It’s no secret that conservatives often accuse liberals of being “delicate snowflakes” and “crybabies.” Requests for safe spaces and content warnings are usually met with disdain from the right, complete with accusations that the left is facilitating the creation of a coddled, mentally weak population. In response, those in favor of safe spaces and their likenesses emphasize the importance of empathy in creating a moral, just, and equitable world.
It’s certainly true that empathy is a key component to bettering our world. Without empathy, policy and protocol more easily devolves into a cesspool for supremacy and oppression. However, the left is leaving another equally important component of world betterment out of its argument for safe spaces, content warnings, and linguistic awareness: Strength.
Not only are strength and empathy NOT mutually exclusive, but they are also complementary. Empathy is a symptom of moral and emotional strength, while strength, in turn, facilitates the development of one’s empathy. Now, let’s break that down.
According to conservatives’ definitions, strength is equivalent to the ability to disengage with emotional reactions and continue stoically in the face of oppression and adversity. However, their definition is misinformed. At best, this “strength” they refer to is actually an unhealthy dose of privilege and denial.
The fact is, it takes much more strength to engage with uncomfortable emotions, ESPECIALLY those that your privilege prevents you from fully comprehending and identifying, than it does to shut down safe spaces, content warnings, and the general arenas where less publicized voices can be heard. It also takes copious amounts of strength to ask for a safe processing space for unpleasant topics and emotions when a large segment of society frowns upon such requests for personal betterment and emotional fulfillment.
And this strength, as I mentioned earlier, facilitates the development of one’s empathy. When one garners the strength to ask for important safe spaces for themselves or for others despite harassment and disdain from their more unaware and privileged peers, they show a willingness to process uncomfortable emotions and a desire to publicly recognize the pain of the oppressed and the suffering. In fact, designating safe spaces where unheard voices can speak and feel secure often forces others in the room to confront their own role in marginalizing these groups of people. This combination of factors is difficult to face, but it is ripe with the potential to increase one’s empathy for the painfulness and validity of experiences that they can’t fully identify with.
When conservatives refuse to create safe spaces and disallow equitable discussions, they are actually disengaging from both empathy AND strength. In other words, they are refusing to confront the difficult realities of the oppressed, which stems from and further facilitates a fearful and selfish mentality.
So, the next time someone tries to call you a “special snowflake” or tells you that you should just be able to deal with your pain, you can surprise them with this argument for the intertwinement of strength and empathy. It might not change every narrow mind, but, at the very least, it will give them pause and force them to evaluate their stance.