Safe spaces are places that help build community and support between people that are marginalized in wider society (like LGBTQ+, African/Native/Asian Americans, autistic people, etc.)
In our day and age this is necessary because the wider world can be hostile to ideas and behaviours that push against the social norm. These ideas and behaviours that are expressed in these communities are, almost by definition, actively pushing against the social norm and trying to advocate for new and better social norms.
The way that these ideas are attacked can either be direct or indirect in their nature but all of the attacks essentially boils down to unhelpful criticism of the core idea.
For example, if someone made a comment about LGBTQ+ rights and how they need to be advocated more in general society but then someone else comes along and questions whether or not there is any fundamental inequality between LGBTQ+ people and wider society they are implicitly stifling conversation through questioning the core premise of inequality which stops further conversation.
Criticism can be great and help expose weaknesses in initial ideas but at the same time, it also can end up stifling creativity and discussion when people don’t feel emotionally safe sharing their views with others in the community.
This is exactly why ideas can be fragile. Even great ideas and behaviours can end up being forgotten or abandoned because people excessively criticize them without actually developing them further.
This is why safe spaces are important to help nurture and build ideas/behaviours that otherwise would have a hard time gaining traction and help develop them so they become more resilient.
So how do we balance the need for critique and support in communities?
I think a good way of doing this would be to encourage constructive dissent - disagreeing in ways that help build on top of an idea instead of directly stifling it.
This is done by accepting the core premise from the person you are talking to and finding ways to make the idea/behaviour they presented better.
This is exactly why in improv it is important to have the attitude of “Yes, and” because otherwise the scene won’t go anywhere and will either be stuck or completely dissolve.
Takeaway:
We need more communities where ideas can be built on top of each other instead of just being beaten down.
I actually cross-posted this post into Beehaw’s chat community, but thanks for the suggestion.
Also, in an online forum at least, it is really hard to decipher intent so the actual content of the text matters a lot. so communicating criticisms without adding anything more than that just leads to the conversation not going anywhere.
PS: In a slightly unrelated question why did you decide to stay on lemmy.world since it seems like you might want to discuss with the Beehaw community as well?
Ah, I guess I can’t see that from lemmy.world haha
That’s fair. I would hope that someone who has a genuine constructive criticism would be able to communicate it, but it might not hurt to have a rule reminding them to acknowledge and affirm the core concept before providing criticism. I can see how someone being a little curt and just voicing the criticism might come across as being anti- whatever the topic is.
When I joined lemmy I was looking for a general purpose instance - one where I could be a member in a variety of communities. At the time the largest communities actually tended to be on beehaw as they had been around much longer, but lemmy.world grew fast. By the time beehaw defederated with lemmy.world, it was clear that if I wanted to join a discussion on a recent news/politics/science article it would be best to choose a lemmy.world community as they were the most active.
No disrespect to the folks at beehaw, I may still make an alt account there. I appreciate what they’ve built, but it wasn’t the best fit for what I was looking to join. Ideally I’d be able to participate in their communities with this account, but I totally understand why they defederated with lemmy.world.
They don’t necessarily have to outright right say I agree with the core concept in every comment but instead they could add on to what is being said. For example, if someone came to me with real criticism about an idea I had but didn’t at least try to offer anything on how to make the idea better it can come across in an online forum as being contrarian or argumentative instead of constructive.
That’s fine but I mean why not join an instance that is federated with both of them?
Edit: wording
Inertia, I guess?
I have another account on lemm.ee which is federated with both, but I’ve been using this as my main since I joined lemmy. I might have to check out how things are on the other side of the fence.