Okay so uh.

Apparently the authoritarian left has hijacked the idea of space spaces or something?

A safe space as I have always understood it isn't a place where you're safe from controversy or debate about /other/ topics that aren't pain points.

It's just a place that excludes assholes and where discrimination is prohibited.

It's what normal people call a "space."

Online safe spaces are what we call "communities." An oasis in what is often a desert of bullshit.

I am in agreement about something a lot on the left are saying:

More safe spaces aren't what we need. We need to eradicate discrimination at the source. You can't just make small areas in your house free of roaches. You have to eradicate the infestation.

At universities, it has to start with ending the whole "grown up frat boys run the place and say unironically in a Seinfeld voice 'what's the deal with safe spaces?'"

It's just balm for a societal wound.

Helps to denormalise discrimination and do to them what they've done to us for so long:

make them squirm.

Make them feel uncomfortable and they'll shut up and stay closeted. It won't end their views, you can't outlaw thoughts.

But you can make it not okay.

And increasingly, that's happening, but we're not there yet.