Motte & Bailey
Dan Dennett on Safe Spaces, Trigger Warnings, and Herd Mentality
This is an excerpt from episode 356 of The Saad Truth in which Gad Saad talks to Dan Dennett about his thoughts and opinions of safe spaces on campus, trigger warnings, herd mentality and coalitional thinking.
You can listen to the entire episode of The Saad Truth here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH1ilh0XnXI
Source
Am I just too old for this? What are trigger warnings and safe spaces?
By incorporating safe spaces into campuses, this removes a key factor to learning from the picture, being learning from mistakes. Without mistakes, you can't learn something better. As Dan Dennet stated: "If I don't shock you or offend you, I'm not doing my job." People beg and plead for safe places in colleges, but by doing so they remove that opportunity to actually learn. College is where real education begins, and to have a bunch of offended millennials monetize my education would be a nightmare. If they really want "safe spaces", then they can go back to highschool.
Universities have always BEEN safe spaces for professors, which precisely what enabled feminist /SJW ideology to infiltrate them and spread their toxic ideology.
Now after several generations of this the students are demanding to be treated the same way as their professors. Who'd have thought?!
In a free market of education (ie no state coercion allowed) we'd still be able to have 'safe space universities' ….. but they would be accurately labelled as 'special schools'. And a degree from them would obviously be worth less than from a normal university for mature adults who do not have mental issues.
I bet Dan Dennett has enjoyed plenty of state enforced 'safe space' protection throughout his career, which I assume involved being a professor of something at some point.
When you water down education and students you get a flood.
fundamental misunderstanding of safe spaces and trigger warnings
I hate to say it, but I find it ironic that universities that are largely over-encumbered with liberal professors, have engendered this entire PC overload phenomenon and now these liberals are the ones being burdened with having to deal with the biproduct of their leftist thinking. Leftists created the SJWs and now they're being eaten alive by them. The Regressive Left is getting what they wanted so they shouldn't complain now.
Its hard to understand anything Daniel Dennet says, when any audio recording sounds like his microphone keeps cutting out, because he can only say 2 words at a time then pause to think what the rest of sentence is he is trying to form. He is a really bad orator
Dennett is such a terrible orator. It's hard to listen to any video's of his because of this.
Should your ideas be challenged in schools? Yes. Should you go so far as to attack students believes to raise a point? No. At some point it stops being a lesson, & becomes hurtful. Like it or not, that is what creates out rage & the response of safe spaces. The common lack of decorum, honesty, & respect for each others beliefs, makes this a necessity. We all feel things strongly one way or the other, but that is no excuse to become a cat dragged about by it's own tale.
I can also agree, that it is rational to make a judgment call on when to speak or not. Just remember Proverbs 18:17 "The first to state his case seems right, Until the other party comes and cross-examines him."
"What I tell my students is is if I don't shock you or offend you in anyone during this course then I'm not doing my job"
-This is a trigger warning. He simply states what people's expectations of the discussion should be before having the discussion. Yet, Dennett claims offer no support whatsoever for this concept while simultaneously practicing it.
It's all so very different from my time at college. We are going to end up with a generation of badly educated, pretentious, self indulgent individuals with an exaggerated feeling of personal righteousness
Listening to Daniel Dennett speak is like listening to paint dry, even when you're agreeing with.
These kids are wet blankets.
What happened to the interviewer's voice?
I would disagree on the ending bit. We should speak out against our allies when they go too far. No devil is bad enough to justify becoming the devil in order to beat him. That is, again and again, the way good people justify the most horrible things "for the greater good".
There may be times when we must do evil (arguably, quite often) to stop a greater evil. But we must then acknowledge our action is evil nonetheless. Those who fail to do that, may slay the monster, but only to be the new monster.
did Hitchens ever comment on this topic?
The Trump issue on the Republican and Democratic sides is easy. It's about power and money. These people are not merely representing voters, they are representing their careers. They are hedging their bets, and waiting it out until November 2018.
It's amazing how complicated two such intelligent men can get it wrong.
I feel oppressed by people that are taller than me. They tower over me like giraffes, mocking me with their height privilege.
I demand a safe space where everyone is shorter than me!
Unfortunately I'd have to vacate that space as soon as someone shorter came in so that they won't feel oppressed by my height.
In that case I demand a safe space for people of my height.
I'm also triggered by boy bands. I find them really upsetting, I want them banned.
If you don't like my comment you're hurting my feelings. You are hurting me!!! Literally!!!! And I'll write about it on my blogg.
What ideas are not being challenged?
And what type of Safe Spaces are unwarranted? Presumably a Rape crisis center, or a refuge for battered women should be a safe space? I assume the church is still considered a reasonable safe space. In fact people who are religious and attend church who also criticize young women creating their own safe space is as hypocritical as it is nonsensical.
The word sanctuary is perhaps too quixotic or archaic, but I think it does better describe a reasonable human desire. We all have safe spaces: my study at home, my family, the late evening hours when no one from work or elsewhere can hassle me. For other folks, the locker room, the football field, membership of a gang or group.
Some people have no safe space at all. Children subjected to sexual abuse, folks living in a war zone, or a country or region recently bombed by NATO or a NATO ally. Oh, there's an idea that needs to be challenged. NATO and US allies only bomb terrorists right?
The students of today need those things because they are weaker than past peoples.
First minute can be taken as "Controversial remarks should be allowed, but do not say them in insulting, snide ways". I know Dan said "hazing" and such, but degrading behavior toward others can be as hurtful as insults and snideness. Bad tones and attitudes are gratuitous, to use Dan's words.
Have you ever seen a Catholic mass? When they recite the Nicean Creed? Jesus was dead for 3 days. Every weekend Catholics go to church and assure everyone in the room that they believe Jesus was dead for 3 days. Because, you know, we could never be around people who believe that Jesus was dead 4 days! Heavens to Betsy! If Jesus was dead 4 days, there'd be no basis for morality! Children saying Jesus was dead 4 days is one of the signs of the Apocalypse!
Ever been to a church that featured faith healing? Speaking in tongues? Have you ever met anyone who believes in witches? Actual hex-you-with-the-Evil-Eye witches? There are whole villages in the south where everyone believes in witches. Just like it's 400 years ago and the Enlightenment never happened.
But you think university professors have a "herd mentality." Tell me some more about The Emperor's New Clothes, you intellectually inferior conservative clown.
Typical…they started out on safe spaces, trigger warnings and in essence, how the university’s professors should not be promoting such rot. Then, as SOON as Trump’s name is mentioned, they get off track immediately and turned it into, “Should I TELL my students the TRUTH when I observe something our dumb President said or did?” – sheesh!