A Call To Rhetorical Arms Against Safetyists
Defeating Safetyism starts with a juicy stigmatizing insult.
“ELITIST! NARCISSIST! PLAGIARIST!”
Boy oh boy, do we modern moralizers love hurling our “IST” shame bombs to stigmatize anyone guilty of naughty “ISMs”—from elitism to narcissism, plagiarism to, well, you know the big ones. The impact is undeniable; in today’s America, getting labeled an IST ranks among every non-sociopath’s most potent fears, compelling untold millions of wrong-thinkers to keep their insufferable ISMs to themselves.
And yet, one extra-insidious ISM still enjoys a shame-free ride: Safetyism—that sociocultural scourge which demands the entire world be strapped in, bubble-wrapped, and rendered infuriatingly risk-free—somehow has no corresponding IST! Searches of Google Trends, Ngram Viewer, and the Corpus of Contemporary American English all confirm this lopsided uptake: Safetyism—as coined in 2018’s The Coddling of the American Mind—has entered the lexicon, but not SAFETYIST.
It’s time we fixed that by calling SAFETYIST on anyone who projects their pathological fear of danger on the rest of us. Indeed, let’s make it a dirty word—the go-to shame bomb for shutting down paranoid busybodies when they crank their crazy to 11.
If you’ve attended any parent-oriented community meeting (especially at schools) since the turn of the century, you’ve seen the Safetyism playbook. At some point, otherwise productive proceedings get hijacked when one parent issues an anxiety-drenched demand to change some long-established, perfectly functional, utterly non-controversial process or thing.
Their justification? “Safety”—uttered with the same breathy reverence usually reserved for invoking the name of the Lord. The panic merchant parent then bolsters their case with a sensationally tragic anecdote about one injury suffered by one person out of eight billion, and how this freak statistical lightning strike represents ironclad justification of their bizarrely specific “NEVER AGAIN!” crusade. Even if that means inconveniencing everyone else for all eternity.
You may have seen this tedious phenomenon manifest as:
Helicopter Dad Chad insisting that each morning, a squad of parents (led by him) suit up like airport tarmac marshals, set out 200 neon traffic cones, and bark orders at every car idling up to the school dropoff zone where there have been zero injuries in 90 years.
Helicopter Mom Laurie, still apoplectic that little Connor got an ouchie from the mean old monkey bars, demanding all playground equipment be mummified in Nerf®, and the ground padded with sustainable organic mosses and cashmere pouches of artisanal potpourri (which she just happens to sell from her home yoga studio).
PTA Gadflies Jenny and Scott, frantically advocating for penitentiary-grade surveillance cameras, fingerprint readers, and covering all schoolyard fences with opaque Teflon mesh to thwart imaginary sex maniac mass murderer boogeymen hiding behind every (dangerously thorny!) shrub.
These are the SAFETYISTS, and no matter how preposterous their demands, playing the safety card almost always stifles debate. After all, they present themselves as heirs to a noble public health tradition that gave us genuine, common-sense life-savers like seat belts, smoke detectors, and bike helmets.
And so we flinch. We self-censor. In that moment, we fret “Am I willing to get smeared as the kind of monster who pushes back against a teary-eyed parent ‘just trying to make the world safer’? And if I so much as question their unhinged obsession, will I end up somehow complicit in neglect, injury, or death?”
Unfortunately, it’s that very reticence to resist and denounce Safetyism that has landed us here: a world where kids are afraid to cross the street alone, where dodgeball and running are banned at recess, and everyday useful objects are banished and replaced with moronically inferior products like “safety scissors.”
We have collectively acquiesced to the bizarre, irrational fears of a tiny, extremely vocal minority. That’s why we need to label them what they are: SAFETYISTS. It’s short, potent, and instantly marks the moment someone has drifted beyond the bounds of socially acceptable caution. Sure, it’s also basically adult schoolyard name‑calling—but we play the language hand we’re dealt. If “AGEIST” and “SEXIST” name and shame effectively, then “SAFETYIST” will, too.
So let’s start calling a spade a spade—or, in this case, a SAFETYIST.
And when we do, the Chads and Lauries and Jennys and Scotts will freeze, as if you’d just told them their fireproof jammies are ring-spun asbestos. They’ll blink and taste cognitive dissonance: so certain of their unassailable righteousness, yet suddenly confronted with the very real possibility that their “concern” is actually bonkers overreach, and that maybe—just maybe—they’ve crossed the line from “caring neighbor” to “insufferable town crank with a cop whistle.”
So let the word spread and the stigma stick. Call it out. In meetings. On message boards. At the playground fence. Say it with a smile, but say it:
“Don’t be such a SAFETYIST!”
Then watch as the bubble wrap melts—and marvel that somehow, miraculously, little Connor hasn’t even burst into flames!
About John Allen Wooden:
Howdy. I’m a comedy producer, satirist, creative director and dad based in Los Angeles. Having done hard time in big online media, ad agencies, late night TV, politics, and parenting, I created Epostasy as my little soapbox for taking the piss out of all those self-important things. You can check out my latest kids book, The Liking Tree: A Kids & Social Media Fable, along with other shenanigans at johnallenwooden.com