The American people are suffering from self-inflicted limitations and mediocracy. Between college safe zones and recurring oversensitivity, society has limited what can and cannot be said in the acquirement to recently emerging offence. The Berkeley protests were the first series of inciting incidents that led to national implications and constituted the onset of the counterculture era. It was these students in California who birthed a new era on college campuses, one in which students would demand to be included, to be treated like adults, and to have a public say on such hotbed issues as civil rights and the Vietnam War. Despite the American root of “being heard,” the American people have switched from megaphones to muzzles in fear that someone will be hurt or offended by various topics, opinions, and current issues. What used to be a country brimming with individuals who carried the prosperity and passion to voice their opinion on current issues and have an actual truth be told, has now been replaced by those who choose to agree with the majority.
The Vox Populi has become so sensitive that they are the very ones limiting free speech. The role between the government and the people have switched gears, whereas the people are the ones limiting what can and cannot be said. At Brown University a “safe space” was created for students upset by a debate consisting of different viewpoints on campus sexual assault. The space included cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets, and a video of puppies. In theory, the idea holds many potential benefits. However, even communism looked good on paper. Many perceive college safe zones as a way for students to recuperate and to be free from the harsh language and insulting nature of the American people. This so-called freedom within the safe zone, however, merely exists as an example of limitation. Treating society as if they are sensitive children who need to be shielded by disturbing, unsettling, or even “scary” discussions, leaves no room for advancement. Discussion is vital to the development of ideas and solutions. These students need to discuss controversial issues, they need to debate, they need to argue, and they need to explore and listen to others opinions while creating ones of their own.
The oversensitivity occurring in the classroom has teachers and professors avoiding controversial issues, limiting what can and cannot be learned. Their actions affect the possible education of the future generations and that is why I am heated with speech limitation. I want children to learn how Columbus discovered America, and then I want children to learn how many Indians were killed for it. I want children to learn every perspective. I want teachers to discuss the difficult topics and I want them to make us think. Rather than children memorizing, I want them thinking and I want them discussing. This idea of discussion is fully capable of being attained if discussion was a common thing among classrooms. It makes one wonder, why is it not that more teachers don’t hold discussion? The fault rests not on the authority but on those who are afraid to hear and discuss the reality of current issues. Truth be told: teachers and professors should be worried about what they discuss. If authority is to offend these students, there is another student headed to the principal, the media, the administrators, and then there is another lost job. It is not the fault of authority that a student went to administration because they could not handle a topic. Students preach how they want to be treated like the adults while at the same time complaining these topics are too complicated and uncomfortable. Just because students don’t want something, doesn’t mean they don’t need it.
In order to attain proper development in an advancing society, students are to understand the idea of differentiating opinions. Do not make a world where everyone is holding hands, make one where everyone is raising hands. Teach children to speak, to listen, to be patient, to observe, teach them not to be stubborn, and teach them perspective. This is what needs to be pushed into education: discussion. The main focus is what these safe zones promote and what they teach. Being part of a university that gives cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets, and a video of puppies when students refuse to handle the opinion of someone else advocates the loss of free speech. Personally, I am not a child and I am not going to subject my brain to the same treatment as a preschooler. If society wants proper development, we need discussion and we need debate. Society needs discussion for the ideas to flow and for resolutions to be made. Discussion is what truly helps, not silence and bubbles.
Censoring the media is not effective. We need to be confronted with issues. Hiding away from trivial matters and censoring details we feel “unfit” for the public gives us a warped view of reality. Giving the approval of censorship within our media runs a high risk of gradually becoming more and more limited with what can and cannot be said. As john Madison once said, "Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of everything, and in no instance is this truer than in that of the press. It ... is better to leave a few of its noxious branches to their luxuriant growth than, by pruning them away, to injure the vigour of those yielding the proper fruits." Although some topics will be insensitive and freedom of expression can be abused, we must not censor ourselves as it will later lead to limitation. It is often necessary for some abuse of freedom of expression to ensure that the information we are receiving is legitimate. Hiding is no way to survive in the real-world. We must confront the realities occurring among our community and be able to properly develop opinions on uncensored topics.
If students catch on to the idea that they can hide from reality, then they won't be able to face the real world. It will be detrimental to them when they leave college and their beloved “safe space” becomes non-existent. Hiding and shielding our community is no way to solve anything. If an individual is upset, they need to speak. If one does not like racism, speak against it, don't hide from it, speak. What happens when for the rest of their lives if they suppress their speech? What if they remain neutral for elections, wars, cultural issues and during times that society needs speech the most? It's the people who don't want to have a say that is going to pull society back. Speech goes farther than talking and insults. It interferes with writing, reading, teaching, things that can be learned, laws, and even media coverage. There are so many factors that people tend to leave out. Protect us from reality and it will destroy us when we discover the truth. Though there is hope for these limitations to be lifted, as long as discussion is avoided, America will remain mediocre at best.
