The Safe Space

The “safe space” on the college campus is a place for “individuals, who feel marginalized to come together to communicate regarding their experiences with marginalization.” Alternatively, it can be the area around someone in authority, like a teacher, who “does not tolerate violence, harassment, hate speech or dissenting views, thereby creating a safe place for all people.” Another aspect of the safe space is that those, who should be excluded from it, react scornfully or negatively to the idea of the safe space.

It is a good example of how insider language works. To those into left-wing identity politics, the term makes perfect sense. A part of how they define themselves, even though they hold the whip hand on the college campus, is in terms of their victim status. The more you need the safe space, the more marginalized you are from the imaginary core, which is supposedly dominated by guys named Chad and Dylan. On the other hand, the outsiders find the whole idea weird and amusing. They don’t get it, because they don’t need it.

Of course, like everything with the Left, the opposite of what they say is always a good place to start when trying to understand what is really happening. In this case, the people who need the safe space are those with the dissenting opinions. If you are a one-legged trans woman of color, the campus is your safe space. If you are a normal person, you have to live like a white guy in a black ghetto. Everything you say and do is watched, as they look for a chance to pounce. You have no safe space, even in your head.

The idea of the safe space gets scoffed at by the so-called right, because that’s the role designed for them, so they play it enthusiastically. They never bother to examine it in any detail or wonder if there is more to it. Their cartoon existence is entirely reactionary and uncritical of the world created for them by the Left. The chubby, blue-haired lesbian starts screaming about the need for a safe space and Ben Shapiro callously mocks her. That’s the choreographed drama that pretty much explains all of our politics.

The thing is though, this safe space idea is not just a goofy college campus thing. It is spreading across the ruling class layer. For example, the left-wing cable chat shows are almost entirely free of dissent these days. What little is tolerated, must strictly adhere to that role of the callous, unfeeling face of the core, sneering at the marginalized. That person is the all-purpose foil for the other players on the stage to point, hiss and show their moral indignation. That person is never allowed to ask a useful question.

More ominously, our politics has become a safe space. No left-wing politician is ever exposed to a dissenting opinion. The closest we get is indignant chattering skulls giving someone like Ilhan Omar the business from a great distance. Maybe they try to have a proxy challenge someone like Tulsi Gabbard in a fake town hall meeting. You’ll note that these town hall style candidate forums are a safe space for the participants. The whole point of the event is to make sure no one utters a discouraging word.

The so-called conservatives are getting in on the act too. The intellectual dark web is really just a safe space for the NPC’s and stock characters of the so-called Right to mingle with one another. It’s like the hospitality tent for the never ending drama, but reserved for the non-liberal characters and their fans. They get to play make believe, pretending they are challenging conventional wisdom and disrupting the status quo, when in reality they are just warming up their lungs for their time on the main stage.

That’s another aspect of the safe space. It’s not a place to hide. It is place where those inside get to play make believe. Chad and Dylan are not just outside the door. They are banished from the earth. That leaves the freaks, weirdos and dullards to frolic in the sun, without fearing the ogres of normality. If you want to believe you are a unicorn, you are free to do so. If you want to pretend you are an intellectual challenging the status quo, you can do that to. You’re free to pretend to be what you like in the safe space.

Take a look at the intellectual dark web. Claire Lehmann is one of the intellectual leaders of this group. According to their talking points, these are people “determined to resist parroting what’s politically convenient.” Lehmann is probably a nice person, but her opinions would feel at home on most left-wing websites. In her favor, she is not demanding we burn down libraries and execute biologists, which is now the default position of the Left, but no curious person would confuse Lehmann with a dissident intellectual.

Consider Ben Shapiro, who markets himself as the super-intelligent right-wing slayer of liberal pundits. There are lots of clips on YouTube of Ben supposedly “destroying a liberal” in a debate. Yet, all of the clips are of him smacking around a dopey coed or maybe a third tier cable airhead. Everything about him is manufactured, but he is able to thrive because he exists in a safe space. He’s never going to have to sit across the table from someone, who can handle themselves, forcing him to defend his positions.

Of course, this is why the “opponents” of the Left are just as enthusiastic about defending the safe space as the Left. It’s not the money or even a fear of the people outside the walls of the safe space. That certainly plays a part. It’s that the people inside cannot exist without the safe space. They are hothouse flowers, who would wither and die if exposed to the outside world. Ben Shapiro is the assistant credit manager at a mid-sized company in real life. In the safe space he is an intellectual giant.

This concept of the safe space has evolved to the point where the political class now lives within a safe space, at the center of the larger safe space of the media. Two decades ago, your congressman would show up a few times a year to hear from constituents. Then he would show up and be interviewed on stage by some media people. Now, if he has any influence, he does not show up at all. Instead, you see him on TV or read about him being asked questions by someone from the media. Politics is now the ultimate safe space.

This is why our political class is immune to what’s happening far outside their safe space, where the voters live. Most Congressman, for example are unaware of the damage caused by indentured servants. They have no clue about how companies replace their American workers with visa holders from over the rainbow. That never makes it into the media safe space, so it never penetrates the political safe space. It’s also why Trump seemed like a howling lunatic when he used to talk about these subjects.

Can the global world be run by people living in an insulated fantasy land? It seems unlikely, but the very notion of a safe space seemed ridiculous not so long ago. Perhaps when the West passed the post-scarcity threshold, none of this matters anymore. The system is now a form of defense in-depth, so even delusional morons can run it, without causing the whole thing to collapse. Perhaps it is just a matter of the right crisis coming along to breech the walls of the safe space, so reality can pour through.

119 thoughts on “The Safe Space

  1. A better term for “safe space” would be THE CENSORSHIP ZONE since that I their intentions of those creating said spaces.

  2. Another golden nugget: “Ben Shapiro is the assistant credit manager at a mid-sized company in real life. In the safe space he is an intellectual giant.”

  3. The safe space people are mostly young. As they age, unfortunate circumstances will find them. Like breast cancer or thrill crimes. And perhaps then they shall internalize that life is promised to no man.

    a ship in the harbor is safe but that’s not what ships are built for

  4. Human society has always had ‘safe spaces’. Humans, particularly male humans, crave an opportunity to say (more of) what they like to people like themselves without fear of castigation. So they set up exclusionary ‘safe spaces’. You can find safe spaces anywhere you look in space or time.

    Hell, even New Guinea cannibals had ‘men’s houses’ where the bros could talk about great head-hunts of the past. You can be mighty damn sure that not just anybody wearing a penis gourd could walk right in. But then they had to go out and weed the yam patch or spear wild pigs in the jungle if they wanted to eat that day.

    In the benighted ’60s there were neighborhood taverns everywhere that acted as safe spaces for locals after work but before dinner. Or on friday night for fish fry. But this was after work and before dinner: Occasionally after dinner. It wouldn’t (usually) cost you your life to wander in unbidden, but unless you could establish a local connection PDQ you were given to know that you weren’t welcome.

    So I’d say the issue today is not that there are safe spaces, but that it’s now been made possible to never have to leave to leave your ‘safe space’. And the Progs. have decided that the whole universe is their safe space by divine right. The obvious solution would be to make our own. Political clubs were a feature of W Civ for the last 300+ years, after all. But then you’d get some SJW gayvasion.

    So, it would seem that one should get a couple of bros and reverse the process: I’ve always wanted to visit the faculty lounge_!

  5. You can change the appearance of a room or dwelling completely in such a way that nobody actually notices. You achieve this by doing it piecemeal. First, a new carpet or rug. Then upgrade a few lights. Then take out that old sofa suite and replace it with a new one in a new style. Then change the wall decor. Then a new colour scheme. After a year two, voila!, a whole new environment. Only nobody has actually noticed that everything has changed.

    You guys could get a similar ball rolling by calling yourselves European-Americans. Why not? They can’t stop you doing it, nor do you have to wait for the normies to adopt it. You just start using it everywhere at all times and, further, you must insist on being called European-Americans. Sure, the usual suspects will kvetch about it but that’s a good thing because they will help spread it.

    Then everyone gets used to it and it becomes a feature of the national conversation. From there, it’s only a short hop to forming a European-American Protection League (or similar). And from there, it’s only a short hop to……well, I think you can see where I am going with this.

    When did blacks go from being blacks to African-Americans? Does anyone recall? Did anyone notice? Does anyone remember when that changed?

    Whenever and wherever the lefties have advanced, language has always been the spear-tip.

  6. The safe space evolved as the artificial habitat of the social abomination known as SJWs. Once upon a time, our ancestors domesticated dogs and created specific breeds with functional intent, such as sentries, herders, and trackers. Each was different, but they nonetheless were real dogs true to their species. Then, along came affluence and people (with deliberate intent) started breeding shit dogs like the micro hairless chihuahua; a truly horrific monstrosity that incarcerates a dog spirit in a Frankenstein body. A real dog can well acquit itself in an existential fight, but the shit dog can only defend itself by snarling and barking like its insane. The human equivalent of the shit dog is what lives in the safe space.

  7. Zman do you happen to have a post about art history in your essential knowledge? I swear I’ve seen that painting but cannot place it. Maybe a link to a good podcast or blog that shows the classic art of western tradition?

  8. I think the z man is dismissing off hand that discrimination may still exist. But its not on race but on partisanship. The democratic party is being discriminated against by the system. Like they have to win the house popular vote by a bigger margin to win the chamber and the median senate seat went by Trump by 3-4 points even when he was losing the PV by 2. So while the whole white privilege thing is bullshit – the democrats do have some gripes that could hopefully be addressed in some way.

  9. The use of “safety,” as both a lever and a trump card, to effect and/or prevent changes throughout society, from the sensible to the moonbat, deserves its own examination.

  10. We have safe spaces all across Europe. But they’re known by another name – “No Go Zones”. Your opening paragraph defines them perfectly.

  11. I used to watch an ESPN show called “Around the Horn”. A weekly rotating panel of 4 journalist and a moderator would discuss/debate sports topics of the day. So, including the spirited moderator, 5 guys. Whenever there was a sports social issue, which eventually became about half the topics, (e.g. a campus rape accusation, Title IX, black coaches, etc), they’d all say the same thing. Which should have been embarrassing for them because the whole point of the format was to get 5 separate opinions so the guys could dis each other like guys do.

    It was so damn obvious they HAD to be aware of it themselves. After all, their demographic was all male. So the only way to avoid embarrassment for suddenly behaving like polite women at a tea-party every time certain topics came up, was for each to act like a vehement believer in his PC opinion.

    It was supposed to be a very unsafe space with 5 aggressive guys going at each other. But when it really mattered, it was a super safe space. All it would take was one guy with balls enough to make them all look stupid and fake. But that guy was never invited. And if he was he fell in line.

    Remember that PBS roundtable discussion show back in the 80’s with the dull black moderator? If they wanted real fire and conflict they should have gotten a tough public bright guy like Norman Mailer to moderate it. Anyway, it wasn’t radical. But at least they tried a bit back then. The topic would be abortion and they’d have an abortion doctor, a priest, politician, popular author, philosopher, etc. all go at it. I don’t think they have that show anymore.

  12. Most multi-culti zombies are purpose-driven ignoramuses, so I get it that they want to live in snowflakeland. What bothers, though, are those white, educated, 50-somethings (my demographic) who happily subscribe to “safe space” rules even in a monocultural environment. I.e. Generally conservative whites get together and are hesitant to take a political stance, or those who subscribe to Christianity can’t talk about things that God unabashedly calls abominations. Weak sisters. The safe space mentality must come from too much time in front of the tube, or drinking their company’s Human Awareness kool-aid. Sheeple is the only appropriate term.

    We dissidents piss people off when we boil problems down to issues of sociology and religion, especially when we propose that one culture is superior to another. True-truth drives safe-spacers nuts. They tie themselves in Gordian granny knots, and fall to pieces when the dissident pulls one thread of truth that unravels their entire argument. And that’s the entire rationale for safe spaces … it allows people to reside in Snowflakeville, where everything is relative and everyone (except whitey) is a victim.

    • I doubt those questions are any less scripted than in the Western MSM, but the Russians have a macho thing about long meetings.

      A guy once told me that during the Soviet Union, he was negotiating a contract with the Russkies about a sale of busses or somesuch. His team would enter the conference room in Leningrad, where they’d haggle continually until the bitter end, with nothing but water on the table and pee breaks every second hour. Every eight hours, the Russians were rotated, a fresh team of negotiators taking over.

  13. Safe spaces are just your old fashioned ‘echo chamber’ that political and ethnic groups create. They’ve been around for a very long time. Rome had them among their elites.

    The problem is, that they are sheer poison because they eradicate feedback which in turn causes the safe space people to adopt even more insane ideas and policies because there is no one to give them a counter argument. In the end they destroy themselves.

    Tucker Carlson in his speeches found on Youtube brings that out. The typical beltway elitist has no knowledge of what is going on in America say even a few hours out of D.C. Most of the country is terra incognita to them.

  14. “Can the global world be run by people living in an insulated fantasy land…?” Obviously yes, they’re doing it before our very eyes. And not only the political elites, but the CEOs of major corporations. In both cases, action, lack of action or just bad decisions made by these people inevitably results in misery for everyone – except themselves.

    • Way back in my younger days, when I was starting out, I was in a finance department for a company going through “downsizing.” My job was to put together payroll data for management to make cuts. Sitting in that conference room, it occurred to me that no one in that was being cut, yet everyone in that room was responsible for the problems.

      Naturally, when it was time to create the hit lists for them to use, I left off people I liked or knew needed the job. If they were not in the target pool, they could not be a target. The people making the decisions never noticed. To them, it was just numbers on a page.

      • It’s very much to the credit of your youthful self that you learned the “wrong” lesson by noticing that none the people in that room were going to be on the target list, despite being responsible for the problems. You were expected to just notice that none of them would be on the list, and managed your career accordingly.

        Clearly, you were not “correctly” socialized!

  15. There are and have been all sorts of safe spaces.

    When the KKK has their weekly/monthly local meeting, it is a safe space for their members; don’t think anyone attending discusses the benefits of interracial marriage.

    Hitler’s vast rallies for his worshipers were a real large safe space for his fellow travelers. Jews, commies, gypsies, slavs, were not invited (though I really can understand why commies were not invited).

    Stalin’s and Lenin’s get together’s for their worshipers was a safe space for those seeking a new man, a scientific form of government ruled by rationale thinking types. No capitalists or other enemies of the state invited.

    And certainly in Cuba and Venezuela the meeting of the govt. big shots must have 10,000 echo chambers. No pro- “jankees” at these soirees. (note; spanish speaking folks can’t help pronouncing a “y” as a “j”).

    I can imagine the meetings of Black Lives (Don’t) Matter, or BLM; no honkies nor white/house “ni**ers” there (the latter is a black skinned person who has left the plantation).

    Safe spaces are one of the MO’s, are de riguer, for extremist organizations and for those who hold and encourage extremist views.
    They are not meant to be “safe,” in the conventional definition of safe. They are places and events where like minded extremists and their fellow travelers seek to affirm their beliefs by speaking into echo chambers.

    As for Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Trump, et. al., the mere mention of their names sends liberals (i.e.., communists) into spittle inducing, spasitic rages, which is just fine by me. And if Shapiro et.al., make money doing this, I really don’t care.

  16. One I tempted to laugh at the antics of the hot house flowers in their safe places – but I’ve seen what goes on in there up close. They’re psyching themselves up for a fight and the reason they are doing it in the safe place is that scoffers like Shapiro and his type will eat them alive in a public forum. But that isn’t all – the people with REAL intellect who live in the real world … will just laugh at them and their delusions.

    I personally think we need to keep a close eye on those safe places, the potential for radicalizing weak minds is very real.

    • That’s a good point. One of the functions of a safe space, like a madrassa, is to create radicalized warriors. Take one “Silly liberal safe space” group on some University campus and add some household chemicals, and suddenly you have a “people’s liberation army bomb factory.” Witness the youth groups and trade unions in 1930s Spain – an afternoon of speeches and a few rifles, and your former safe space cadets are now an armed platoon for the proletarian revolutionary army.

      • you are correct . this is the ANTIFA phenomenon. where nice suburban white girls beat down people who are exactly like their grandparents.

  17. Post-scarcity can become scarcity really fast. It will also be the end of safe spaces. I have no idea what to wish for here

  18. In my dark moments, I think that the walls of the insulated fantasy land will only be breached from the inside. The fundamental thing about the Cloud People, the one thing that drives all their other behavior, is that they’re terrified of being bored. I endured academia for as long as I did because the spectacle was so fascinating: Here are people who have everything — anything a human could possibly desire in the course of a day was theirs for the asking — and the only thing that made them happy was outrage. There’s a limit to how outraged you can be; they’d rather burn the world down than endure the boredom of having no more worlds to conquer. Alas, this means they’ll take us with them….

  19. Back in the late 70’s, we in the buckle of the Bible Belt were pushed to go to college to “expand your horizons” and “challenge your beliefs”. Little did we realize that the leftists intended to separate us from our faith and our culture.

  20. You’ve got to hand it to Shapiro: he’s got a shitton of chutzpah packed in that tiny frame, what with him sporting a yarmulke and draped in an Israeli flag while denouncing identity politics.

  21. Sigh. Longer comment eaten by gremlins. But then I see David_Wright has made my point for me.

    The dissident right has it’s safe spaces, too, and this blog is one of them. I mean, it’s not like there’s a broad swath of opinion engaged in wide-ranging discussions in the comments. 80% of us here agree with 80% what you say.

    If getting away from safe spaces was the goal, I’d be willing to bet we could get some of the Xirl science types to do an interview defending their work. I’d bet some Professor of African-American Studies looking to make a name for himself willing to speak or do a panel or a debate at AmRen.

    Mind, I’m not sure how productive that would be, since from the dissident right POV those people are hopelessly beyond the pale and not worth talking to … but then that’s the same thing Ben Shapiro would say about you.

    Maybe Quillette isn’t serious about entertaining all views and wouldn’t publish something from a dissident right type … has anyone tried? Why not write up a persuasive “the case for race realism” article, and submit it? If they won’t take it, well you just post it here as a few day’s worth of blog posts.

    • I agree that getting a Xirl scientist on here would be futile, but only because we don’t **need** one — as the Xirl science perspective is presented as hard fact and shoved down our throats at every opportunity, we know what they think. What would really help is to get Chad and Dylan on here… how would they be treated?

      • “What would really help is to get Chad and Dylan on here… how would they be treated?” Don’t know. I fear that some would suspect Dylan of being a joo and Chad of being a boomer. YT doesn’t hang together… so what Ben Franklin said. We wanna toss each other into the oven. Enjoy today, for tomorrow, a lotta s*** we’ve taken as a given, is gonna be “sucked into the Cern black hole”. ( I forgot to up-vote that one).

      • When I go to what Z calls “secret handshake society” meetings, there are always many young white men. I ask them how they came to have their beliefs and they talk about being in classes and movies where white men are always the bad guys, the source of all evil, and no contrition will ever suffice. I got the beginning of that treatment when I was young but nothing like what they experience.

        The bad optics stuff like the Daily Stormer and the Right Stuff is almost always mentioned favorably, much more than AmRen or VDare.

    • The problem in writing about this stuff for a hostile left audience is, people who try rarely take up the correct frame. HBD only has realistic value in terms of broad policy issues and long time-frames. Too often a left audience will assume that Dermot Whiteshill is banging on about IQ because he just wants to feel superior to DeShauntrious, or is jealous of the accolades of Ta-Genius Coates.

      HBD issues can’t be solved on an individual basis, and they won’t be solved in a single generation. Example: in the whole nonsensical “reparations” issue, people think that a fixed dollar amount should be paid to a class of individuals.

      This is retarded thinking. The slavery issue is better framed as a question of cultural maladaptation. Africans were taken from small African villages, where Bantu culture was isolated and cut off from the broader developments and interactions of the Eurasian cultures to the north. They were then transported halfway around the world, to a truncated simulacrum of a Eurasian culture — a plantation, again with very little cultural adaptation the culture they were in. After slavery ended they were still cut off from this dominant culture by segregation and Jim Crow, and then after segregation ended, all the smart blacks who were capable of adapting to Eurasian culture ran off and did so, leaving behind a dysgenic group of maladaptives in ghettos and prisons and urban housing projects — in other words an entire population which had never in 350 years meaningfully engaged or encountered the dominant culture.

      Reparations intelligently handled would involve creating structures enabling this maladaptive group to somehow, over several generations, start to breed eugenically and behave in fashions that the dominant culture can engage realistically. Giving a cash handout to both DeShauntrious and to Spike Lee’s nephew solves nothing.

      Which is a roundabout way of saying, it’s possible to discuss these issues without ever touching IQ or HBD ( which involves far more than IQ), but nobody ever does so.

    • Sam: “The dissident right has it’s safe spaces, too, and this blog is one of them.” The point is that safe spaces are a bad thing when the given spaces are supposed to be publically open to wide spectrum discussion. This blog or a far Left blog, aren’t meant for the wide public, but for likeminded people to talk their Thing. But they aren’t “safe” since anyone is allowed to show up and say whatever they want. Unlike the pretend free-thought spaces which are actually safe spaces. Like anywhere on TV or campus.

      • But like I said … how much is the DR actually trying? The campuses and legacy media are a lost cause, but I’m not sure about the rest.

        Are we saying that — for example — Quillette has already declined to publish a thoughtful, well-researched piece with a DR opinions, or are we just assuming they wouldn’t, and so let’s not even try? Those are two very different things. Whether or not people like Lehmann or Dave Rubin are actually serious about being open to all kinds of ideas, I think they think they are. We should find out.

        There was a lot of talk a couple of years ago about Trump opening the Overton Window on public discussions on race. But it doesn’t mean much if nobody else tries going through once it’s open.

        • Rubin is a complete mercenary, he only invites people who conforms 100% to Rubin-world.

          After he went independent from TYT and started his own gig, he was an atheist. Then, after the first season, he found out how many customers that stance cost him, so he changed his stance to mumblemumblewoowoo.

          It’s the same reason people like Jordan Peterson, Milo Yiannopoulos and (I suspect) Vox Day pretend to be religious: that sweet, sweet Patreon lucre.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfvMSnOPsM8

        • Sam, are you serious? You think the problem may be that those people/publications just haven’t been sent challenging essays? It’s funny you mention that, and specifically Quillette, because a DeGroot piece was rejected by them. He wrote an article about it in Taki 2 or 3 years ago. He slammed her real good.

  22. “The idea of the safe space gets scoffed at by the so-called right, because that’s the role designed for them, so they play it enthusiastically.”

    Z, I hear what you’re saying, but a sane person pretty much has to scoff at things like safe spaces.

    • But isn’t that sentiment by Federalist part of the reason we are in this quagmire? Failure to exclude is civilizational cancer; it’s starts with Harvard law school in the 20’s being colonized by fellow yt ppl (what could go wrong in our marketplace of ideas?), and ends with perverts in dresses having a sheriff deputy escort them into little girl’s bathrooms. Maybe if we insisted on America’s power centers being off-limits safe spaces for heritage Americans, we would never have gotten here.

  23. Folks, as you know, I’m a newbie on this group. I could use some help understanding Z-man’s latest post. Specifically, “if safe spaces are not a good thing, why is this blog not a safe space”. Until this post, I thought I understood the concept of safe spaces and the problem therein. But if you had asked me, I’d have said this blog was exactly the sort of thing Lehmann was promoting, sans a couple of our pesky trolls?

    Can those of you with a few minutes to spare enlighten me?

    • First, what’s your definition of “safe space”? Really, it’s just synonymous with “echo chamber”. Blogs/podcasts like this, and any voice in the dissident right can’t be safe spaces by default because they can all be disappeared at any time. For the time being, they’re fortresses under siege.

      • Echo spaces I understand. I suspect what I would call a safe space is a place where considered opposing opinion is not shouted down, but rather reasoned with or ignored (due to the fact the opinion is at odds with prevailing knowledge/facts). And, folks can comment on and modify/disagree with the OP. Rarely does a Z-man post escape here unqualified, and we are all the better for it.

        Indeed, this is one of two or three blogs where I tend to spend more time reading the comment section than the original posting. I even found my way here via Z-man comments in another well known blog: West Hunter.

        Again, I am still puzzled by Z-man’s reference to Lehmann as pertains to dwelling in safe spaces. Shapiro I understand and agree. He’s obviously avoiding a fair intellectual match and more of a showman on stage. To that effect, a “grifter”, as some have pointed out.

        • “I would call a safe space a place where considered opposing opinion is not shouted down, but rather reasoned with..”

          well that’s your mistake right there.
          A safe space as currently configured on campuses is a place where dissenting views aren’t allowed, or even acknowledged. There is no “opposing opinion” at all. That’s why they think it’s safe.

          • “hoisted with one’s own petard”

            Nunnya, you got me there. My self contradiction is noted. 😉

    • Perhaps it actually is a safe space. That might’ve been his point. For all the Left loves “activism,” they don’t need any actual action — they can do all their “activism” online, among likeminded peers, because they control everything. The Right, on the other hand (and using the term strictly for rhetorical convenience), needs to actually **do something**. I often wonder why sites like this are allowed to exist at all. Now, I am NOT comparing our host to Mike Cernovich, Vox Day, et al, but consider those guys — how many gazillions of followers do they claim to have? Have they been comprehensively deplatformed? Hell, Alex Jones is still on the internet. It would be child’s play to actually unperson any one of them. It hasn’t been done. Perhaps Z Man’s post was a coded call to (metaphorical) arms, because any actual call to arms would get his site disappeared.

      • The Left lives in fear. It reminds me of a novel I read where the most powerful god was the only one that knew fear. The Left is both a revolutionary and tyrannical ideology. Just like the Soviets, they’ll forever be looking for “wreckers”, spies, and counterrevolutionaires. They’re usupers and they know it. You can sleep soundly knowing that their madness will never let them rest.

    • “Everything you say and do is watched, as they look for a chance to pounce. You have no safe space, even in your head.”

      Every single dissident site has been deplatformed again and again. ISPs block or slow down traffic, search engines block, delist, rout elsewhere…

      Metrics get manipulated. Demonitized to inhibit growth. Getting too popular invites even more trouble.

      No one here wants a safe space, we want a public one. A fair public one where we aren’t arrested for speech, jailed for self defense, impoverish by corporate toadies for bad think, denied access to the institutions we built.

      This isn’t a safe space, it’s a huWhyte refugee relocation camp.

      • OK, we are in danger of having the plug pulled and that equates to an “unsafe” space. Quillette I assume attempts to protect itself by having a variety of postings decidedly of the Liberal or Leftist bent. Those I ignore for the most part after a few paragraphs—especially when the “biology” is wrong (why waste time).

  24. Middle and upper-middle class whites in the West are all in their own safe space. They live in white (occasionally, somewhat Asian) neighborhoods, send their kids to overwhelmingly white schools, work with whites and hang out with whites.

    This is why the crazy rhetoric of Left and the Right doesn’t prompt them to action. They are insulated. You can hear what you want or believe what you want living once you create that bubble. If you want to believe that blacks are equally intelligent. Go ahead. It won’t impact your world.

    Right now, for middle and upper-middle class whites, the costs of acknowledging reality outweigh the costs of ignoring it. How long that last is anyone’s guess.

    I suppose that our job to get them to realize the size of the bill heading their way.

    • “Middle and upper-middle class whites in the West are all in their own safe space. They live in white (occasionally, somewhat Asian) neighborhoods, send their kids to overwhelmingly white schools, work with whites and hang out with whites.”

      No, that’s called civilization.

      • Civilization is fragile – and the barbarians in the distance always covet its bounty. Civilization doesn’t last if you don’t defend it.

        • And they won’t defend it. They don’t even know it’s coming. It’s like they had a consensus that said ” we are all going to bury our heads in the sand”

    • This is our biggest problem. Fragmented but still the most powerful group in the country. Many of us come out of this class if not most of us, but its insularity is rock solid. The men are beginning to take notice. The women are so far down the wonderland rabbit hole they hold back the men. Many will never cross that line. No matter what.

      • True, but many will. We only need a small percentage, but that group has to be rock solid, it has to protect its own.

        I hear more and more comments. Things are changing.

        However, you’re right that women are the most reluctant and that makes sense in a lot of ways. By their nature, women want to stay in the good graces of the tribe, which, at the moment, is the government, schools and the media. But women’s loyalty and political beliefs are an inch deep. As soon as they see their tribe (their protector) as something else, they’ll switch sides in a heartbeat.

        In the 1940s, women in the South didn’t care what the NY Times thought about segregation because the NY Times wasn’t their group.

        (Btw, I’m not trying to trash on women. They’re responding to their evolutionary instincts; instincts that served them well for tens of thousands of years.)

    • Citizen, agreed. I might state that I find there are two kinds of these non-woke folk. Those that are stupid and can’t conclude the obvious from observable reality (or delusional in denying reality), and those who are ignorant because they rarely interact (come in contact) with this reality.

      One group seems unreachable, the other not so much. Once the individual concludes there are certain similarities wrt low intellect classes of individuals, the rest comes along—assuming they are not one of those type of individuals.

      • Biological group differences are the lynch pin. One you get someone to begin accepting that fact, the rest of the narrative falls quickly and easily.

    • absolutely 1000% correct CSC. they live behind a ‘”wall ” of money that completely isolates them from the consequences of the policies they support. the money wall keeps the lower classes of all races out of their schools neighborhoods and shopping areas.

  25. I call it the GU–the Gaslight Universe. A whole fictional universe like the Marvel Universe or DC Universe.

    I find it politically, intellectually, and (*cough*) racially significant that the the GU’s defining features are not just random, but in many essential areas the opposite of the real world.

    It requires constant “defense,” as Zman says; this includes persecution of truth-tellers. Look at the nasty business with Tucker Carlson. Or the growing deplatforming. Or the actual jailing of dissidents in Europe.

  26. Versailles was the ultimate safe space, circa 1788. Who doesn’t have an elegant powdered wig for the ball? The gardens are always in bloom, with new arrangements just appearing overnight. You may as well have seen a unicorn on the grounds, with likely some horn glued to a horse’s head. Until, you know what happened…

    • “Nightly we walked on a carpet of flowers not knowing they covered an abyss “.

      From a George Sand novel:an old count describing life at Versailles on the eve of the revolution.

    • I like this comment. It is a great analogy, because when you read about the French Revolution, the thought that always swirls in the background is how was it possible for the King and aristocrats to not see the problems? But, living in a fantasy world is both intoxicating and blinding.

      • Interesting. The problem at that time would seem different than today, but an existential one nonetheless. French peasants and aristocrats were racially the same, but one group was hard pressed and the other said, “tough shit, it sucks to be you”.

        Today, we are faced with disparent groups and cultures of varying innate ability. This we (dissident right) know is the primary cause of our society’s inability to be “equal”. However, it seems both our liberal and conservative classes are still saying, “tough shit, it sucks to be you”. Both by applying “solutions/cures” without proper understanding of the disease.

        Leftists attempt at cure is to chase the phantom of racism/discrimination/privilidge while conservatives tell folks to “learn to code”. We have our work cut out for us, don’t we. 🙁

        • Trust me. I know these people. They don’t consider themselves to be of the same race as most white people, especially the People of Walmart types. Fair skin aside, this is a class issue. Even the Obamas were considered to be upwardly mobile versions of them. The Obamas happen to have dark skin. It may as well have been a terrible boating accident in which they were permanently sunburned. Class, education and aesthetics matter more than race, even today, but only in the upper echelons, not in Joe Blow and Shanequa Johnson’s America.

          This is why they hate Trump. Trump is a massive disappointment to his base, but he will always be hated by the elite because he’s identified as the king of that Appalachian race that mostly exists between Reno and West Virginia. Even though, ironically, Trump is technically old money NY. He rejected that for whatever reason, and they’ll never forgive him for it. His kids like Ivanka on the other hand are desperately trying to get back into the fold, likely making daily phone calls to their Manhattan friends, “you know daddy, he’s so hard headed. I’m trying to convince him not to associate with these mouth breathers.” Trump likely think’s he’s bamboozled everyone from A to Z, but that’s a classic narcissist.

    • JR Wirth
      Da Booby likes your analogy, but advises caution.

      If the modern state can bomb weddings in Yemen from 6000 miles away, just imagine what it can do to a town hall 20 miles away.

      A revolution might have a much different result this time around. In fact, Da Booby suspects the left is betting on it.

  27. Thing is, pretty much EVERYONE lives in safe spaces now, including the dissident right. What is AmRen or the Mencken club thing other than a safe space for race realists? Even if you write off cult-of-personality sites like Vox Day, it’s not like the comments section at VDare or here is some open forum where the predominant response to dissenting opinions is respectful and thoughtful engagement.

    How often do you, Z man, actually engage intellectually and directly with people you disagree with? I don’t doubt that mainstream media wouldn’t touch you, but I’d bet that if every time you did a “Xirl science” bit you sent an email to the author saying “I have a blog with # readers, I think your article is nuts, would you do an interview?” that some of them would say yes. I guarantee you that somewhere in this wide country of ours, there is some Professor of African American Studies that would love to write an article about the time he was on a panel at AmRen. Has anyone on the Dissident right tried submitting an article to Quillette or getting an interview with the Dark Web guys?

    Mind you, I’m not saying any of that would necessarily be productive. Just saying that if you’re gonna mock other people because their political discussions all take place with in relatively narrow bandwidth, it seems healthy to admit yours do, too.

    • How often do you, Z man, actually engage intellectually and directly with people you disagree with?

      Everyday of my life. Other than living in a cave, it is impossible for a dissident to avoid being bombarded with contrary opinion, even contrary facts!

    • Are you insane?! We live in a Prog version of the Truman Show. I can barely leave the house before I’m getting punched in the face with an ideology that I disagree with.

      Went to the bank this morning. The ads were 1) black family acting white looking for a loan to start a business and 2) mixed race couple smiling at each other.

      Every TV show, every ad, every movie, every news program (assuming they still exist) is Prog central. My kid’s school is Prog central. My hissy, politically active Nice White Lady neighbors are Prog central. My idiotic multi-culti mayor is Prog central. The city council are Prog central. My business seminars are Prog central. My business associations are Prog central. My community groups are Prog central.

      And every single one of these institutions/people don’t just live and let live. No, no. no. They have to push in my face their ideology and their hatred of my race, gender and beliefs. When I refuse to back down, I’m hit with hysteria, dirty looks, calls of “racist,” and threats, but never – NEVER – with facts.

      The dissident right doesn’t have safe spaces. That’s why we know our shit, and why the other side is going to lose. Ignoring reality isn’t a long-term plan.

      • I feel more like Anne Frank hiding in the cupboard waiting to be discovered. But she wasn’t willing to fight back when she was flushed out.

      • Weird,
        I’ve never heard a public conversation about Race Realism unless I’m on a Dis. Right website.
        If so many of these people exist why not let your views be known in public.
        I feel like until normal people are willing to be strong enough to explain their views, website comment sections will be the only place people “blow off steam.”
        Perfect example: it wouldn’t surprise me if my bro in law was on sites like the ZMan’s, but at family get together when we talk politics he never let’s anyone know what he really thinks.
        This side will never win if they can’t even explain their views unless their in the safe space of a comment section.

        • I speak up – to a degree – and it’s not pretty. That said, I haven’t lost any friends. Women are a bit of a different story. Many seem genuinely afraid of talking to someone with anything other than orthodox views.

          Btw, the other side (meaning whites members of the Cult of Equality) will never stay in power. Time and reality will erode their status and eventually cause them to fall. Unfortunately, we’ll all fall with them.

      • “Are you insane?! We live in a Prog version of the Truman Show. I can barely leave the house before I’m getting punched in the face with an ideology that I disagree with.”

        THIS. I stopped going to the library (filled with taxpayer-funded Spanish and tons of Chinese language books) when the noise level from all the
        Indians, Chinese, Mexicans, and Negroes on the computers exceeded my earplugs’ tolerance level. I have switched grocery stores and will drive miles out of my way to find a slightly less diverse one. We’ve switched gyms multiple times. I might as well be a shut in, because the sole break I have from diversity is in my own home (until my husband comes home and turns on the damned tv). I have cut off contact with former friends, minimized contact with extended family members, anything to insulate myself from the cultural marxist madness and the constant presumption that all right-thinking people agree.

        The pictures at the bank. The pajeet robocalls. The various mystery-meat cashiers. The mudshark and her ‘f-k you daddy boyfriend’ kissing at the gym. The Mohammedan woman in full-tent regalia on the elliptical. Another Mohammedan woman in the store with her two pre-teen daughters in full hijab. The pungent reek of unwashed unAmericans everywhere. There’s really no escape.

          • Suburban DFW. More H1-bs than LA. Getting a solid and moral education was not the sole reason our boys attended Christian schools. Anyone who tells you that “x” wouldn’t be tolerated in Texas is about 25 years out of date – or perhaps lives in a very small town in the panhandle.

          • the H-1B’s are probably the problem with the Boeing 737’s now. Boeing uses them and offshore programmers for the planes automated systems . early reports that is causing the issues. I live in SE mich . very similar experiences. Once in a while I give the fam and friends a dose of reality. they are incredulous, and truly cannot comprehend why I hold such crazy views that differ completely from the “facts” they get on the telerevision,advertising ,radio,movies ,school,college,social media, newspapers,magazines,and from their employers. you cannot fight around the clock 24/7 propaganda. all of them are convinced they are the lone white hero in a sea of bigoted knuckledraggers who are a pox on all the nice “folks” (hat tip to BHO).
            yeah, I’m pretty black pilled. I think this is how the dissedents who built claudesting radios to get outside media felt in the old soviet union. they knew the truth, but nobody would listen if they told it.

          • I was just thinking that EXACT thing today at the gym, when the tv covered the 737 problem/ban – I thought “I bet half their workforce is non-White.” Could be simple 3rd world stupidity, could be deliberate malfeasance by Han Chinese ultimately loyal to their people and home nation, despite magic American papers.

    • I respectfully disagree, Sam. I see Zman engage with critics every day, on Gab, and here. But it’s very had to “engage” with someone who only screams “racist” and “anti-Semite” every time you present them with reality. Maybe you know a lot of lefties who would be willing to debate Z in good faith – I sure don’t…

      • I know this is small thing, but could we call 5em Leftists with a capital “L”?
        THe word “lefty” means someone who writes with their left hand.
        Let’s continue maintaining standards and using the language as it wasn’t meant: accurately.

        • And the hilarious part is that I will now get skewered because my Steve Jobs iPad typing makes it appear as though I know neither how to type or proofread.

          • Carrie – from your daily grammar notsee – it’s either-or or neither-nor, not a mix-up of the two.

  28. The bigger they are the harder they fall…At least I hope that’s more than a cliche.

    As the safe space grows so does their contact with the real world. They can still punish Chad and Dylan but Chad and Dylan if they’re smart are holding their cards close to their chest. Very close.

    The dissident right has been pretty much leaderless and ineffective since Cville but our sentiments have quietly spread far and wide thanks largely to the activities of our enemies. The more control they think they have the more mistakes they’ll make.

    At some point we’ll need to pick up that ball and run. Because we operate in the catacombs it hard to nail down how many and to what extent we will act assuming we act at all.

    • Our job at the moment is to let others know that we’re out there and to start laying the groundwork so that when things start to get a bit more sketchy, we can hit the ground running.

  29. It’s amazing to think not that long ago (2012) Pat Buchanan was employed by MSNBC. They cut him loose after his book “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025,” came out. They didn’t think his chapter, “The End of White America” was appropriate for national discussion.

    • I think they originally put him on because they thought he was so far off the reservation they could use him as a foil and a court jester. When they began to realize, as the internet expanded and chat rooms and comment sections grew, that Pat was reflective of a mainstream that had been silenced, they freaked out.

    • Will America Survive to 2025? That’s only six years. All depends on how you define “America,” and how you define “survive.”

  30. I consider this blog site my safe space.

    You are right about Shapiro. When he had Tucker Carlson on he was quite taken aback by Carlson’s contrarian opinions deviating from NormyConVille. Basically, he said they would have to do this again and explore further. Yeah little Benny, go study hard for the big test.

    • Hahaha, Z Man, the guy who openly talks about bringing back the guillotine and ‘ole Sparky (electric chair), not to mention concentration camps..and on top of that would willing volunteer to administer such things…you feel safe around such a guy’s opinions (even if not to be taken literally). There is something to that. At least you know where the guy stands. Even leftists who can hold a coherent thought and execute consistent actions without fitting their morality with roller blades are better to be around than so-called “progressives” and their flip-floppy ideals.

      • There are no “leftists who can hold a coherent thought and execute consistent actions.” If they could think coherently they would not be leftists.

        This is not a new concept.
        6CBwa

        • “There are no “leftists who can hold a coherent thought and execute consistent actions.” If they could think coherently they would not be leftists.”

          Objectively wrong, but I understand the sentiment. Given the quotation outside of the greater context of my original post, I don’t see a need to point out, much less explain, your boomer nihilism here.

        • Crazy how the “leftists” keep winning then huh?
          Keep underestimating your enemy.
          That’s what leftist think of the Stupid Party. Hence Trumps election…
          Socialism is gaining steam all over the country, but hey, let’s just ignore their ideas and treat them like Trump get’s treated.

    • To be fair to Claire Lehmann, she is several cuts above Shapiro. For one thing, she doesn’t pretend to be a conservative, just a moderate liberal who thinks that the Left has slipped over the edge of sanity, which is of course absolutely correct. The only reason Lehmann is considered “Right” by some is that, in our current society, anyone not actually insane is perceived to be some kind of right-winger. If you like the opposite sex, think that men in sun dresses are not women, and believe that not everyone to the right of Pol Pot is a fascist, you’re a Nazi, according to our current masters.

        • Occasionally I find something useful and interesting to read over at “Quillette”, but I understand that’s a matter of taste. She’s still far better that Shapiro, although that’s a low bar to clear.

      • That’s the funny thing: even in the left-dominated media world, right and left are taking on the functional definitions of reality-oriented and total unreality, respectively.

    • Shapiro is like the fighter who builds a reputation beating carefully picked opponents. His handlers work hard to keep him away from anyone who can give him trouble. That’s the feature of the safe space. No one is every challenged or required to defend their positions. They screw up from time to time, for sure. Once in a while they bring on stage someone ready to challenge them. That person goes on a list and is never heard from again. On occasion someone inside torpedoes someone else on the inside.

      A great example of this was Bill O’Reilly having Jon Stewart on his show. Of course, O’Reilly was banished from the safe space. They are hoping to banish Carlson now too.

      • All true, but for the love of God, he wears a fucking yamaka on his head. How did his handlers think that this was a good idea for a guy who supposedly abhors identity politics?

        It’s like their laughing at his audience, just begging them to call him out.

      • Shapiro is not an actual intellectual, nor is he a person of any actual influence or interest. His actual realistic job description is “Jew on the Make”. In a world of honest descriptions, that would really be on his business card: “Ben Shapiro, Jew on the Make.”

        His purpose is to suck the oxygen out of the room, run down the clock so no one sensible gets to speak, and to fill up space in the public arena so that no dumb shegetz gets a word in edgewise. There is an entire industry of Jews busy cashing pay checks simply so that those checks don’t go to a goy by mistake. There are only so many opinions a person can hold in their short-term memory at any given moment, and Shapiro’s job is to make sure every one of those opinions was shoved in there by an approved Jew.

        • Agreed. But why have him wear a yamaka? That would seem to mess with the staging and we don’t want the goy audience to notice anything askew.

          • Gloating.

            What’s the fun of fucking over the goys if you can’t crow about your power now and again? All the subterfuge might be effective but it doesn’t stroke your ego, and Jews need a lot of ego-stroking.

      • From the jacket and introduction of Carlson’s book,”Ship of Fools:”

        “Trump’s election wasn’t about Trump. It was a throbbing middle finger in the face of America’s ruling class. It was a gesture of contempt, a howl of rage, the end result of decades of selfish and unwise decisions made by selfish and unwise leaders. Happy countries don’t elect Donald Trump president. Desparate ones do.

        “In retrospect, the lesson seemed obvious: Ignore voters for long enough and you get Donald Trump. Yet the people at whome the message was aimed never received it. Instead of pausing, listening, thinking, and changing, America’s ruling class withdrew into a defensive crouch.”

      • The unaccomplished, unproven – yet expert and indispensable – advisory Jew has become a stock character in the American political tradition: from Lippmann and FDR’s “Brain Trust” to Kissinger and on to the NeoCons, American notions of technocracy have put lot of parasitical bullshit artists in positions of power and influence.

        Kushner/Shapiro is where this sorry downward arc becomes cartoon.

    • Its my safe space also but it also normalizes thinking certain things that I can’t let pop out in public

      • “Its my safe space also but it also normalizes thinking certain things that I can’t let pop out in public.”

        Black pill alert!

        Yes….this is my safespace in which I find others like-minded, inspiration and expansion of my intellect by Z’s original intellectual arguments and the thoughtful writings of this blog’s readers. I daren’t say these thoughts beyond my front door.
        I fear this safespace will not last long as Z likewise may be caught up and hurled into the void as the dominant tyrannical culture is gathering momentum to push Tucker Carlson off the cliff.
        I also faced reality when I first responded to threads on this blog. My husband will not write on blogs and fears for me for doing so.
        Everything we write is saved somewhere by the cloud people onto the cloud, probably in the data center in Utah (irony of ironies) and as BraveNewWorld/1984 draw closer, this stored data evidence will be resurrected against each one of us when tyranny becomes total. We may likely be purged for thought crime–the risk you and I take for freedom of thought. We shall see.

        • R.F.F.
          Given who we’re talking about, maybe a modified Blanch DuBois approach is in order: “Iah ha-av alll-waays de-pended ohn the in-competence of surveillors”.

          IOW, having all that raw info doesn’t make the data-robber barons able to do with it everything we might fear. Ah but they have algorithms to sort it you say. True, but it turns out that blue haired cube rats still have to look at all that the great algorithm behind the curtain spits out. And those cube rats are doing a bad job of it. How bad a job_? Well, at least some of the 20-clown, Donk-candidate hippy minibus are getting traction by promising to blow up the data-robber barons’ cozy little fiefdoms.

          • Ah crap, Al. You’re probably right. I just spilled black pill juice all down my front, am having a Derbyshire “we are doomed” couple of days and can’t even blame estrogen. Just call me Casandra, and don’t hire me to head the pep rally when the dissident right gets off the ground. Remember, I’m a reformed lefty from commie parents so dipping into the dark swamp of human nature is default position…..I approach optimism like tai chi, a discipline to be practiced, then I find myself in “the space.”

            Maybe the surveillors will be incompetent. Maybe 20 years from now the Hispanics and Muslims descend into warring factions and the Chinese gleefully pick up the spoils. Maybe one of the gizzmos at Cern will rip a hole in time and space and we all get sucked right on through. Bah! Better turn in. Snow day tomorrow and hoping to awake to a “white” quiet diamond-glistening world. Tomorrow, Scarlet!

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