Of course, that is not all they are doing, and even that quote does more than you think. A nice list of meanies there -- all seem so reasonable, until one gets into the details. Violence, eh? Really? All Quiet on the Western Front, Frankenstein, Count of Monte Cristo -- "trigger warning." Sexual Assault -- "Dangerous Liaisons" - trigger warning. But the big one here is "hate speech" - this will mean any class involving politics will have trigger warnings, if there is to be any discussion of anything remotely thought by Progressive leftists as "right wing." They say everything is hate speech. Supporting a right wing candidate like Trump is hate speech.JimC wrote:Well, if all they are doing is making sure that any course containing "sexual assault, violence, domestic abuse, child abuse, eating disorders, self-harm, suicide, pornography, abortion, kidnapping, hate speech, animal cruelty and animal deaths including abattoirs" has a warning attached, then people can ignore the warning if they choose, or take another course if they are feeling a little fragile...
Of course people can ignore the warning if they choose, but that's not the point. The point is to label book or a class as improper and then get rid of it. They will report professors for discussing the material in class, and claim to be harassed by it. The idea of avoiding it will be called blaming the victim, and they will say that they need the course or courses for graduation and it's unfair to require women to endure books about sexual assault in order to take a class, or blacks to hear the word "nigger." So, classic works of literature like Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter and Twain's Huckleberry Finn will be attacked, and eventually it will be easier just to ban them. The Right wing theocrat types have been trying to do that for decades anyway, so the only resistance will be muted "hey, what the..."" from the great, silent, apathetic majority who say very little.
That's not all it's about.JimC wrote: The list at the end seems to be a bit more bizarre, but again, as long as none of the material is censored, and it's only about a warning about content, then it's no big deal, IMO...
One, they are a misuse of a psychological/psychiatric concept. A trigger is something that sets off a PTSD episode. It's not supposed to mean something that bugs you or upsets you. PTSD is not something that ought to be self-diagnosed. If you have PTSD, you need a psychologist or psychiatrist. Also, it is not part of a "trigger" that a victim of war, for example, is "triggered" by books and movies and games involving war. A "trigger" is generally a smell, an individual sound like a certain kind of bang in certain context, or things like that. War veterans with PTSD are not "triggered" by literature involving war.
A trigger is no supposed to be something that offends one, troubles one, or angers one; it is something that causes an extreme involuntary reaction in which the individual re-experiences past trauma. And, in the context of a university, the few people that would have an "extreme involuntary reaction" to reading literature, or discussing opposing political views, have a serious psychological problem, and need to be seeing a doctor. They would then come to the professor with their diagnosed problem and work it out. A "trigger warning" is irrelevant, because it cannot be anticipate what, exactly, would trigger a person. It might be that a person was seriously harmed in a library, and so the smell of libraries "triggers" them. That can't be made a warning because it is hyper specific to a person. Saying "this book is about assault" doesn't help that person, because almost never does mere discussion of "assault" trigger a person who has been assaulted. It's typically a feeling, or an atmosphere or a something connected to the event itself.
The ONLY way they are relevant to general college life is if they are not used just for "extreme involuntary reactions" but actually used to allow students to avoid materials they find offensive or upsetting. And, that is precisely what they're not supposed to be used for.
Labeling a topic or theme is useless because of the way our brains work. The labels that we give trauma (assault, sexual abuse, rape) are not the primary source of triggers. Memories are, and not just memories, but very specific, insidious, and personally individualized details lodged in our brain at the time of the trauma encoded as memory. Details can include faces, places, sounds, smells, tastes, voices, body positions, time of day, or any other sensate qualities that were present during a traumatic incident.
http://www.stirjournal.com/2014/09/15/t ... dont-work/The argument that trigger warnings help to protect those who have suffered trauma is false. Most people who have experienced trauma do not require preemptive protection.
Skeptics should oppose them, because they have not been shown to work for their intended purpose.
Also the evening news has more of the listed "triggering" material in an hour than in a semester at college. Rape, murder, kidnapping, right wing politics, Nazis, Commies, you name it - antiabortion, pro-abortion, violence...all on TV on any morning or evening. Should the news contain trigger warnings. What about the news on college televisions - should they set up a special system so that the television in the common area of a dormitory cannot have allegedly triggering material on it or must contain a warning?
Make no mistake - trigger warnings are political, not protection. They are out there to relegate views in a political science class, for example, to the side or to get them "no platformed" in the university setting. They are out to get books removed - to "decolonialize" literature and philosophy and such. The violence they talk about will include colonialism, which will be deemed triggering to native peoples. That sort of thing.
