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Moving Past ‘Safetyism’
I was listening to a Bari Weiss podcast and she dropped the word “safetyism” (the context was discussing how to address overly aggressive COVID measures) which was frankly new to me. After some searching, I found that it was first coined in The Coddling of the American Mind. I had heard a great deal about the magazine article and subsequent book at the time. I never read them because the premise seemed obviously true to me.
Anyway, the authors’ definition of safetyism is “a culture or belief system in which safety (which includes “emotional safety”) has become a sacred value, which means that people become unwilling to make trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns.” I think the focus at the time was more on trigger warnings and supposed psychological effects rather than physical safety. However, at the moment I want to talk about physical safety.
While of course the refusal of people and institutions to even briefly consider whether there were trade-offs in dealing with COVID, I think that there is a pretty obvious progression of this faulty thinking. Going back to my military service, the safety office on Air Force bases was the subject of much derision. I remember the local safety NCO (northern Mississippi) posting a notice in the gym one morning that people shouldn’t run outside as the temperature would drop to 20 that day. I had arrived there from Grand Forks, ND, a month prior and told him that I’d be just fine, thank you very much.
Don’t get me wrong; safety observers play an important role in fire and other emergency services, but there is always the risk of sliding past prudent caution into full-blown ridiculousness. I was talking to a veteran incident manager about a big wildfire where they had to fire the safety manager after he demanded that firefighters had to wear their emergency shelters in the dining hall line.
I guess when safety measures jump the shark we can call them “Karenism.” (I’d love to think I just coined that but it was too easy).
A couple of other points.
I have noticed that every time I had to deal with a safety guy in the corporate world, their business cards had these multiple character certification acronyms after their names. I’m always immediately suspicious when someone feels the need to add these obscure certifications to their card. We used to joke in the military about how the shorter the office symbol, the more important you were, and this seems like the same principle in action.
HR is the manifestation of safetyism in corporate employment. HR will never tell a manager to take any risk to support corporate goals.
This is sort of a companion piece to my conversation on moving on past COVID. I guess the conclusion is that what’s going on isn’t some huge sea change. It’s the next step in something that’s been growing for decades. Which is very frightening.
Published in General
What’s this? Nobody yet has brought up Old Ben: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin
Safetyism is the enemy of liberty.
This country was founded on the liberty concept, i.e.,freedom from excessive government interference. Unfortunately thanks in part to safetyism, we are no longer the land of the free.
Tried that on them. They just thought I was an idiot. You see our side is about logic and laws. They are about feelings and force. They know they are right and you are wrong.
I’m an idiot too, you aren’t alone – lots of ’em ’round here🤪
I know you know this already, but don’t be fooled: This is a purely selfish thing. Period. End of report.
Any utterance of words such as “for the children” or “keep grandpa safe” or “protect the community” is, at best, hypocritical virtue signalling.
Before I finished my Sophomore year in HS, I’d devoured Anthem; We the Living; Atlas Shrugged; The Fountainhead. Later on I watched the three movies.
I am a disciple of Christ (Ayn Rand was not), and my point of view is that sacrifice for the community is right and proper in some circumstances but not in all.
I did the DHEA thing a couple, maybe 20, years ago. I was trying to keep up with the 30 YOs without having to work out 24-7 and without the pain caused by years of crashing into other men. After a week or so I wanted to fight everybody. I knew I felt irritable, but it was my wife who pointed out that the supplements might be a problem. But my body felt good! I could go to the gym every day, do my routine and then play pick-up basketball until I was exhausted. Next day? Good to go. But the anger thing became intolerable and I had to quit. Now I take a supplement called JXT 5. No anger issues and it helps. My T is normal. I quit them for a couple of weeks recently (they are expensive) but aches, pains and exhaustion forced me back. I’m on them for life!
After reading this, I found JXT5 on Amazon. But here’s the question: Do you (sorry, I got sidetracked into digging into “The Fugitive”) suggest first off being tested for testosterone level?
Or “I (consensually) Love You”
Thanks. I’ll look it up. I have been more irritated lately, but I thought “it was the other guy”. Hmm.
I remember coming to the realization, some years back, that my job is not safe. I have all sorts of safety equipment in the trunk of my car: Body armor, PFD, tick spoon (Lyme?!) clothing that will keep me warm at 50 below…but I didn’t really think about it until the one time I actually wore body armor in the field. My colleagues, of course, wear theirs all the time—they have “external carriers” now, so at least they can take the ballistic vest off when they’re in the office, or stopping home for lunch. Mine is an external carrier too, so when I was told that I should wear it, I got it out of the trunk and popped it on over my BDUs.
Putting on body armor makes a risk seem…greater. At least, it did for me. Along with more or less instantly developing the cop habit of hanging my hands from the neck of my vest (because the thing is seriously uncomfortable), I became much more “situationally aware.” It was as if the vest made the abstract notion—“this fugitive could kill me”—concrete.
I think the masks simultaneously make people feel more at risk…and safe. That is, the piece of cloth tied to your face, the thing you keep reflexively tugging at, or hanging under your chin to catch the crumbs while you eat, is a constant, irritating reminder that Things Are Bad. My neighbors are dangerous! I must wear the mask at all times, or I will die!
As with the vest, nothing has actually changed. The day before you donned the mask, you could’ve gotten COVID. You could get it with or without the mask. Or get something else. There are lots of things to get, lots of ways to die.
In theory, I could get shot and killed any day of the week, especially since the more violent and excitable among the #BLM-addled aren’t likely to notice the fine print on my uniform that says “CHAPLAIN.” It’s more likely that I’ll be squashed by a semi on the highway, or fall off the dive boat and drown, or get bitten by the wrong tick and succumb to Lyme. Or meet with some other quotidian death: a heart attack, say, or some kind of cancer. And besides, I am exposed to a lot of traumatic stress, which has documented deleterious effects on the cardiovascular, endocrine and neurological systems. So the fugitive didn’t need to shoot me and, as it turned out, he didn’t. But I’m a dead chaplain walking anyway—because that’s how life is.
In one of my books—can’t remember which one—I say “service isn’t safe.” And it’s not. The more urgent and vital the service, the more likely it is that performing it will require risking your life, your health, your tender heart. You have to believe it’s worth it. That the people one helps are worth it. Mostly they are…especially my game wardens and the other cops/first responders it is my privilege to work with. They’re worth everything I am, and more.
I know. Just I suspect they will come for me before it is over. They will send me to jail or death and my liberal friends will celebrate it or justify it.
When I went to public school in Cleveland in the 1960’s and 70’s, they only closed the schools if nearly a foot of snow had fallen the previous night. I don’t know that they ever closed solely because of cold temperatures. In 1976, my first year of college, which was an art school, it never closed for a single day despite the fact that Cleveland set a record that year for cold, having a streak of a month-and-a-half where temperatures never went above freezing. On at least three occasions I started my car in minus fifteen degrees or colder to get to art school. The starter would groan like a slow-moving wounded animal before the first spark plugs would sputter.
Nowadays Cleveland will close its schools if there is too much rain. This, despite the fact that few of the kids actually walk to school. A huge percentage of kids are now driven to school either by a bus or by their parents, which almost never happened back in my day.
I will sorta defend urban school districts for closing schools on cold days. I lived near Rochester, NY for almost twenty years, and the city school district would do this sometimes. In an urban school district a high percentage of the students walk to school, and so spend more time in the cold than do suburban students waiting a couple of minutes for a bus or having a parent be able to drive them to school. In some urban districts a high percentage of the students may not have clothing adequate for particularly cold temperatures (they come from economically poor households with inattentive parents who won’t access available resources).