Trigger Warnings
 

I've gotten into a discussion on trigger warnings or Simon Hunt's Metrical Facing Time thread, and it really should be transferred to General Talk to avoid distracting the thread more than I have already. Our discussion in the thread is fairly self-evident, and here is a very recent article from the Atlantic on the subject, which was resonating with me when I saw Simon's post, (I hope it shows, and it just isn't readable for me because I'm a subscriber), as well as a teaser first paragraph:

Something strange is happening at America’s colleges and universities. A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense. Last December, Jeannie Suk wrote in an online article for The New Yorker about law students asking her fellow professors at Harvard not to teach rape law—or, in one case, even use the word violate (as in “that violates the law”) lest it cause students distress. In February, Laura Kipnis, a professor at Northwestern University, wrote an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education describing a new campus politics of sexual paranoia—and was then subjected to a long investigation after students who were offended by the article and by a tweet she’d sent filed Title IX complaints against her. In June, a professor protecting himself with a pseudonym wrote an essay for Vox describing how gingerly he now has to teach. “I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me,” the headline said. A number of popular comedians, including Chris Rock, have stopped performing on college campuses (see Caitlin Flanagan’s article in this month’s issue). Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Maher have publicly condemned the oversensitivity of college students, saying too many of them can’t take a joke.


Comments?

I think it's an interesting/significant topic, but: http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=22937.

Coming back to add a comment. Once I started reading the Atlantic article, this passage from Alan Watts's The Book: The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are came to mind:

Safety first! (Reality and its messy imperfections, way down the list.)

I guess I should say something since my poem-thread led to this thread and since I am not going to enjoy seeming briefly to be the poster-boy for political-correctness-run-amok or whatever.

In fact, I think I would largely agree with Michael Cantor about matters of politics, intellectual freedom, the value in confronting difficult matters, the importance of humor, censorship, etc.

However, while Michael (and Andrew?) might lump "trigger warnings" (of the kind I appended to my poem without much thought--and do I regret it now? anyway, feel free to stop by...) into a dangerous larger cultural phenomenon, I would point out the following:

such warnings are intended as a courtesy to people who might find what's ahead traumatic; in this sense they do not censor but fore-warn; to make an analogy with what Andrew quotes, they're not so much like signs that forbid everything fun as like signs that say "Hey, there may be poison oak on the trail ahead."

Honestly, I don't have a dog in this fight, but here I find myself. Best wishes, all.

Quoting from Andrew's quoted segment, about signs in public areas:

I'm not at all persuaded that those signs are motivated by concern for safety. I submit they're there as protection against liability in the rare event of some accident or injury. Blame the lawyers.

The call for trigger warnings discussed in the Atlantic has a different motivation. It's a different, second issue, and I'd prefer not to get into that discussion.

A third different issue is the Sphere's long-standing preference for title-field warnings about language or narration that will bother some readers. We all know some Sphere members wish the guidelines didn't call for those warnings. But they do. Innocent posters who are simply trying to comply with the guidelines should not have to fear getting involved in this fight, and distracted from the poem, every time they want to post edgy material.

If you want a guideline change, get together with like-minded members and bother Alex, not other poets.

If this thread aims to find like-minded members, fine. (Incidentally, I'm not one.)

There's a big difference between finding something offensive or disturbing and having one's post-traumatic stress disorder triggered.

Here's a good reply to the Atlantic essay, from the perspective of someone who does get triggered by reading material. (My triggers are things like having a large man suddenly looming near. I've never been triggered by reading material, but I still wouldn't wish a PTSD episode on anyone.)

Note that the author of the reply essay doesn't use the warnings to avoid reading difficult material. Trigger warnings just give her the opportunity to mentally prepare herself to engage with that material, and perhaps save it until she's in a more convenient (e.g., private) setting. Her perspective is similar to that of a student veteran I spoke with a few years ago. He appreciated trigger warnings for scenes of graphic violence, so that he could postpone the reading of that material until he was home.

Trigger warnings (and strong language warnings, for that matter) aren't censorship. They ADD information, rather than taking information away. The kinds of things talked about in the Atlantic article attempt to make professors restructure curricula to avoid potentially distressing topics. Those things constitute censorship and an assault on academic freedom, and I decry them, but I hope we can agree that these things are SEVERAL hues down the spectrum from simply making readers aware of possible triggers.

For those who haven't clicked, here's the conclusion of the piece Julie linked above:

"If you do not find a particular piece of content triggering, do not automatically assume that it will not trigger someone else. It is a privilege to not feel pain or trauma in a way others might. You lose nothing by showing people the compassion my professor showed my peers and me. Rather than claiming that you are "afraid" of backlash, treat others as people who are coming to the table with vastly different experiences from you. In doing so, you'll establish vital connections and earn the respect of those around you."

Pretty well said. The "privilege" part is especially striking.

Best,

Bill

We had a discussion on this not that long ago. I ask a question to anyone who supports the use of trigger warnings: Can you give me an example of serious literature that does not require a trigger warning of some sort? And if you cannot, can you concede then that art often deals with unsavory aspects of life, and that this had been understood implicitly by everyone up until earlier this year when a few intellectually-lacking students chose to flaunt their ignorance of art and life and good taste?

Bill, privilege to not feel pain does not exist because all people feel pain of some sort. No one has that "privilege."

Caitlin Flanagan's "That's Not Funny!" in the same Atlantic issue covers the death and dearth of humor among college students.

Too much pussyfootin'. And I thought college was supposed to be a liberating experience. Well, it was in the 60s anyway.

Sorry. This was irrelevant. I had misunderstood others' take on the subject and now realise that mine was irrelevant to the discussion.