{"id":3633,"date":"2020-07-20T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T16:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=3633"},"modified":"2020-07-20T11:25:36","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T18:25:36","slug":"bubble-wrapped-americans-how-the-u-s-became-obsessed-with-physical-and-emotional-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=3633","title":{"rendered":"Bubble-Wrapped Americans: How the U.S. Became Obsessed with Physical and Emotional Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Written by Sam Jacobs, Lead Writer and\u00a0Chief Historian of Ammo.com<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIn America we say if anyone gets hurt, we will ban it for everyone everywhere for all time. And before we know it, everything is banned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>-Jonathan Haidt<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It\u2019s a common refrain: We have bubble-wrapped the world. Americans in particular are obsessed with \u201csafety.\u201d The simplest way to get any law passed in America, be it a zoning law or a sweeping reform of the intelligence community, is to invoke a simple sentence: \u201cA kid might get hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Almost no one is opposed to reasonable efforts at making the world a safer place. But the operating word here is \u201creasonable.\u201d Banning <a title=\"what are lawn darts\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mentalfloss.com\/article\/31176\/how-one-dad-got-lawn-darts-banned\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lawn darts<\/a>, for example, rather than just telling people that they can be dangerous when used by unsupervised children, is a perfect example of a craving for safety gone too far.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond the realm of legislation, this has begun to infect our very culture. Think of things like <a title=\"what is a trigger warning\" href=\"https:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/2019\/03\/21\/new-study-says-trigger-warnings-are-useless-does-mean-they-should-be-abandoned\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u201ctrigger warnings\u201d<\/a> and <a title=\"what is a safe space\" href=\"https:\/\/nosafespaces.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u201csafe spaces.\u201d<\/a> These are part of broader cultural trends in search of a kind of \u201cemotional safety\u201d \u2013 a purported right to never be disturbed or offended by anything. This is by no means confined to the sphere of academia, but is also in our popular culture, both in \u201c<a title=\"what does it mean to be extremely online\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailydot.com\/unclick\/what-does-it-mean-to-be-extremely-online\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">extremely online<\/a>\u201d and more mainstream variants.<\/p>\n<p>Why are Americans so obsessed with safety? What is the endgame of those who would bubble wrap the world, both physically and emotionally? Perhaps most importantly, what can we do to turn back the tide and reclaim our culture of <a title=\"how to be self-sufficient\" href=\"https:\/\/ammo.com\/articles\/off-grid-living-guide\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">self-reliance<\/a>, <a title=\"quotes on mental toughness\" href=\"https:\/\/ammo.com\/articles\/warrior-mindset-quotes\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mental toughness<\/a>, and giving one another the benefit of the doubt so that we don\u2019t \u201cbankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security,\u201d as President Dwight D. Eisenhower <a title=\"military-industrial complex quotes\" href=\"https:\/\/ammo.com\/articles\/military-industrial-complex-quotes\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">warned us about<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>The rest of this essay can be read <a href=\"https:\/\/ammo.com\/articles\/bubble-wrapped-americans-how-us-became-obsessed-with-physical-emotional-safety\">here<\/a> at Ammo.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by Sam Jacobs, Lead Writer and\u00a0Chief Historian of Ammo.com \u201cIn America we say if anyone gets hurt, we will ban it for everyone everywhere for all time. And before we know it, everything is banned.\u201d -Jonathan Haidt It\u2019s a common refrain: We have bubble-wrapped the world. Americans in particular are obsessed with \u201csafety.\u201d The&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3634,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v16.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bubble-Wrapped Americans: How the U.S. Became Obsessed with Physical and Emotional Safety - San Diego News Desk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=3633\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bubble-Wrapped Americans: How the U.S. Became Obsessed with Physical and Emotional Safety - San Diego News Desk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Written by Sam Jacobs, Lead Writer and\u00a0Chief Historian of Ammo.com \u201cIn America we say if anyone gets hurt, we will ban it for everyone everywhere for all time. And before we know it, everything is banned.\u201d -Jonathan Haidt It\u2019s a common refrain: We have bubble-wrapped the world. 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