I’m talking firstly physical “safety”, as exemplified by (in the city I’m currently visiting) the removal of iconic local statues that have been in place for years, because “inclusive” idiots very suddenly decided they were a “trip hazard”… Because everyone is on their phones now, and therefore don’t look where they are going. 😑
Of course, this is just a symptom of a much, much wider problem, and only “works” because we’ve spent three years being terrified of a fucking virus, and all the tribalism that brought…
But this goes much further - you have “cultural safety”, you have “safe communications”, you have “safety on campus”, you have “LGBTQ+ safe spaces” - all of which comes back to our most bizarre obsession with the primacy of feelings and feeling safe, even if, in reality, you are probably less “safe” than ever…
Some of this is worse in Australia than elsewhere (the physical “safety” stuff here is probably the worst in the world), but a lot of the other ideological stuff originated in North America…
All in all, it comes back to that saying about “freedom vs temporary safety”, I suppose, but geese, what a bleak, sanitized, generic and utterly boring society we are building, FML… 😒
I remember right after 9/11 and for several years after we had Safety show up in the weirdest ways. To this day there are safety checks at every big theme park, airport, or event.
There was a ring of steel around the Eurovision Song Contest, not just for any potential terror attack but to stop Just Stop Oil protesters getting on stage and sprinkling orange powder during the event. Two weeks later, they invaded a rugby game and one of the players decided to deal with one of the protesters in the same way they deal with the opposition - a rugby tackle to take them down to much cheering from the public. Nonetheless, it will be another excuse for the Government to give themselves and the Police even more authoritarian powers "for your safety".