Education in a Culture of “Safetyism”

Abstract

Educators in America should be concerned about the failure of dialogue evident in television, newspapers, journals, and social media. Not only are people unable to talk and listen to each other, but some types of research are forbidden, stories are retracted in journals or newspapers because of a backlash, speakers are silenced on college campuses, and sometimes unfruitful conversations lead to violence. One is reminded of Raskolnikov’s dream in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, where the protagonist dreams of a plague that infects people with the idea that they alone have the truth, have the inability to understand each other, and end up destroying each other. The so-called “cancel culture” that we are suffering today is the fulfillment of this prophetic dream. It is rooted, not in modern technologies, but in the modern understanding of the person as an abstract, disengaged self that inevitably leads to empty conversations. What educators need today is to offer a richer metaphysics of the human person and an environment where students can learn what it means to grow in the truth together. In this paper, I will argue that (1) the failure of modern conversations is rooted in the flawed anthropology of modernity, (2) offer a richer metaphysics of the human person that can enable true dialogue, and (3) propose that Luigi Giussani’s Christian educational method can offer educators in the classroom a way to respond to cancel culture in a fruitful way.

1. Introduction

Educators, especially in the United States, should be concerned with the current climate that produces an inability to have true dialogue.1 It is difficult not to be reminded of Raskolnikov’s dream in Dostoevsky’s (1998) Crime and Punishment, where he prophetically speaks of a plague that infects the mind:

He had dreamt in his illness that the whole world was condemned to fall victim to a terrible, unknown pestilence which was moving on Europe out of the depths of Asia. All were destined to perish, except a chosen few, a very few. There had appeared a new strain of trichinae, microscopic creatures parasitic in men’s bodies. But these creatures were endowed with intelligence and will. People who were infected immediately became like men possessed and out of their minds. But never, never, had any men thought themselves so wise and so unshakable in the truth as those who were attacked. Never had they considered their judgments, their scientific deductions, or their moral convictions and creeds more infallible. Whole communities, whole cities, and nations were infected and went mad. All were full of anxiety, and none could understand any other; each thought he was the sole repository of truth and was tormented when he looked at the others, beat his breast, wrung his hands, and wept … Men killed one another in a senseless rage.

(pp. 523–24)

Especially with the rise of social media, many more voices have become influential, resulting in protests against speakers on college campuses, laying off employees because of a statement expressed on a social media platform in the past, forbidding certain research, destruction of historical statues, classical texts being taken out of the curriculum, censorship of certain political positions or politicians themselves, and sometimes acts of violence. However ambiguous the term can be, this mentality is called “cancel culture.” Those against this phenomenon invoke the value of free speech, even for those who cause distress, believing it would be better to know what positions people hold, however extreme, and that it is beneficial to one’s intellectual growth to hear the opposing view (Haidt and Lukianoff 2018, pp. 253–62). Those who defend some kind of “cancellation” invoke accountability, that people should be responsible for what they say and be able to suffer the consequences of their views and actions. The difficulty lies in being able to draw the line on what kind of speech or degree of offense should be tolerable (MacIntyre 2006, pp. 205–23). The deeper problem, however, is attempting to understand why it is that modern culture is unable to have a fruitful dialogue about the things that matter most in life. Why is it difficult to talk to one another? And what can educators do to confront this kind of culture? Without a richer metaphysics of the human person enriched by theology and an environment where young people can learn what it means to grow in the truth together, the problem of “safetyism” cannot be addressed. This paper will propose that Luigi Giussani’s Christian educational method can offer educators a way to respond to the culture of “safetyism” in a fruitful way. Giussani’s anthropological and theological vision of education offers a perspective in which we can understand the failure of modern conversations while offering a way forward to a more fruitful dialogue.

2. Abstract Selves in Empty Conversations

Building on Nick Haslam’s research in his work on “concept creep,” Haidt and Lukianoff (2018, pp. 24–32) pointed out that the word “safety” underwent a transformation of meaning in the 21st century, from the term referring to primarily physical security and protection of bodies from potential danger, risk, or harm, to now including emotional safety (Haidt and Lukianoff 2018, pp. 24–32; Haslam 2016). The same can be said of the word “trauma,” which originally was established on an objective criterion, judging whether someone had a traumatic event in their life, and afterwards has been reduced to someone’s feeling of having traumatic experiences. The transformation is a “shift to the subjective standard,” where emotional comfort becomes the criterion for safety (p. 26). Today, when one says that one is “unsafe” or has a “triggering experience,” one is referring to experiencing emotional discomfort. The result of this is what Lukianoff and Haidt call “safetyism,” where safety, taken to be a state of emotional comfort, has become the primary value of society. Cancel culture is a product of this sacred doctrine of safetyism, being intolerant of anything that makes one feel “unsafe” or “a threat to one’s existence,” which is to say, anything that puts one in an uncomfortable position. This includes speech. Any speech in school, the workplace, or on social media that offends someone is seen as a threat to a safe environment or even to someone’s existence.

How was the rise of safetyism possible in the first place? It would be a mistake to think about the failure of modern conversations by simply illustrating the problem of the “shift to the subjective standard.” There are deeper reasons as to why it is easier to see the other as an obstacle to one’s fulfillment rather than an occasion to grow deeper in the truth of oneself. The failure of modern conversations is partly rooted in an impoverished anthropology. More precisely, the problem with modern conversations is that they are rooted in a modern anthropology and worldview. The premodern understanding of the self sees oneself as part of the cosmos. One’s meaning was discovered by finding one’s place in the cosmos that is already impregnated with meaning, with a logos. One did not invent one’s role or place in the cosmos: it was always already there to be encountered. Harmony with the world was part of having a good life, a harmony that a person never chose but that was given to him as a gift. In other words, the person was viewed as already being one with the world and is part of a greater story that he did not invent or create. As Giussani (1998) noted about the premodern self, “The multiplicity of factors that constitute the human person and the human society were drawn into a unity; they were gathered together and realized in a single whole. In this way, an unfragmented conception of the person—and so also of the cosmos and of history—was assured” (p. 109). Against this view, the modern understanding of the human person is a disengaged self in a disenchanted world (Taylor and Dreyfus 2015, pp. 1–26). This started with humanism, which, although it did not intend to abandon Christianity, started the process of breaking up the unified conception of the human person, the world, and history, and instead offered a vision that made success and dominion over reality as what gives a person his value. Then came Descartes’ “turn to the subject,” where the human self has become disengaged, worried about building a bridge from one’s inner states, thoughts, and feelings, to the external world. And the material world is thought to lack any intelligibility of meaning or inherent purpose and is seen as a neutral domain filled with a mechanism of efficient causes through which one can impose one’s own purposes and ideas (Brague 2018, pp. 63–128; Schmitz 2005, pp. 50–80; Guardini 1998, pp. 1–49). This modern turn to the subject created a particular attentiveness to one’s unique worth. Taylor (1994) understands the modern subject in this way,

There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else’s life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is or me…Not only should I not mold my life to the demands of external conformity; I can’t even find the model by which to live outside myself. I can only find it within. Being true to myself means being true to my own originality, which is something only I can articulate and discover. In articulating it, I am also defining myself. I am realizing the potentiality that is properly my own.

(pp. 30–31)

The positive outcome of this modern turn to the subject is that it captures the worth and dignity of each person without any regard for one’s status or power within a hierarchical system. Not only should one discover and see this worth, but others must recognize it as well. Yet, what distinguishes it from the premodern (and Christian) worldview is that each person is self-defining, creating any values or way of life that one sees fit, and others must recognize and respect what one defines about oneself. Relationships to the world and to others are merely products of the human will, and freedom is seen as a limitless power to shape and define what I am and what I think of the world (Taylor 1977, pp. 6–7).2 It is this concept of the human person that seems to be presupposed in all conversations and dialogue today.

With this modern anthropology, we can understand why safetyism and its byproduct, cancel culture, came about, and why modern conversations will always fail (Latar 2020). Since the person is not intrinsically related to the world and to others, and one is certain simply of one’s inner thoughts, feelings, and what one defines about oneself and about the other, anything that contradicts one’s ideas, feelings, and self-definition is seen as a threat to one’s very existence. And since relationships do not have an objective ground besides a common agreement or “contract,” and are seen simply as a product of the human will, it is easy to separate one from the other if the other is seen as a threat to one’s self-expression and self-definition. When there is not a profound reason why a person should belong to the other, and particularly when the other is no longer found interesting or agreeable, the other becomes someone who is no longer related to oneself. Just as the Cartesian project fails to build a bridge between the mind and the external world, so too do modern conversations fail to bridge the gap between persons. The paradox of the modern turn to the subject, that is to say, the concept of a disengaged self, is that it generates the inability to speak and listen to the other because the other is reducible to one’s thoughts and definition and is not seen as constitutive of oneself. What results is the idea of the human person lost in a cosmos of one’s own making: an anxious, lonely individual (Giussani 1997a, p. 85). And the lonely person is one who is without affection. One becomes violent, both to oneself and to others.

3. The Common Ground of Humanity and Dia-Logos

A proper response to safetyism and cancel culture cannot be reduced to arguments about tolerance or free speech. A proper understanding of free speech is only understood when one sees oneself as belonging to a community with a common language. And what a common language presupposes is a common understanding of the world and of the human person. In other words, what is mostly needed today is a richer ontology, especially an ontology of the human person, that offers a critique of the modern self as a self-referential individual. More specifically, what is important is to deepen our understanding of the nature of relationships and the irreducibility of the person.

In contrast to the modern understanding of the mechanistic world filled with atomistic self-referential individuals, Giussani has a sacramental view of the world, seeing the world filled with depth and meaning that points to Another, and awakens the depth and freedom of the human person. The human person is not merely a subject in front of objects neutral to his freedom that he can manipulate, but an “I” that encounters a gifted world, which is to say, a world filled with presences that provoke the “I” to see their meaning and look for the origin and destiny of everything.3 The human person is an I always already in front of the gift of being, “a presence which I do not myself make, which I find. A presence which imposes itself upon me” (Giussani 1997a, p. 101). The imposing presence is filled with a wealth of meaning that calls the person to look beyond. As Giussani (1997a) says, “We could say that the world, this reality into which we collide, unleashes a word, an invitation, a meaning as if upon impact. The world is like a word, a ‘logos’ which sends you further, calls you to another, beyond itself, further up” (p. 109). To put it in another way, the inherently meaningful world that the person finds himself in is a sign, “a reality whose meaning is another reality, something I am able to experience, which acquires its meaning by leading to another reality” (p. 111). The world “speaks” of itself, of Another, to the receptive person, awakening the needs of the human heart to be open to the meaning of the whole. Reason is the openness of the heart to the whole of reality, an openness that would not be possible if the world did not “speak.”

In encountering this meaningful, gifted world, in front of an “other,” the human I becomes aware of himself: “First you are struck, and then comes the recognition that you have been struck” (p. 103). The logos-filled world produces affection (affectus) in the person, and with this affection comes the awareness of oneself as part of the cosmos and a providential plan. This includes the awareness of one’s need for the Infinite, which is the same as every other person. It is at this point that the person becomes conscious of the deepest truth about himself: he is a gift of Another. Giussani continues,

[I] cannot deny that the greatest and most profound evidence is that I do not make myself, I am not making myself. I do not give myself being, or the reality which I am. I am ‘given.’…If I descend to my very depths, where do I spring from? Not from myself: from something else. This is the perception of myself as a gushing stream born from a spring, from something else, more than me, and by which I am made.

(p. 105)4

Here we can understand the contrast between the modern understanding of “inwardness” or turn to the subject and Giussani’s anthropology. The uniqueness, dignity, and depth of the individual that modern philosophy emphasizes also have a place in Giussani’s thought. The difference comes from the fact that, for Giussani, there is no I without a You (Pinelli 2023). Every finite being in the world is a gift and has a logos-word that provokes (pro-vocare) the human person to look beyond and to become aware that he does not make himself, and that, therefore, in the innermost depths of his being is a You. Being struck by the other, that is to say, having an affection for the other, comes before being aware of one’s innermost depths. “Being true to myself” can only take place within an affection for another. It is only because the world “speaks” to me, because I am addressed by another, that I can be aware of my own depths, depths that bring me to the origin of myself and of the world. What this essentially means is that, contrary to the modern conception of the individual as self-referential, the beginning and end of the human person is a “You.” One can never reduce the person to one’s own wishes, desires, or thoughts because each person possesses a direct relationship with this You (Giussani 1997a, p. 91). This transcendent “You” that grounds all things, not the human “I”, is the prime mover and summum bonum of humanity. This is why the most reasonable posture a person can have is that of prayer. Giussani’s understanding of the person is an engaged self in front of the logos-gift of the world who cannot help but understand that he cannot utter the word “I” unless he acknowledges a Father: “I am-you-who make me.” Giussani notes, “Whereas God, Father in every instant, is conceiving me now. No one is so much a father: he who generates. To be conscious of oneself right to the core is to perceive, at the depths of self, an Other. This is prayer: to be conscious of oneself to the very centre, to the point of meeting an Other” (p. 106).

What Giussani notes, contrary to the monological character of the modern person, is the inherently dialogical and irreducible nature of each human being. It is an undoubtedly Christian mindset that begins from such an anthropology. For, as Ratzinger (2004) noted, in Christianity, the Triune God “opens up a new understanding of reality, of what man is and of what God is” (p. 190). The contribution of the Christian faith, in meditating on the person of Jesus Christ and the Trinity, is the enrichment of the category of relation in ontology, and therefore in anthropology.5 The human person is made in the image and likeness of a God who is always already in dialogue. Ratzinger captures the Christian contribution this way,

The discovery of the dialogue within God led to the assumption of the presence in God of an “I” and a “You”, an element of relationship, of coexistent diversity and affinity, for which the concept of persona absolutely dictated itself…The experience of God who conducts a dialogue, of the God who is not only logos but also dia-logos, not only idea and meaning but speech and word in the reciprocal exchanges of partners in conversation…it became clear that the dialogue, the relation, stands beside the substance as an equally primordial form of being.

(pp. 182–83)

Relationships, then, unlike what modernity proposes, are not inessential to the person, or something added by one’s own power. The person is always already in relation to the world and to God, even apart from one’s strength and power, and it is by affirming this relationship that one finds one’s unity. As Giussani (1997b) said, “Therefore it is the relationship with the other that constitutes the strength of your ‘I’, the wealth of your ‘I’; it is the relationship with the other that constitutes your unity” (p. 72, my translation).6 This entails the dramatic nature of the human person: there is always another that provokes one’s freedom, that provokes one to adhere to the truth about the world, about oneself, and about God (p. 74).

What are the connotations of this starting point in contrast to modernity? It means that there is nothing that I can do that takes away my relationship with the other. In contrast to modern anthropology, I do not need to build a bridge to the other, but I am always already in relationship with the other. Every human person is grounded by the You, by the Infinite, and every human person is related to one another because of their relation to that You, their origin and destiny. Each person has the same need for this You, and this allows each person to be aware that they belong to each other. It is this ontological ground that allows dialogue to be possible. If we apply Giussani’s sacramental worldview, the world having a logos-word like character, then we can say that each person has his own unique logos, a meaning-word, that only he can say and carry (Latar 2020). Each person is also related to the eternal Logos-Word and can express the Logos in his own unique way, but the Logos will always be greater than each particular logos; the logoi never exhaust the Logos.7 In other words, no person can claim the whole truth, the whole Logos, even as they partially express it. This limit is not a defect of the person but brings about the necessity of being in a relationship with the other to understand the fullness of truth. This opens the person to a common life, since each word or logos is necessary to understanding the meaning or Logos of existence as a whole. I cannot know the meaning of the whole cosmos, even of my own depth and meaning, without another. If this is indeed true, then each person’s attitude towards another should always be that of affection. As Giussani (1997a) said, “When the otherness emerges before one’s eyes, the human person is not given to posing speculative inquiries, but to venerating, to pleading, to entreating, to invoking, to contemplating” (p. 102). The other is not first and foremost a threat, but a gift so that I can grow with the other.

Dialogue, then, means striving to understand the particular word each person carries in relation to the Word. Especially in conflicts and deep disagreements, the person will comprehend that there is a greater and deeper relationship that exists with the other, and that there is no conflict or disagreement that can erase the deep relationship between persons. Rather, this relationship, grounded in the Logos-Word, allows people in conflict to begin again. True dialogue is not simply affirming one’s own views or projecting one’s own thoughts to another, but rather uplifting the other in his or her unique relation to the Logos, to the truth, by listening, affirming, and even assisting to bring out what the other has to say. It is first and foremost an act of listening, which is an act of love. As Ratzinger (1995b) said,

Dialogue first comes to being where there is not only speech but listening…To listen means to know and to acknowledge another and to allow him to step into the realm of one’s own ‘I.’ It is readiness to assimilate his word, and therein his being, into one’s reality as well as to assimilate oneself to him in corresponding fashion. Thus, after the act of listening, I am another man, my own being is enriched and deepened because it is united the being of the other and, through it, with the being of the world.

(p. 33)

In uplifting the other, a person sees how their own self is also uplifted; the other’s logos-word has enriched one’s own.8 The other’s giftedness allows me to see my own giftedness. Even self-expression would not exist without affection for another, without listening to what the other has to say. Speech is always already within the context of a relationship, one’s relation to the whole cosmos and to others, which is necessary for one to grow. This takes away the modern inclination of speech being simply a form of self-affirmation. True self-affirmation is affirming oneself in the other.

It is obvious that the world is fragmented and that there are many instances that show that relationships are broken. This is one of the reasons why the Logos-Word, which grounds everything together, became flesh. What Christ brings is a communion deeper than any association or even a natural family, because He restores one’s relationship with the Mystery, the Father (Giussani 1999, pp. 25–49). What he reveals about the Mystery is that mercy is the last word in history. This means that nothing can be censored, nothing is outside the loving will of God. Even sin and mistakes have a place in one’s conversion to Christ. There is therefore no reason to “cancel” one’s past or one’s culture. Consequently, the perception and reception of being loved by Christ can awaken the heart to love and embrace the differences of the other. And for Giussani (2012), forgiveness is embracing the difference of the other, affirming again the relationship with the other. He said, “The word ‘mercy’ indicates welcoming as an energy and a freedom that—like intelligence and affection—overcome the emptiness, the gap, the distance between differences. How amazing it is to think of the infinite distance that God overcame compared to our nothingness” (p. 25). There is no gap or distance that the mercy of Christ cannot overcome. The Christocentric worldview of Giussani allows one to affirm again that there is nothing, not even the most grievous sin, that can take away the relationship with the other.

4. Educating in a Cancel Culture

The proper response to safetyism, therefore, is proposing a gifted ontology that can ground relationships to endure difficulties, disagreement, and conflicts. Giussani’s ontology and anthropology are not abstract ideas separated from life, but are experienced in his communion with Christ in the Church. Ontology, for him, can and must be experienced. This is where one can see the importance of the educator (Trianni 2023).

Borrowing from the definition of education proposed by the Jesuit theologian Josef Jungmann, Giussani (2019) sees education as an introduction to the whole of reality (p. 25). This is evident in the story of his treatment of a young couple kissing in Viale Lazio. One starry night, Giussani was riding his bike in his cassock when, along his way, he saw a young couple “making out.” The couple saw him and stopped what they were doing. He stopped in front of them and asked, “If you were not doing anything wrong, why did you stop?” He continued to go his own way, and the young couple were about to start kissing again. At that moment, Giussani (Savorano 2013, p. 137), looking at the stars, said, “The most beautiful idea I have ever had in my entire life came to me.” He turned around and went back to them and asked, “What you are doing right now, what does it have to do with the stars?” When he saw the couple kissing, his response was not simply telling them to change their behavior or even a condemnation, but showing them a contemplative path to follow so that they can understand their action within a greater whole: what does this have to do with the stars? Interpreting this moment, he said, “There cannot be any human moment that is empty! Every instant is like a particular within a grand design…We perform no true deed unless it is within a universal design. Morality is to perform a gesture in service to the whole” (Savorano 2013, p. 137). The meaning of the particular gesture is related to the meaning of the stars, to the meaning of the whole cosmos. It is a “catholic” ontology and anthropology in practice, in its etymological sense (katholon), that is to say, according to the whole. The meaning of a particular thing is related to the meaning of one’s life and to the whole cosmos. The educator is someone who witnesses the meaning of the whole to the other, someone who points to something greater, and shows them a way to interpret the needs of the heart. Giussani, in this story, does not point to himself or to an abstract principle, but to a deeper understanding of reality by provoking them to look at the meaning of the stars and the cosmos in relation to themselves.

As this particular story teaches us, what is important in education, and what seems to be impossible in social media because of its disengagement with the person, is the importance of a concrete authority. It starts in the family, with one’s parents, and continues to the school where the teacher should embody and be united with the authority of the parents. In Giussani’s ontology, every person is united to something that is greater than they (the logoi in the Logos or “God all in all”), and the educator embodies this ground of communion. There can be no communion, then, without authority (Latar 2020). An educator is not someone who has more power than others, but someone who has the vision of the whole that can guide and help others to grow (augere) in understanding the whole of reality. This is significant, especially when there is a conflict between people. Someone who has authority does not have to be infallible, but what is needed is a reference point of unity so that dialogue can always begin again in a fruitful manner. A mother, for example, is the guide of truth between two children who are quarrelling with each other. She usually knows more than her children and can understand each child’s point of view. When conflicts arise, what keeps the children from separating is their relationship to their mother and, therefore, the understanding that they belong to each other. It is in her that they can find themselves again and begin to discover each other in a new way. It is when they receive the mother, their origin, that they begin again to see that they belong to each other and see their relationship with the whole of reality. Their relationship is not threatened or destroyed by any conflict or even sin because it is rooted in something much deeper than their own words and actions.9

The teacher accompanies parents by embodying this authority outside the home. He is the interpreter of the unity between the students, himself, and reality. The teacher is therefore not neutral to the world or to his students (Giussani 2019, pp. 44–45). He possesses an experience of a unified vision of reality, transmitting a vision that he received and has verified, which is to say, tradition. He has an explanatory hypothesis, a hypothesis of the meaning of life and the world that he must introduce to students. In this way, he becomes a witness to the unity between the gifted world, the students, and himself (Scola 2003b, pp. 106–8). The world “speaks” through the words and gestures of the teacher, and students learn the story the world tells through his words and gestures. It is in this way that students will begin to see the world as the teacher sees it, and begin to see the meaning of the world (pp. 29–30).10 This offers students a certain stability and certainty, and allows them to confront their own understanding of the world that has been offered to them by their parents without falling into a skeptical attitude that leads them into uncertainty (pp. 32–40). This stability will allow them to be able to verify their own tradition, as well as create an open attitude towards others.

Students will have an attitude of openness towards another if they experience the deepest ontological truth about themselves: they are a gift of Another. This is why it is necessary that the teacher see them as gifts given to him by Another. When students experience that they are essential, and a gift to the other (to God, the teacher, and their classmates), then they begin to see that the other is also a gift and is essential. The classroom does not necessarily need to be emotionally comfortable, but it is the place where even discomfort can find place and meaning because students can see that the teacher has the whole of reality in mind (p. 43).11 It is the place where a student can experience the reality that the other is not a threat, but a gift. And when one experiences that the other is not a threat, even when the other presents many difficulties, then one begins to take risks because the end is always the same: moving towards the truth together. The classroom is therefore something quite other than a supposedly neutral platform, like social media or the media in general (Latar 2020). It is a place where students can always bring their deepest questions, help each other confront them, and be enriched by the gift of others. Naturally, this does not mean there will never be deep disagreements, especially when important things are at stake. What deep disagreements reveal is the love of truth that each person has. And what a classroom has, that social media platforms do not, is a unified point of reference—the teacher—who affirms the giftedness and goodness that each person carries so that they too can affirm the giftedness and goodness of others. To start seeing the other as a gift, as someone with a word that one needs, is a path towards reconciliation. Seeing the other as a gift allows one to even embrace and carry the difficulties that the other presents. Learning this in a concrete place will allow one to embrace those who are outside the classroom. In this way, the classroom can become a place of affection.

A concrete place of communion, rooted in the authority of the teacher, where students can experience the ontology of the gift, allows us to truly understand concepts like free speech, accountability, and tolerance. The difficulty in confronting the problem of cancel culture is that these concepts only make sense if one is already within a community, when one is already living a shared life. Accountability only makes sense if there is someone to be accountable to. And false speech is tolerable only when there is someone who can help the other grow. Here we see why student assessment by the teacher, such as the toilsome and arduous task of grading the student’s work, is important. Teachers need to know whether their students understand and verify the proposal that they give. They need to know what their students are thinking, even if these thoughts are wrong. And this understanding allows the educator to approach each student in their own unique way, maybe reformulating questions or rethinking lectures, so that each student receives the help they need. Students, for their part, will begin to see the necessity and beauty of being corrected. What is needed, therefore, is a constant engagement from the teacher with each student, so that the proposal given becomes a conviction.12 The aim for the whole class is still the same: to come to the truth together. Free speech is free only if it is ordered to the truth. In fact, only if it is true. And freedom is only received when one is in communion with the other, when one is not afraid to make a mistake because one can have the experience of being forgiven, and therefore one is able to bear the difficulties that the other presents. In the context of forgiveness, there is nothing that can destroy this communion. Nothing I can say will destroy the bond, the Word, that makes the other part of me. Mistakes can even be an occasion to see the communion anew. Forgiveness, the grace that one can receive in Christ, reaffirms the irreducibility of myself and of the other, while affirming the depth of the relationship. The concepts that the modern world holds dear, such as free speech, accountability, and tolerance, can only be understood within a shared life where the educator can show that it is always possible to begin one’s relationships again. It is in this way that one can learn to have a true dialogue.13

5. Conclusions

It seems that Raskolnikov’s dream in Dostoevsky’s (1998) Crime and Punishment, where a plague has infected the mind, “making men possessed and out of their minds” (p. 523), has already become true in the present culture of safetyism. The idea that emotional comfort is the most important value is so dominant that it is very difficult to speak and listen to one another. Yet, this plague comes from a much more profound disease: the worldview of a mechanical world filled with an atomized individualism that does not see relationships as primordial to or essential to the person. The cure to this illness is the recovery of a concrete place where one can have a true sense of belonging, even within difficulties and disagreements. What Giussani offers is a rich ontology and anthropology that is experienced within a communion of differences, where a person learns to have an affection for the other. This affection is rooted in an encounter and experience of a witness who shows, in his words and gestures, that the other is necessary for one’s fulfillment and growth. True dialogue can only take place within a common life where one can learn how to speak and listen to the other, where one always has an opportunity to affirm the words of another. In the light of Giussani’s anthropology and philosophy of education, the response to the culture of safetyism emerges in a common life where this hope radiates.