I Feel Unsafe. When the woke say, "I feel unsafe," what they really mean is, I don't want to engage with your ideas, and those words make me feel threatened. One of the reasons woke people feel unsafe around certain words and ideas is because they believe that words and ideas are violence. A psychologist described it this way: words cause stress; a lot of stress causes physical harm; things that cause physical harm are violent; therefore, speech is violent. If someone feels unsafe due to words and ideas, they usually believe two things. First, just as we stop people from committing physical violence, so too, should we stop people from committing verbal violence. So we need to restrict people's speech so they won't be committing violence and people can feel safe. Second, if someone is committing violence, we have a right to self-defense. We are justified in meeting verbal violence with physical violence.
There must be a bit of wiggle room though and allowance for relativism, the whole problem historians face often has to do with modern contextual interpretations influencing the way we conceptualize the “zeitgeist” of an era. Both positions are valid and need to be heard; and both are also defensive. Both positions are taking their respective stands so that they may preserve their own natures and feel somewhat in control of their social environment. If the external environment is in alignment with an individual’s internal values, that individual will tend to feel more comfortable with themselves and their surroundings.
Thanks for another astute entry in the Woke lexicon project, Peter.
When I hear people say “I feel unsafe” in response to a new idea, I hear their insecurity about their own knowledge and their inability to defend what they intuitively sense is an indefensible ideological position. Those who are open-minded, confident in their ability to reason, and tolerant of ideas that challenge their own embrace the opportunity as a way of honing their understanding, expanding their mental map, and refining their own ideas in light of new knowledge as per John Stuart Mill.