Nov 28, 2018
Is Safetyism Tyranny?
Is difficulty an important part of life? Is it essential for life to have some element of hardship?
In today’s world, there is a movement towards what’s been called “Safetyism”
Safetyism refers to the idea of protecting children against the harshness of the world.
Jax Atlantis is here on the Beyond Homo Sapien Podcast to talk about Safetyism and how it very well might be destroying our youth.
Paradoxically, when we teach kids to avoid hardship and we protect them from difficult ideas or topics, we may do them more harm than good. Doing so has the potential to stifle free thought and funnel children into a life of avoiding pain at the expense of the full human experience.
Proponents of safetyism might suggest that a dangerous and difficult world is the result of teaching children that “this is how it always has been”… In other words, by teaching children that the world is easy and full of nothing but bliss, they will experience that as their reality.
Although I typically agree with the concept of consensus reality and the idea that “the world is only the way it is today because we all collectively believe it must be that way”… Safetyism seems to go a step overboard by refusing to acknowledge or recognize the “shadow” side of the human experience.
In other words, by ignoring the “negative” and living at only the positive pole of life, the individual is setup for failure because they risk a quick descent back towards the opposite pole.
For all sides of life, there is a positive and negative pole. This is the great universal law of polarity at work. In other words, by experiencing the negative pole of an idea (for example, hatred) we gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for its opposite (love).
Safetyism seems to have the potential to forget the law of polarity which could result in a lack of understanding around the desired goal of experiencing life from the positive pole.
Additionally, it is essential to debate an idea from either side. Safetyism seems to desire a lack of debate and conflict overall. This heralds back to organized theological institutions such as fundamentalist Christianity or Islam which oftentimes runs from debate… In these cases, folks crumble when their viewpoints are challenged and the result oftentimes is a less than developed perspective around the issue.
Debate is a desirable outcome, in my opinion, due to its ability to increase knowledge on both sides. When we hear both sides of an issue and consider each with fairness and curiosity, we gain empathy towards another person and also develop in our own ability to understand and defend our position on important issues.
So is Safetyism tyranny? Let’s dive into this topic and find out!
Want to learn more about Jax and how to connect with him? Check him out at this link:
https://www.facebook.com/readingswithjax/
Want to learn more about personal development? Check out this post on the Beyond Homo Sapien Blog about how martial arts further personal development:
https://beyondhomosapien.com/personal-development-martial-arts/
If you’re interested in this topic, you also will enjoy this video that dives into personal development as a result of pushing through hardships in life: