Universal Safe Space
Okay, hear me out:
The goal is to create a universal version of a safe space. Imagine perhaps the largest safe space in the world. It is a world of its own, it is somewhere online (for now), where the agreement for inclusion is simple. Something like: be kind, be inclusive, be helpful. I’m just saying “for instance.” There’s no need for it to be more than that, for starters.
Imagine a parallel world within the existing one. A small transition world that slowly grows and merges with the existing one until it becomes it. Deliberate. But not systematic. Authentic and inclusive. Organic, though intentional.
Imagine a framework as empty as possible, limitless in scope or shape or design. You enter. This you is itself as empty as possible, limitless in scope or shape or design. Others enter. They are not other. They are they.
You and they. Me, and you. You all. All of “you.”
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Imagine any existing societal entity you are comfortable with. A country, perhaps you call it a land. Maybe it’s a city or a small town. Perhaps a virtual place (for now). Whatever you are imagining, let it be unbound by and actually completely unrelated to the world outside (the real world). Imagine this place.
Be as real as possible, but feel free to name yourself whatever. We will assume you are you and that some other version of you also exists out there in the existing world (AKA “here”). You’ll notice I don’t say “real world” because reality is a perception and the one I am proposing can be just as real as the existing world we call “real.”
A place to go when you need support (a support group) but instead of a group it’s just the entire place, the whole country, all of the land, the world. A start from scratch kind of place.
A place without judgement and preaching. A kind, safe place where it becomes easier to agree, or to build consensus. A community where a concept such as compromise could not endure. Nay, in fact: it could not exist.
So, could this actually happen? It already is happening. It starts by re-educating the population.
[I know that may sound like Maoism to some of you, and that is definitely where I first heard the idea.]
Next Time: Re-educating the Populus.
