During the election and in its aftermath there has been steady criticism about “safe spaces” on college campuses. While cocooning students away from potentially offensive ideas or opinions may seem a juvenile exercise, this holiday season has taught me that “safe spaces” aren’t just for the kids.
Holidays are a festive time for getting together to talk about the year that was and the days that will be. After attending a number of holiday functions, I’ve found 2016 is marked by a greater aversion to talking politics than I can ever remember.
Before Thanksgiving, newspapers across the country featured columns about how families “should talk about the election.” Maybe it’s because many people weren’t particularly proud of the choices they had or feared stirring up the vitriol that accompanied this election.
Maybe it’s because while we as adults have criticized colleges and universities for creating “safe spaces” for students, we seek our own “safe spaces” socially and online.
This election cycle has shown an electorate increasingly isolated into silos of like-minded people sharing our thoughts, outrages and biases. We read and share only the news stories that confirm what we want to think.
Head-nodding and pressing the “like” button on Facebook have become our national pastime.
Over the course of the last several weeks, numerous people have told me how many people they’ve “defriended” on Facebook or “blocked” on Twitter because of vocal, differing political opinions.
“I don’t want to see that on my wall.”
“I don’t want to be called names.”
“I don’t want to get into a fight on Facebook.”
In other words we adults have our own “safe spaces” while we point the finger and deride the younger generation and talk about how soft they’ve become.
Yet many of us also choose to block dissent and criticism from our social media experience. I seem to remember an adage about living in glass houses….
But a larger danger looms. The safe spaces we construct in our online and in-person interactions are a threat to a truly United States of America.
While our safe spaces not only reinforce our preconceived notions about issues, they also make it easy to vilify and dehumanize those who don’t see the world exactly as we see it. They also stunt our personal growth.
“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.” –Nobel Laureate Bertrand Russell
Yes arguments and discussions may make you uncomfortable. But if done in with an open mind and without making it personal, it strengthens your mind and thickens your skin.
Allow others to challenge your thinking. They may expose a hole in your logic, and that is a good thing to learn.
No matter how outrageous another’s opinions may seem, they’re formed from their unique set of experiences. Learn from them, try to understand where they are coming from. If one thing came through in this election it was that both presidential candidates were convinced that they had a monopoly on the truth — and convinced that their supporters were in the majority.
Truth is, neither candidate garnered a majority of the votes cast.
But #NotMyPresident is not productive and neither is gloating and telling the other side to shut up and accept it. My father told me all the time “Don’t get into a pissing contest with a skunk.”
But we should speak up in ways that are productive. Use the free speech granted by our founders and perhaps your voice will get through.
“Education is a progressive discovery of your own ignorance.” –Historian Will Durant
Many failed decisions in history were made without defending a planned course of action against honest criticism. On the flipside many bold, successful decisions were made after a leader heard out the people most resolute in their opposition.
The founding documents and the creation of the Bill of Rights were compromises made because leaders listened without prejudice to opinions unlike their own. The forging of these documents that endure even today did not come from hiding in a safe space and only listening to those they agreed with. The names of these founders and the laws they passed endure because they were willing to listen and learn to what they did not know.
If we choose to leave our comfort zone to voice our opinions and listen to opposing opinions that question things we take for granted, we evolve through progressive discovery beyond our limited horizons. The other path is a willful ignorance, seated facing a cave wall with our backs to the light of the future.
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” ― Thomas Jefferson
