Individuals and cultures differ in the extent to which they’re willing to tolerate risk, so disagreements about safety are inevitable, whether deciding how to protect people from car accidents, crime or Covid-19. Rather than seeing safety as one concern among many, it becomes a sacred value. Safetyism, a term first used in the book “The Coddling of the American Mind,” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, denotes a moral culture in which people are unwilling to make trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns. As America debates when and how to reopen, those concerned about the side effects of the lockdown have begun to use the word “ safetyism” to characterize what they consider extreme social-distancing measures.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |