cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/2421185
Safe spaces are places that help build community and support between people that are marginalized in wider society (like LGBTQ+, African/Native/Asian Americans, autistic people, etc.)
In our day and age this is necessary because the wider world can be hostile to ideas and behaviours that push against the social norm. These ideas and behaviours that are expressed in these communities are, almost by definition, actively pushing against the social norm and trying to advocate for new and better social norms.
The way that these ideas are attacked can either be direct or indirect in their nature but all of the attacks essentially boils down to unhelpful criticism of the core idea.
For example, if someone made a comment about LGBTQ+ rights and how they need to be advocated more in general society but then someone else comes along and questions whether or not there is any fundamental inequality between LGBTQ+ people and wider society they are implicitly stifling conversation through questioning the core premise of inequality which stops further conversation.
Criticism can be great and help expose weaknesses in initial ideas but at the same time, it also can end up stifling creativity and discussion when people don’t feel emotionally safe sharing their views with others in the community.
This is exactly why ideas can be fragile. Even great ideas and behaviours can end up being forgotten or abandoned because people excessively criticize them without actually developing them further.
This is why safe spaces are important to help nurture and build ideas/behaviours that otherwise would have a hard time gaining traction and help develop them so they become more resilient.
So how do we balance the need for critique and support in communities?
I think a good way of doing this would be to encourage constructive dissent - disagreeing in ways that help build on top of an idea instead of directly stifling it.
This is done by accepting the core premise from the person you are talking to and finding ways to make the idea/behaviour they presented better.
This is exactly why in improv it is important to have the attitude of “Yes, and” because otherwise the scene won’t go anywhere and will either be stuck or completely dissolve.
Takeaway:
We need more communities where ideas can be built on top of each other instead of just being beaten down.
Unfortunately, a lot of these safe spaces become echo chambers. People don’t want to have their views challenged or try to see things from other perspectives. Many attempts at constructive dissent as mentioned in this post are discouraged and are generally unwelcome.
When I say “constructive dissent” I mean building on top of someone else ideas not just pointing out flaws in their ideas. I think that if someone suggested something that made the idea better people would be more than happy to take that and roll with it.
I think this whole discourse regarding safe spaces is a good explanation of why safe spaces, in my opinion, aren’t needed and are flawed.
People will normally flock to groups that provide confirmation bias. Why? Because most people don’t want to be told their idea isn’t good. So safe spaces are de facto already created by group think that already exists.
Additionally, how would the initial comment questioning the need for safe spaces in this thread have been handled in a safe space? Would it automatically be moderated/deleted because it didn’t agree with the published safe space narrative? We have all had a respectful discourse regarding the validity of safe spaces which is great. If we didn’t have this people could not understand the opposing viewpoint or change their viewpoint.
I understand the concept. I’m saying that this way of working creates echo chambers.
What do you think would be a good way to make sure that they are less likely to become echo chambers or do you think this way of interacting is doomed to make them echo chambers?
I think we need to either redefine safe spaces, change people’s expectations of them, or get rid of them entirely.
What does a safe space mean to you and how would you redefine it? What expectations do you think people have of safe spaces and in what ways should they change?
FYI: sorry for asking a lot of questions. I am trying to get a better sense of what you think could be done to improve these ideas.
For sure. People who are opposed to safe spaces are typically opposed to what the space is safe for; they are all for their own safe spaces, and indeed tend to be quite militant about forcing spaces to be safe for their opinions.
Honestly, so far, for my lemmy experience, Beehaw, as well as a few smaller instance, have been pretty safe spaced, and a lot more chill than the general atmosphere of the Internet. They are a good example of what good moderation looks like, and i hope this style catches on as instances grow.
The idea of “safe spaces for X” is great when you support X, but just wait until you learn about safe spaces for: bigots, eugenicists, pedophiles, eco terrorists, rapists, arsonists, thieves, drug smugglers, scammers, religious extremists… and so on.
Do we really need more
communitiesWhatsApp chat groups where people build on top of each other’s ideas of how to organize a gang rape, then share the videos? (This is not a hypothetical, just today they caught another one of those)Safe spaces are tools. Tools can be used for good and bad.
The same way that terrorists use E2EE chats doesn’t mean that we should ban them.
Yeah, you’re right of course.
It would just be nice to find a way to introduce critique into those clearly pernicious to society, ideally even turn them around, without hurting the positive ones… but I guess there are no magic bullets, we’ll have to deal with the consequences of both the good and the bad.
This is why both safe spaces and public spaces are needed so that ideas/behaviors have one place to form/grow and another to negotiate with other ideas/behaviors.
The way that each of these spaces is moderated becomes important.
