safetyism

Etymology

From safety + -ism. Popularized in the 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, see quotations.

safetyism means an obsession with keeping people safe from perceived threats. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 82 out of 100.

Why “safetyism” is a great word

SAFETYISM — [Noun] An ideology or practice that prioritizes the elimination of emotional and psychological risks as a paramount good, often to the detriment of intellectual freedom or resilience. From safety (meaning "freedom from danger or risk") + -ism (suffix forming nouns denoting a distinctive practice, system, or philosophy). Popularized, though not necessarily coined, in the 2018 book *The Coddling of the American Mind* by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. Unlike paternalism, which can justify control for myriad benefits, or prudence, which implies a measured calculus of trade-offs, safetyism elevates a single emotional condition to a moral absolute. It is the trigger warning that preempts the text, the policy that sanitizes a curriculum of conflict, and the anxiety that the wrong idea is a violence—a well-intentioned fortress that, in seeking to bar all storms, quietly denies the necessity of wind for sailing.

noun

An obsession with keeping people safe from perceived threats.““Safetyism” refers to a culture or belief system in which safety has become a sacred value, which means that people become unwilling to make trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns. […] The preoccupation with safetyism is clearest in the generation that began to enter college around 2013.”