A Yale student recently canvassed his campus as part of a social experiment, approaching students in an effort to gain signatures for a petition to repeal the first amendment, specifically freedom of expression, in order to protect people’s feelings and take the idea of “safe space” to the next level. Sadly, to his bewilderment, there were throngs of people lining up to support the cause.
Articles are now beginning to surface in major publications on the issue of safe space and what’s now being described by some sociologists as a “culture of victimhood.” Recently, in The New York Times, Arthur Brooks examined how activists interpret certain interactions as “microaggressions” and set up “safe spaces” to protect students from certain forms of speech, when in fact, it’s the concept of free speech, Brooks argues, which activists rely on to speak unpopular truths about victimized persons; a tool, if scraped now, will surely come to bite later.
“To begin with,” writes Brooks, “victimhood makes it more and more difficult for us to resolve political and social conflicts. The culture feeds a mentality that crowds out a necessary give and take — the very concept of good-faith disagreement — turning every policy difference into a pitched battle between good (us) and evil (them).”
Not that freedom of speech or expression exist in Canada to begin with, after a quick review of the Charter, but nonetheless, the idea itself has come under assault from the cry for, and appropriation of safe space. Hence, I look for inspiration to fight back in phrases such as Sedley’s, “Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having,” or Voltaire’s, “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.”
For the purpose of simplification, understanding I have neither time nor space for nuance, I’m going to describe what I see on campus as conflict between students with different political views. These camps routinely appropriate concepts of free speech and safe space when it suits their interests. At least be honest and say you have no interest in upholding the former or the latter.
Edward Said, champion of the Palestinian cause, once wrote in Representations of the Intellectual, “Never put [sic] solidarity before criticism.” However, after travelling to study at York, I can see too often young activists in the humanities appear to have created their own mantra, which might go something like, “Never put criticism before solidarity.”
Of course there are individuals in these camps who do in fact think for themselves and shouldn’t be lumped in with the rest of the scoundrels, and rightly so. However, voices of reason are drowned out by the weak and fractured, while the conspiratorial diatribes created by fanatics merely serve to incite the bigoted and perpetually correct, without bias of course.
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What Christopher Hitchens called the “false security of consensus” is, what I’m inclined to suspect, the foundation of ideological groups who embrace this “solidarity before criticism.” Scant reference of free speech and safe space, or more importantly, their appropriations, are found on campus quite often in the form of connoisseurs of the “pro” or the “anti,” testing and developing their palettes for all to know, see, hear and, if they know what’s good for them, agree with.
For instance, this phenomena was exemplified in the shameful hypocrisies seen during the York Federation of Students’ Annual General Meeting last month, to which I bore witness to the pejorative behaviour of certain YFS constituents who could not for the life of them abide by the YFS-set rules of safe space and refrain from clapping.
Clapping was said to be a deterrent to safe space because it might prevent people from approaching the microphone and speaking their piece, no matter how unpopular their words might appear. Then again, the safe space police behind the podium made their presence known, only did not follow-up on said duties when they needed to most. Nevertheless, I did not stay long enough to find out how it ended.
To the credit of the YFS moderator, who persistently asked the audience to refrain from clapping, his pleas fell on deaf ears. This is because the YFS constituents had decided they were justified and that their interpretation of safe space was more moral than the other.
The majority had taken over, or the “false refugee of consensus” had reinforced an ideological high ground, alienating anyone wanting to exercise their right to dissent. Ironically, the same people breaking the safe space rules are most likely the same culprits who would seek refuge inside the same straightjacket of safe space when it so fits them, leather straps and all.
When ideas are not subject to the rigors of academic scrutiny, it stops being academia and becomes something quite different, something more relative to blind faith: the purposeful suspension of critical faculties. Everyone has their own “facts.” From trained victims to professional libelists and ad hominem attacks, they spin facts in different ways, in the subjective universe, desperately holding on to their dogma like an old security blanket, or warm bosom, like a sincere yearning to have one’s umbilical cord re-inserted only to find out it has never been removed to begin with.
As I see it, the standard principles of freedom of speech, or expression, and safe space are unfortunately appropriated, and the alleged standards of both have yet to be applied equally across the political spectrum. Instead, partisans use brush strokes to paint half pictures to which competing claims of victimhood and overtly pernicious calls from the ultra-politically correct blur the lines to such an extent that rational discussion now sounds the death knell upon the decadents of university. Now, the perennially offended continue to deplete the flames of debate until all which remain are the subtle caveats of history, leaving behind it a trail of bleeding hearts and bloodless bags of bones, one step closer to the grave.
The only questions remain: who will complain first, to whom and for how long? Who will win the war of appropriation?
Ryan Moore, News Editor
Featured illustration by Christopher Lai, Comics and Graphics Editor
