Meanings
- uncountableAn obsession with keeping people safe from perceived threats.
The sheer weight of the Dahl edits reveals a kind of corporate safetyism: This might offend someone, so why take the risk?
2023 February 21, Helen Lewis, “Roald Dahl Can Never Be Made Nice”, in The Atlantic2 more examples
“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.
2018, Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind, Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 30While Haidt and Lukianoff focus their analysis on proto-woke novelties like “trigger warnings” and “microaggressions,” the cult of Safetyism is best exemplified in our response to the pandemic.
2023 February 16, L0m3z [pseudonym, Jonathan Keeperman], “What is the Longhouse?”, in First Things
Origin
From safety + -ism. Popularized in the 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, see quotations.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
safetyism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/safetyism
“safetyism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/safetyism. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “safetyism,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/safetyism.
Source: safetyism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.