Book Review: Unsafe Space
The following post is written by one of SFL’s summer interns.
When Ruth Benedict wrote her widely influential study of Japan, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), she distinguished between shame cultures and guilt cultures, noting that each has its own unique methods of getting people to fall in line with cultural norms. Benedict identified the United States as a guilt culture and thought the significance of the Christian faith (with its emphasis on guilt) and its proliferation on American soil was largely responsible for this outlook. Today, however, America fits much more uneasily into the definition of a guilt culture. Indeed, there is one important place in the United States where shame culture is enjoying a toxic reign: the college campus.
Coming to us 70 years after Benedict’s book was released, Unsafe Space – The Crisis of Free Speech on Campus examines this new outlook in academic life throughout the Anglosphere. This insightful book is edited by Tom Slater and is composed of contributions from nine writers, all focused on the value of free speech and the existential threat it faces on campuses, especially in the US and the UK. The book contains chapters encompassing everything from trigger warnings to the cult-like bullying that is carried out on those who dare to blaspheme against the climate change consensus.
One of the major topics in Unsafe Space is that of offense. It appears evident that many places of higher learning are turning into safe spaces, a sort of young adult version of kindergarten where censorship runs rampant. Unsurprisingly, a Millian defense of free speech is invoked more than once. Offensive speech remains speech, which should not be met with censorship, but with more speech. Scrubbing the possibility of offense from the campus may make students comfortable, but it also leaves them unchallenged. Censorship allows students to indulge in the sin of intellectual sloth—after all, why defend your views through discourse when you can silence the other side?
Some sections of Unsafe Space deal with a historical outlook of the situation, showing that this shift is not a generational glitch. This shame culture has come in waves before, often paralleling a cultural fascination with political correctness. The book seeks to identify each of those previous waves as well as the thinkers and movements that set them off — from critical theorists like Jacques Derrida, to modern feminists like Andrea Dworkin, who wrote about the role of images and language as promulgating misogyny.
One of the most important subjects covered in Unsafe Space is the threat to academic freedom from all fronts. Many universities ask students to fill out evaluations of their professors, forcing , academics to act as if they are following a script. Naturally, this disproportionately affects those without tenure. Students are treated not like learners, but like customers to be pleased, exercising undue power over curriculum and academic standards.
If a student is being treated as a consumer, it is not shocking to see schools adopt the age-old policy of “the customer is always right.” The modern corollary, “Thou shalt not offend the customer,” is directly opposed to academic freedom and the ensuing censorship undermines students’ ability to think and debate critically. Silencing a view will not end a view, it just may embolden and give a new sense of legitimacy to the view. Prohibition did not work with alcohol and it certainly does not work with ideas or words.
There may be a miasmatic air of censorship on campuses, but it can still be dispelled. At the end of the book, Slater lays out eight guiding principles on how to make your university an unsafe space—a place where debate is welcome, no one is coddled, and ideas are freely exchanged — a place that people go to get an education. If you care about free speech, if you accept discomfort as a part of life, then Unsafe Space is for you. These essays should be read by the student, the academic, the parent. Anyone who cares about higher education ought to read this book.
On the other hand, if you are the type of person who sometimes questions the ideals of free speech or if you actively avoid interaction with those you disagree with on one or many issues, then this book will find its true value in your hands. For most importantly, Unsafe Space should be read by those who disagree with it.
Unsafe Space is published by Palgrave Macmillan and can be purchased here.