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    Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

    This is a fascinating - if long - look at the cultures of micro-aggressions, trigger warnings, and the like. I don't agree with quite a bit of the article, and rather take the view that any human attempts to implement a reversal of this culture would quickly take a nasty, "political correctness gone mad" vibe about it, but it's certainly exhaustive.

    But is this only happening at college level? Because I read a lot about this on the internet, but I scarcely ever come across it in my daily dealings. That'll likely be my white privilege, of which I'm fully aware. Or it might be the company I keep. Which is, of course, largely white.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

    #2
    Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

    It's primarily a US university/academe thing, but is starting to appear to a limited extent in broader progressive culture and workplace as people graduate.

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      #3
      Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

      I think the phrase "trigger warning" is fairly new, but knowing a few people who have encountered extremely traumatic incidents, I think being thoughtful of the language we use, is the least those of us who haven't had such experiences can do.

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        #4
        Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

        It's been making the news because of certain cases that appear extreme and absurd on their face (some of which the article mentions), so for me it's a question of whether/how much those cases are skewing the picture.

        I found myself mostly sympathetic to the article's thrust, and think the CBT angle is illuminating.

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          #5
          Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

          David Agnew wrote: I think the phrase "trigger warning" is fairly new, but knowing a few people who have encountered extremely traumatic incidents, I think being thoughtful of the language we use, is the least those of us who haven't had such experiences can do.
          I agree, but that's not what trigger warnings are about, it seems to me. At least, not as they're applied to assigning literature, which is where the term often comes up.

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            #6
            Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

            I've had a couple of courses of CBT in my life and it worked, kind of. My go to analogy for it would be to say that both times, I was at a point in my life at which my brain had come to feel like a knotted ball of wool, and that my therapist and I sat and unpicked it over the course of a few weeks. I'd not be that surprised if it had a panacea-like range of uses, but I don't really know that much about it.

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              #7
              Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

              I eat lots of cheese before bed, and often find that I have wild (and sometimes terribly fraught) dreams that resolve lots of the issues my waking mind has been wrestling to compartmentalize. I call it Cheese and Biscuit Therapy.

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                #8
                Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                Some people find CBT actually makes things worse for them.

                Not least because it's a treatment that's often forced upon people and puts pressure on people to "feel better".

                There's also plenty of doubts about whether it's as effective as was once believed.

                http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jul/03/why-cbt-is-falling-out-of-favour-oliver-burkeman?CMP=share_btn_tw

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                  #9
                  Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                  Similarly some people find trigger warnings/content notes helpful as it allows them to deal with potential triggers as and when they feel mentally capable to do so, and to an extent control their environment when they don't.

                  OTOH, other people don't find them so useful. That's not to say they're bad though.

                  Kind of sceptical of people decrying them as a bad thing when other people say they're helpful. It's kind of an abolutist view of mental health that doesn't seem that valid.

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                    #10
                    Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                    But as the article points out, that relates to trauma, which obviously has validity, but putting trigger warnings on literature that investigates class (say) is less obviously worthwhile.

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                      #11
                      Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                      A trigger/content warning takes five seconds to put on something and is easily ignored by anyone it's not applicable to. I'm suspicious of people who decry them, it suggests they have trouble perceiving and respecting others' boundaries.

                      Come to think of it, the worst trigger I've ever experienced was a gallery room full of Rothko's black paintings, which set off a severe depressive episode. I wouldn't have expected a TW there. I could possibly have done with one at the photography exhibition that (unannounced) featured pictures of an execution by stoning though. Couldn't move for half an hour after seeing those, and was very glad I was accompanied.

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                        #12
                        Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                        But does it only take 5 seconds? Presumably you have to sit down and think about what possible trauma this could invoke.

                        Let's say I was teaching MacBeth, I have to sit down and wonder about what possible issues it could bring up and then write a list of possible triggers (murder?, witches?, caesarian birth? regicide? any others?) and even then I'd probably be terrified I'd missed some. Perhaps there could be a central database in which all literature could be tagged in this way so the professor's job was just to pass on the accepted triggers and thereby be exonerated from blame if someone turned out to be traumatised by the idea of moving trees.

                        I'm not trying to belittle the idea, but if teachers are (as mentioned in the article) not assigning certain important books for fear of the triggers, then that is a problem

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                          delicatemoth wrote: Rothko's black paintings
                          Did you look at them closely enough? Some of them are actually a very, very, very, very, very, very, very dark blue. (Father Ted video link)

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                            ad hoc, that's a fair point and I don't really have a solution, other than teachers being conscientious and students being fair. Hmmm.

                            kevchenko, they just sort of swallowed me up so I don't think I noticed.

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                              #15
                              Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                              Whatever happened to being open-minded?

                              You go somewhere to learn, and if you dont have an open mind, you will only learn what you have been programmed to learn.

                              Everything else is fucking bollocks. (Or, as in cBT, drippy, wax)

                              Do we need a 'warning' for everything in the world?

                              wanktag fuck off.

                              I read the article concerned, and will read it again. It is absolutely fucking mental.

                              You pay to go to somewhere to learn stuff, and you already have issues with what you are going to hear about?

                              I am so fucking glad that I am old. I can't bear/bare/behr this selfish approach to everything. Sometimes you will hear things or learn things, or see things you do not wish to see. Sign a fucking disclaimer.

                              FUCK OFF.

                              'I left my course because they did not teach me what I wanted/was inbred with/heard on the grapevine was cool. So I sued them/you/it/he/she/us.'

                              Just fuck off.

                              (Apologies, but this is the stupidest idea in the history of history. bar none.)

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                                As delicatemoth says, there's a difference between trigger warnings and content warnings. The link in OP (I think, deliberately) jumbles together this and every other kind of request made by students to form one big narrative about "coddling". University teachers, in this day and age, ought to be aware of potentially problematic content in the texts they teach, and prepared to discuss it when it's brought up by students. Tension occurs not so much when the tutor omits a content warning as when s/he refuses to discuss issues of class, norms of violence, etc, in the texts being studied.

                                I'm gobsmacked by the suggestion that the main victims of microaggressions – minority and disabled students, LGBT, victims of sexual harassment and assault – have had a "coddled" upbringing. But two white men say it is so, and thus it must be true.

                                And how patronising is it to assume that Condoleezza Rice's race and gender make her a positive role model for black and women students? Speakers like Rice and Clinton are invited by the college for publicity and prestige; no-platforming them is about the only weapon the students have to challenge that.

                                Sara Ahmed has written about this trend for portraying students as too demanding, too sensitive, too censorious: "The very perception of some spaces as being too soft might even be related to the harshness of the worlds we are organising to challenge."

                                And a thoughtful rebuttal in Jezebel.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                                  Do people who kick off about trigger warnings kick off when they say "this program contains flashing images" on telly?

                                  Actually, tv programmes regularly come with "content notes" - "this programme contains strong language, violence and scenes of a sexual nature". So do films.

                                  So I don't get why people are kicking off about trigger warning/content notes in academia.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                                    ad hoc wrote:
                                    Let's say I was teaching MacBeth, I have to sit down and wonder about what possible issues it could bring up and then write a list of possible triggers (murder?, witches?, caesarian birth? regicide? any others?) and even then I'd probably be terrified I'd missed some.
                                    It's a little upsetting to women who may be anxious about their facial hair, as MacBeth questions whether the witches are even women, with those beards.

                                    In fact, very judgey and bodyshaming to older women who like to gather and cook with friends of an evening.

                                    But general, on triggers: like "political correctness" it's there for a reason and I can see why people might want them in certain circumstances.

                                    CBT etc: I had severe panic disorder caused by an incident, lasted several years, and gradual exposure to scary situations has worked for me. I agree that, as the article suggests, avoidance and cocooning can perpetuate the problem, but maybe that's simpler in the case of straightforward phobias, rather than deep emotional traumas, dunno.

                                    Edit: it probably it, isn't it?

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                                      Ursus very vaguely hints at this, but part of the trigger warning phenomenon is that the US DofE has instituted rules on harassment and so on that leave very little, if zero, room for common sense. So a student who is triggered by the Great Gatsby featuring a rich guy who slaps around his mistress and makes a complaint could cost the university tens of millions of dollars in education funding.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                                        Triggers, or trigger warning is a term that is used when working with autism and other conditions related to the spectrum. So it has been around for a while. That the term has found it's way into other areas that certain action or words may elicit a negative response seems perfectly natural.

                                        Interestingly I have a mate who is a mental health nurse and who works solely in CBT. He reckons you can tell within minutes if the course of treatment is suitable for the individual.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                                          Triggers in autism are mostly about sensory sensitives, though, not mental health sensitivities.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                                            To add to my previous post: the key to exposure working to desensitise you in the case of phobias etc. is that there is personal choice whether to end the exposure or ride it out. I doubt forced exposure would work.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                                              wanktag fuck off
                                              Speak to them in language they can understand I say.

                                              I'm gobsmacked by the suggestion that the main victims of microaggressions – minority and disabled students, LGBT, victims of sexual harassment and assault – have had a "coddled" upbringing. But two white men say it is so, and thus it must be true.
                                              I think that's a pretty uncharitable take. (And of course their reply would probably be behold the eagerness to take offense.) The article is mainly about the putative aims of a college education, not of an upbringing.

                                              I'm a white male and I'm sure I know what a microaggression feels like. Not with respect to race or class, but that doesn't mean they didn't occur. Everyone experiences them, and they're wrong in every case. People suck.

                                              Pointing that out doesn't mean that I think everyone has it equally tough, but it does mean, in my opinion, that most can at least relate to what they feel like emotionally, once the concept is explained to them, and can therefore be entitled to an opinion on how best to respond to them, without that carrying the offensive implication that they therefore also know what it's like to be a minority, disabled person, etc.

                                              According to the authors, the definition of microaggression "has expanded in recent years to include anything that can be perceived as discriminatory on virtually any basis." This cedes the identification of them to the offended party and this is an obvious slippery slope. To notice the slippery slope is not to dismiss the harm of certain microaggressions, it's to acknowledge that the concept can be wielded like a cudgel, which it sometimes (often?) is. I'm positive the authors don't think that oblivious, unintentional, casual racism, sexism, etc are no big deal. Here is what they say:

                                              "Surely people make subtle or thinly veiled racist or sexist remarks on college campuses, and it is right for students to raise questions and initiate discussions about such cases. But the increased focus on microaggressions coupled with the endorsement of emotional reasoning is a formula for a constant state of outrage, even toward well-meaning speakers trying to engage in genuine discussion."

                                              I find that hard to disagree with. People coming of age are looking eagerly for ways to feel empowered, and there are more and less healthy ways to accomplish that.

                                              It can be an extremely sensitive matter to suggest to anyone that they not be too thin-skinned, especially when they're thin-skinned. How dare you. But in a fallen world, it is in one's own best interests not to be.

                                              University teachers, in this day and age, ought to be aware of potentially problematic content in the texts they teach, and prepared to discuss it when it's brought up by students. Tension occurs not so much when the tutor omits a content warning as when s/he refuses to discuss issues of class, norms of violence, etc, in the texts being studied.
                                              This is true and canning Ovid's Metamorphoses wasn't the way to convey the point.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                                                Nice post Brunho.

                                                I disagree with a couple of minor things, but nothing worth mentioning. (everyone has an opinion. everyone is not necessarily correct. I told you it wasn't important.)

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Trigger Warning: Trigger Warnings

                                                  I'm gobsmacked by the suggestion that the main victims of microaggressions – minority and disabled students, LGBT, victims of sexual harassment and assault – have had a "coddled" upbringing. But two white men say it is so, and thus it must be true.
                                                  I'm interested how you discuss how the problem really is about professors failing to mention class in relation to their texts, among other things, then fail to mention class when referring to students that are attending expensive private universities or elite state universities filled to the fucking brim with students from well-off backgrounds. The median family income for UC Berkeley students is nearly $100,000.

                                                  I mean, if we're point-scoring here, who is more privileged? The gay, privately-educated mixed-race son of two corporate executives living in San Francisco or the white male from a mining community in West Virgina where nobody has ever gone to college? We shouldn't be tallying disadvantages on a scorecard here. I'm technically disabled, yet I'm also a white male from a middle-class background and private (Catholic) education. Does my disability cancel out my whiteness? Does my whiteness cancel out my disability? Does being autistic entitle me to feel triggered by the Big Bang Theory?

                                                  Point scoring does two things. It silences white people, especially white men, who do have legitimate disadvantages in life due to their background, religion (Haidt is Jewish, I'm sure there's parts of the US and/or Europe he doesn't feel totally comfortable in), and very importantly, their class. It also assumes that anybody with any sort of difference must be disadvantaged, which is often supremely patronizing to those people. I have mental health issues due to autism, but overall I'm pretty happy with my life and I feel things are going well. My dignity is not less than Whitey McHighAchiever's dignity.

                                                  So really we should just stop it. Don't be a dick to other people, recognize that people aren't always trying to be a dick to other people, and focus on building long-lasting networks to oppose improper use of power rather than The Great Gatsby triggers me (and seriously, how do you get into university in the US without already having read The Great Gatsby?).

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