Safe Spacer Summary

Because my posts tend to be rather long (and hard to follow), here's a quick summary of how I analyze the safe-spacer free-speech-blocker movement.

The safe spacer movement is well interpreted by religious dynamics. I tend to think what we're currently seeing in post-secondary campuses is simply the final stages of religious self-organization.

A long trend toward increased societal diversity enabled a phase change in norms.  Things recently became unfrozen.  Once "anything goes" morality was legitimized, real questions about what can be and can't be accepted have emerged.  For the masses, morality has switched from its normal high implicitness to discussable (& questionable) explicitness.

Natural tendencies to religious-like dynamics ensure sacredization occurs (i.e. certain things become sacrosanct).  With multiple versions of morality out on the open, complexity theory ensures self-organization occurs (both mimetically, culturally, and in terms of groups).  Thus groups start rallying around various moral nexuses.  Standard religious dynamics (see Atran, In God's we Trust) illustrate likely group-behaviour patterns.  Multi-level selection theory provides information about group competition dynamics.

The net result resembles a great religious awakening cycle.  However, supernaturalism is absent. The strong embodiment of moral big brothers seems to not matter much in our reasonably scientific literate & rule of law trusting society.