewed by Devon Frye.
  3. 1 2 Celniker, Jared B.; Ringel, Megan M.; Nelson, Karli; Ditto, Peter H. (February 2022). "Correlates of "Coddling": Cognitive distortions predict safetyism-inspired beliefs, belief that words can harm, and trigger warning endorsement in college students". Personality and Individual Differences. 185: 111243. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2021.111243.
  4. 1 2 https://www.npr.org/2018/09/04/644446963/authors-of-a-new-book-take-on-the-coddling-of-american-minds
  5. ↑ "The Coddling of the American Mind - Notes". coddling. Retrieved 2023-11-20.
  6. 1 2 3 Marks, J. (September 2018). "Bad Therapy". Commentary, 146(2), 63–65. Book review.
  7. 1 2 3 Reno, R. R. (November 2021). "Safetyism." ''First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion & Public Life'', 65–66.
  8. ↑ Lukianoff, G., & Haidt, J. (2019). "The Safety Police". Saturday Evening Post, 291(5), 12–84.
  9. ↑ Seltzer, Leon F (21 June 2017). "What's "Emotional Reasoning"—And Why Is It Such a Problem?". Psychology Today. Retrieved 2023-11-26.
  10. ↑ Burns, R. (2021). :The Cult of Wellbeing Infecting Our Schools". Quadrant Magazine, 65(12), 14–18.
  11. ↑ Humphries, Stephen (14 August 2019). "How 'Safety First' Ethos is Destabilizing US Society". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 2023-11-15.
  12. ↑ Bell, Macalester (November 2022). "Against Simple Removal: A Defence of Defacement as a Response to Racist Monuments". Journal of Applied Philosophy. 39 (5): 778–792. doi:10.1111/japp.12525. ISSN 0264-3758. S2CID 237899836.
  13. 1 2 Warner, John. "Safetyism Was Never Real". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 2023-11-20.
  14. ↑ Brooks, David (10 August 2023). "Hey, America, Grow Up!". The New York Times.
  15. ↑ "Bret Stephens Compared Me to a Nazi Propagandist in the New York Times. It Proved My Point". Esquire. 2019-09-03. Retrieved 2023-11-20.
  16. ↑ Paresky, Pamela; Campbell, Bradley (1 June 2020). "Safetyism Isn't the Problem". The New York Times.

Further reading

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