You could have warned me that link went to Sullivan.
Except, of course, as never seems to occur to the people who object to this stuff (which only happens in certain contexts anyway), the warning is just that - a warning. So all it does is put the decision of whether or not it's best for the person to expose themselves to the potentially triggering stuff the person who might actually have trouble, as opposed to just some random other person springing it on them.
I'm always impressed by the number of people who default immediately to "Kids these days! They're so much less mature than people older than them!" even when the context is just people trying to be more considerate. I mean, even when it fits the situation it's a stupid thing to say.
2: I thought you were being Zen until I noticed that there is a byline.
I think 3 underestimates the kind of BS that tends to ensue when administrators get their hands on ideas like this. Oberlin's (now revoked) trigger warning policy is a case in point:
The policy said that "anything could be a trigger," and advised professors to "[r]emove triggering material when it does not contribute directly to the course learning goals."
What could possibly go wrong?
Additionally, "trigger" is so vague as to be totally meaningless. "Sexually explicit material", "graphic descriptions of violence", "deals with sexual assault", all seem to work just fine as indications of what sort of material will be dealt with. "Trigger" almost by design means anything and nothing.
I don't know if 'the kind of BS that tends to ensue when administrators get their hands on (x)' can always be held against whatever it is. I mean, this is the sort of measure that could be used to criticize ideas like "leaving the apartment in the morning" or "I have the ability to tell people to do things". I mean, sure we'd all be better off if they didn't realize they could go to work, or tell people to do things. But overall these are still good things for people to understand, and even sometimes do (when they are not school administrators).
I've mostly seen this in the mental health context where it usually refers to what you can say in group therapy contexts. So, no graphic description of your sexual assault if all the members of the group aren't well known.
Trigger warnings: bad.
Spoiler warnings: absolute necessity. Never discuss anything that has a plot without consulting everyone within earshot in order to make sure it's safe to proceed. If anyone objects, stop immediately.
It is for sure a grouchy privileged old man asshole attitude, but I honestly do feel that for some fields that deal with sensitive stuff routinely, like for example, law, if you need a "trigger warning" before rape comes up in your criminal law class you probably shouldn't be a lawyer. In your career, even if all you end up doing is documenting technical ERISA compliance issues for major corporations or whatever, there are going to be times when a client tells you some sensitive shit and the response can't be to freak out because no one gave you a "trigger warning" in advance.
(This puts to the side the question of whether "trigger warnings" in all contexts are in fact appropriate for trauma victims, and it sounds like the answer to that question is no.)
Has someone made the obvious joke about the difference between trigger warnings for white people and trigger warnings for black people?
Warning: Their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs.
Warning: My horse is about to kick you.
There is such an amazing congruity between sensitive little snowflakes who never want to hear about anything bad, and sensitive overbearing jerkflakes who can't ever stand to hear that they've hurt someone's feelings, offended, expressed systematic bias, or been clueless. The latter class is IME way less likely to be self-conscious about how much they should suck it up and get over their annoyance at being criticized (those aren't feelings, that's ideology, which is different). I know this too is a cliche, but I continue to marvel at it. It's just so symmetrical, like... a... some kind of crystal.
This guy is relatively self conscious about it, which is why I immediately jumped on him. He also has little faith, amid his concern trolling, in the futility of the warnings.
17 is definitely true, but on the other hand this is some spectacularly whiny bullshit, even by the standards of spectacularly whiny bullshit from ivy league law students.
I have no objection to telling law professors that on the first day of the general Crim class they should announce that the class is going to cover the elements, and discuss examples, of various crimes including sexual intercourse without consent. The syllabus is going to say when that crime will be discussed, so the student can stay home.
I also don't have any objection to telling Crim profs that using a fact pattern that included sexual intercourse without consent on an exam probably isn't a good idea, although I don't think they should announce that fact.
I don't remember a sexual intercourse without consent question on the bar exam, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one.
The comments at the link in 19 are surprisingly good.
19: "Lawyering is a service business, not one of the humanities, whatever Robertson Davies has that blind Oxford don tell the protagonist of Fifth Business."--Flippanter, fl. 2000-2010.
Trigger warnings are one of those things where the harm is so minimal (what, it annoys some crotchety people? oh, fuck off) that if there's any benefit at all, of course it's a good thing.
The backlash against trigger warnings didn't arise because people were saying that professors shouldn't hold surprise screenings of The Accused in class without warning the students in advance or making some sort of accommodations for people who don't feel up to sitting through an extended rape scene. If that was what this was about no one would be complaining. If the message was "if your class deals with very graphic depictions or descriptions of violence or sexual assault, make sure to indicate that in the syllabus", the response would likely be "good idea".
People got their backs up because there were calls forThe Great Gatsby and Mrs. Dalloway to come with trigger warnings, which makes the whole idea close to meaningless and would mean attaching such warnings to basically everything.
I think what actually annoys people is bloggers who use trigger-warning as a form of pompous grandiosity to signal that they're about to discuss big, traumatic, things. But blowhards are gonna blow, so.
22 is right. This is the exception to the "never read the comments" rule.
Spoiler warnings: absolute necessity. Never discuss anything that has a plot without consulting everyone within earshot in order to make sure it's safe to proceed. If anyone objects, stop immediately.
Oh, man, I should totally have tried this on my English teachers. They were always trying to talk about books I hadn't read yet.
17: setting aside who we like better, or which are better people, it seems the jerkflakes have the better of the argument on this one.
People got their backs up because there were calls forThe Great Gatsby and Mrs. Dalloway to come with trigger warnings
TRIGGER WARNING: this book is a waste of time. Students who are sensitive to having their time wasted should read no further.
I endorse 26.
I had an odd experience in law school in the neighborhood of this topic, it wasn't in any way traumatic for me, it was just ... odd. For crim I had a first time adjunct, a guy with an apparently flourishing practice, who'd really underestimated the time commitment of teaching the class well. Not much worse than inept "Socratic" style teaching poorly prepared and badly done! We were discussing some harrowing fact pattern and appx 7 month pregnant me got roped in. The dude seemed to go into some kind of fugue state, where he'd rehearsed over and over in his mind how horrible it would be to inappropriately verbally attack a female student in a discussion of rape, and had probably been warned about this ad nauseam by the administration, to the point where in the moment ... he ended up enacting exactly precisely his worst imaginings. Except he probably hadn't imagined it would be an obviously pregnant student. It was astonishing! I kept on trying to deflect or redirect the discussion but he just would not leave it alone. Finally the class ended, he seemed to come to, and ended up following me out of the classroom totally freaked out and asking me to forgive him.
I am biased (how, I'm not sure, though) by the fact that I think a college seminar is a bad place to encounter pretty much anything less innocuous than an equation. (I once skipped class because I had enjoyed the book under discussion -- possibly Nietzsche? -- and wanted to think about it on my own without dealing with a bunch of sophomores.) Also perhaps unconsciously biased because the ex's-ex situation I posted about a few weeks ago has resulted in my reading pages of email about horrible things I sincerely wish I could un-read. I'm happy to try to help her, but it is pure altruism at this point, and in fact I probably need to pull back.
No knowledge whatsoever of law school and I'm at work, so can't extensively research my flippancy. I am a little skeptical of the guy's argument, though, and of his rhetoric. It was very "Look at this self-serving point! But seriously, real point." And really self-serving! You are right! Fascinating!
On preview: yeah, see, me and ajay in class talking about Mrs Dalloway... would have been just ajay in class talking about Mrs Dalloway.
Just to be clear, it would have been a disgrace if any college had tried to accommodate my preferences and needs -- I was an asshole. I'm not really sure what my point is, except that the linked article probably overstates how valuable seminar discussion is for college students. (It is valuable for your final grade, of course, which was something I didn't much care about.)
Next thing you know, someone will object to allowing kids to skip sex-ed classes based on religious objections.
me and ajay in class talking about Mrs Dalloway... would have been just ajay in class talking about Mrs Dalloway.
There is no way you would get me to read that thing, not even for a class assignment, my people invented the Protestant Work Ethic but even we have to draw the line somewhere.
If kids get to skip class because of triggers, its only fair that kids without triggers be given the opportunity to skip class to smoke dope.
Compromise: they can smoke dope, but they still have to come to class. "Have you ever looked at Learned Hand, man? I mean, like really looked at him, ya know?"
"Have you ever looked at Learned Hand.... on weed?"
Another example of a situation or practice that is much better viewed sociologically or politically than substantively.
"Because we think we can, want to see if we can, want to show you we can."
It is really relatively interesting, just as the fights over Huck Finn or Catcher in the Rye or My Two Moms from classrooms is interesting, as politics or social interactions is often interesting, as social power in practice is interesting.
What is really fucking boring for those not playing are those who take the substantive tool or opportunity interesting, as in saying "What's wrong with Gatsby?"
And Dalloway is fucking great.
I'll keep it short by endorsing all the cranky old fartish comments posted.
who take the substantive tool or opportunity s/b "seriously"
To be fair, the argument isn't "trigger warnings are soft! soft!" it's "trigger warnings (in most classroom situations) don't do what they claim, are so broad as to be meaningless, and may be counter-productive". Which I actually think I'm convinced on - there may be grounds for content warnings or whatever in classrooms, but framing it as about avoiding triggering people seems to be wrong and harmful.
Eh, the whole "spoiler" thing is such bullshit. Like you don't already know how pretty much every plot ever conceived is going to turn out within the first couple pages/minutes. What are ya, a 6 year old watching "10 Little Indians" or something? "Waah, boo-hoo, you told me how it ended!" SFW.
I've had to turn away from a few things lately (Hozier's music video, a trashy novel I started reading) because I can't handle armed home invasions in my entertainment right now, but I doubt that's the sort of thing that would get a trigger warning anyway. I don't think that adds to the discussion, but it's sort of surprised me even though it shouldn't.
I'll keep it short by endorsing all the cranky old fartish comments posted.
Word.
eh, if some blogger wants to put 'trigger warning, there's a graphic description of a brutal rape' and then have the rest of the post under the fold why the fuck not? it's moronic to object to that on 'kids coming up these days can't keep it real' concerns. should your school try to address in some way why huck finn the book uses the word nigger all the time, and huck finn the character allows his friend to toil in bondage for no fucking good reason at all, so he can spin up some scheme, before turning a majority-white class loose on it in 10th grade? that doesn't seem like the worst idea ever. it does seem obviously stupid to put a trigger warning on college literature classes. should y'all read mrs. dalloway? yes, stop being whiny little bitches and do your homework. fine, fine, don't. maybe it's an acquire taste.
45: You should always feel surprised if you don't add to the discussion.
Also, does Mrs. Dalloway come with a trigger warning that says . . . this book is about PTSD?
I don't know what has possessed me to leave this string of truly repugnant and idiotic comments. I do want to leave this one last one condemning all the rest.
OK, this one genuinely deserves a trigger warning and huge WTF: Victim: I Watched British MPs Rape and Murder Young Boys
Being a Lawyer is probably a pretty good career for the easily triggered. It isn't like you accidentally have to deal with rape cases or whatever. I have been a lawyer for twenty years and have never dealt with anything mildly offensive or triggering. You do have to take crime law as part of the first year classes though.
"I Watched British MPs Rape and Murder Young Boys"
That seems pretty unbelievable. My bet is that it did not happen.
I'm absolutely willing to believe the child rape part, including their basically having parties for it. But the murder bits seem really extreme and I have trouble believing that that isn't someone misremembering something pretty disturbing but not murder.
You do have to take crime law as part of the first year classes though.
True, but we didn't talk about rape in my CrimLaw class. (It's more like: here's how you read a statute, these are the elements, this is specific intent, this case is about the notice requirement, etc. Not a full run down of all criminalized conduct in the US.) The first time rape came up in class was in Evidence, the day we discussed rape shield laws, and the class before came with a short and totally appropriate-seeming trigger warning for anyone who wanted to opt out.
The very nature of the accusations strains credulity, but . . .
"Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald, who is leading an investigation of the alleged "VIP" abuse network said today: "I believe what Nick is saying to be credible and true."
This isn't one of those stupid "Ha! Made you look!" hoaxes, is it? If so, not funny.
Here, students may request an accommodation if the course material goes against their core beliefs (read: Mormons might see nudity or have to read a swear word), and we are supposed to be open to arranging alternate assignments. The specific language of the policy, however, informs the students that we may or may not grant the accommodation, and most of us deal with this by putting the language on the syllabus and telling them to look over it in the beginning.
I teach a completely vanilla intro class, and I haven't had any problems. But it's frustrating because there's an expectation that no one can ever be surprised by nudity, so the theater department has to have parental-advisory nonsense on their plays, and the art department is just not family-friendly but has to say that at their gallery showings, and when I found a PDF of a book I wanted to assign, I had to inform the students that the were some nude figure drawings on page 25 and they should flip past it if they didn't want to look at it.
The thing is, I have no particular problem with insisting that people address sensitive topics with civility and compassion, or giving a heads-up warning, but it's very hard to craft a policy that doesn't result in stupidity.
Of course, the classic trolling of the trigger warning was the old goatse.cx warning at the top of the page, directly above the horrorshow staring you in the face.
The MP's paedophile ring stories remind me of the golden age of Satanic Ritual Abuse stories in both scale and lurid detail. Don't know that it would be impossible but I'd hope some careful skepticism is in play.
Yes. Even though as a class, Tory MPs seem more likely to conduct ritual sex murder than pre school teachers.
Reading about the organization "Paedophile Information Exchange" is fascinating. Less than 40 years ago, pedophiles and homosexuals
A) were seen by the average person as essentially the same thing
B) had public advocacy groups making the case that they should not be persecuted because no harm was done by their practices