What I don't get about this is why trigger warnings and safe spaces always seem to get lumped together in discussions like this.
It's really hard to actually create a safe space. You have to actively intervene to prevent (or provide redress for) the "wrong" kinds of speech. I can totally see why a university would not think safe spaces were worth it, or even consistent with their goals.
But trigger warnings are a really simple common courtesy. There was a popular meme spread around the Fourth of July to be considerate of veterans who may be distressed by the sound of fireworks. If you think this is a consideration worth extending to a veteran, it seems perfectly consistent that you'd want survivors of rape or abuse to know that a discussion of rape or abuse was coming up.
I'd argue that it's equally as impossible to set up trigger warning policies.
While some trigger warning like the ones you mentioned are valid, the term has been perverted to include all sorts of things[0] where you could get in trouble for talking in public about insects or needles.
It's an impossible task to list out and educate people on everything that might possible trouble or offend. Once you open that door, there is no finite end to a list of triggers.
Many news outlets will say "Warning, the following story contains graphic imagery," and people don't think this is unreasonable; nor do they expect more specific content warnings in the future. This tells me it's possible to be considerate of common triggers while still drawing the line somewhere
> This tells me it's possible to be considerate of common triggers while still drawing the line somewhere
I agree it is, but right now it's very difficult to have the discussions necessary to draw those lines—supporters of trigger warnings only want to discuss the cases where they're clearly justified (fireworks & veterans) and pretend all uses are similarly valid, and critics of trigger warnings only want to discuss the cases where they're clearly not (slimy things), and pretend that all uses are similarly invalid. Determining where the lines should be drawn will be a long, complicated, painful discussion, but currently there's no way to have that conversation. If your opinion is somewhere in the middle, most internet commentators will lump you into the all-for or all-against group.
I agree it is, but right now it's very difficult to have the discussions necessary to draw those lines
When something is 1) subjective or very hard to measure and 2) used as an emotional bludgeon then then people are going to call "shenanigans" and even start to exhibit knee-jerk doubt about such things. Often, this is a tragedy, as the issues may well be both real and difficult to discuss.
The quality of such debate and discussion has been hurt by the "Eternal September" nature of online discussion. The internet gives everyone a voice, especially if you have time to waste. Hence, clueless Freshmen and middle-schoolers have disproportionately loud voices online.
That's a good point. Internet commenters tend to overgeneralize. Fortunately, those people aren't strictly needed for a solution. The only party who needs to listen is the content provider (in my example, the news outlet).
> Many news outlets will say "Warning, the following story contains graphic imagery,"
Since blood leads, this is, in my personal estimation, done primarily to increase immediate viewer count, not avoid - and thus retain in the more distant future - discomfiting sensitive current viewers.
> Many news outlets will say "Warning, the following story contains graphic imagery," and people don't think this is unreasonable
Yes, but students shouldn't expect that warning before a class on horror films. If you're unable to see graphic imagery, you should drop the class.
Similarly, students shouldn't expect to be warned about a discussion of slavery in a course about the American civil war. And you really shouldn't be able to get a degree in American history if you're unable to study the civil war.
No that's totally different. Broadcast news programs are often watched by small children. Parents reasonably want to shield children from graphic content which they are too immature to understand. However university students are almost entirely adults and thus expected to have the intellectual and emotional maturity to deal with the real world unfiltered.
> It's very difficult not to dismiss this as infantile.
Which is, in turn, why many people don't take these things seriously. Of course, perhaps there is a justification for "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" in colleges, but the issue of whether those 1) belong in the classroom as opposed to elsewhere on campus, and 2) should be a feature of colleges at all, is completely derailed by things like this.
At the same time, in a country that values free speech people are allowed to have idiotic opinions. The fact that people are giving those opinions credence because they are "on the Internet" is probably closer to the issue.
Really? You don't think people are capable of being traumatized by pregnancy, death, or insects? Personal injury and insects are among the most common phobias and pregnancy should be fairly obvious as to why it's on that list (I don't want to elaborate because that could be traumatizing).
Maybe you should try having more empathy for oppressed groups and individuals rather than writing off anything you can't immediately connect to your own experience as infantile.
"Maybe you should try having more empathy for oppressed groups and individuals rather than writing off anything you can't immediately connect to your own experience as infantile."
None of the items I listed involve oppression or special subgroups of people. They are basic components of the human condition.
An inability to deal with the basic aspects of being alive is, ipso facto, infantile.
Pregnancy predominantly effects women. If I need to argue that women are oppressed, I don't think we can have a discussion. Phobias effect the neurodivergent and your dismissal of this is ableist.
You're inserting your own value system, via the word "basic." It's indisputable that anything is an "aspect" of "being alive," but whether something is too "basic" to warrant consideration is entirely your construction. It is reactionary to dismiss oppressed peoples' self-descriptions of their oppressions. It would be progressive of you to listen to the oppressed and learn how to be a better ally. Do you want to be reactionary and backwards-thinking or progressive and forwards-thinking? How do you want to be remembered?
Whether or not they can be traumatized is not the issue. If those things traumatize someone, they should be getting personal professional care, not wastefully burdening every institution and individual they interact with.
You don't need a trigger warning policy, necessarily. Just a culture that promotes being aware of common triggers. This notice goes in the opposite direction.
>It's an impossible task to list out and educate people on everything that might possible trouble or offend. Once you open that door, there is no finite end to a list of triggers.
It's not necessary to exhaust the full list. Analogously: it's impossible to list out and educate people on every form of negative externality, but we still have laws to address the big ones, and that helps.
What is really needed is the common sense and personal decision to get help with issues which are distressing so that reminders of those issues doesn't cause anxiety, stress, or a break-down.
>Just a culture that promotes being aware of common triggers.
I'd argue we pretty much already have this. Most people are aware of when a delicate topic is delicate and will treat it as such or avoid it, depending on the context. Trigger warnings seem to be a hammer in search of a nail, or more likely to me, something that was perhaps well intentioned at one point that is now just a means of attention seeking.
> While some trigger warning like the ones you mentioned are valid, the term has been perverted to include all sorts of things[0] where you could get in trouble for talking in public about insects or needles.
This is going to sound like a bad joke.
Fear of needles are more legitimate than might appear at first blush. Those of us with a needle phobia will experience a sudden drop in blood pressure, precipitating unconsciousness. In some cases this leads to death, making it one of the few phobias that can outright kill you.
I had the good fortune to undergo desensitization via allergy shots.
> If you think this is a consideration worth extending to a veteran, it seems perfectly consistent that you'd want survivors of rape or abuse to know that a discussion of rape or abuse was coming up.
And at what point does it stop? Who decides what is a trigger warning?
If someone is afraid of wolves. Must I now stop wearing my wolf shirts?
When does it simply turn into censorship and shutting down topics and discussions you don't want to have?
If someone has a personal issue, what gives them the right to force their issues on others? Why must everyone adapt to them?
I suspect that there are more sexual assault survivors than combat trauma survivors, so if your threshold is the incidence of combat-traumatized veterans, then you don't need to extend the limit further to include sexual assault survivors.
I didn't hear anyone say that a trigger warning means "shutting down topics and discussions". Isn't the whole point that it is a warning: that the topic is going to be discussed, and that you're giving a heads up so that folks can brace themselves if necessary (or make arrangements to engage with the material in another way).
Maybe some definitions of "safe space" mean "shut down topics and discussions", but trigger warnings are specifically about having conversations, in a considerate way.
I don't think people generally include every possible phobia on the list. It quickly gets out of hand if you try to take into consideration everything beforehand, no matter how rare it is. What about people with acousticophobia, chromophobia, genuphobia, hyelophobia, or pogonophobia? No sound or music, no colors, no visible knees (dress code! no skirts), no windows or glass cups, and no beards!
But if you know someone with xanthophobia, maybe don't wear a yellow shirt to their dinner party?
I have an issue with safe spaces and trigger warnings. They aren't usually thought of being helpful by many, if not most, professionals. If anything, they are considered actively harmful for the "triggered" individual and increase depression.
They're a feel-good measure so people can believe they are being considerate of others and announce it to the world. "Look how thoughtful and considerate of others I am being!" While letting them deride anyone who claims otherwise as being an asshole.
I think you're missing the part where they are victims, and all we're trying to do is minimize the damage. That's a calculated risk that each person is going to have to take for themselves.
They were victims; they're not actively victims in the moment of a discussion. The damage has already been done. Conversely, you can say that you're helping with the recovery and healing process. But it's important to acknowledge the aspects of the past, present and future as they relate to trauma.
They're not experiencing a new incidence of trauma, they're reliving one.
A more "physical" corollary would be the "ghost" limb sensation for someone who has lost one. That person doesn't lose their limb every time the sensation comes and goes away -- it was lost before and after the incident. It may be painful sure, but who says that recovery and healing is without pain? One of the leading methods of treating PTSD being studied is having combat veterans relive a similar incident through a controlled environment.
> What I don't get about this is why trigger warnings and safe spaces always seem to get lumped together in discussions like this.
Because they are involve quite similar problems (safe for whom and from what? Warnings for which specific of the billions of potential PTSD triggers?) and are typically advocated for together, by the same people, as linked demands, to serve similar broad purposes.
> But trigger warnings are a really simple common courtesy.
No, they aren't. They are neither simple, nor are they, in fact, a common courtesy (whether or not you think they should be a common courtesy.)
> There was a popular meme spread around the Fourth of July to be considerate of veterans who may be distressed by the sound of fireworks.
There were actual several different ones, most of which were variations on combat veterans with signs at their homes asking for consideration and restraint.
> If you think this is a consideration worth extending to a veteran, it seems perfectly consistent that you'd want survivors of rape or abuse to know that a discussion of rape or abuse was coming up.
(1) Expecting people to, proactively and without knowledge of the particular trauma experienced by or triggers relevant to the audience, provide "trigger warnings" is exactly the reverse of the kind of specific and personal request for consideration at issue in the meme, and
(2) Triggering with PTSD is, in fact, quite complicated, but most often (AFAIK) involves sensory stimuli that are associated with the instance(s) of trauma producing the condition, such as sights, sounds, smells, etc. that were present during the trauma. Discussion of the class of event that relates to the trauma may be areas of strong emotional context and political sensitivity to many people (whether or not they are victims of that particular kind of trauma), but nothing I've read of actual PTSD and triggering suggests that they are particular likely to be triggers in the strict sense, even to victims of the trauma under discussion -- even to victims that do have PTSD and do have genuine, identifiable triggers.
(3) Proactive trigger warnings not based on the real known specific triggers applicable to a specific audience, if one isn't to give priority to certain type of traumas and certain presumed triggers associated with that trauma as "more deserving", quickly turn everything into a mass of warnings, most of which are irrelevant even to people who have PTSD originating in the type of trauma the warning is focused on.
I think you're making this way more complicated than it needs to be.
The point of extending the courtesy of trigger warnings isn't that you will, with 100% certainty, prevent anyone from entering a state of psychological distress. That's obviously not attainable.
But let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. There's really obvious stuff that instructors could warn about, but aren't. After I posted a similar sentiment on Facebook, a TA told me about their professor showing porn (featuring torture) in class. Who could have known that the majority-female class she was showing this to would contain some rape victims that left the classroom in tears?! Totally out of the blue, that.
Now, I don't expect anyone to know that aging wood with thin brown flaking paint is evocative of the assault I experienced; that would be ridiculous. But of course descriptions of assaults themselves are going to be evocative.
In short, there's really easy low-hanging fruit here, and I hope people aren't so turned off by the unattainable goals of safe spaces and 100% trigger coverage that they don't extend the courtesy of warning for really obvious, foreseeable triggers.
First, the very act of learning can cause psychological distress. It may involve being forced to consider that some of your long-cherished ideas are wrong. This creates a crisis since either you abandon the wrong idea you've held or you ignore the new information you've acquired.
One of the most effective ways of learning is to hear and consider ideas opposed to the ones you currently hold. But these kinds of things (trigger warnings and safe spaces) act to prevent this. It inhibits learning. Sheltering people's preconceptions is the perfect way to prevent them from learning to think independently, which is opposite to the reason for going to school. Or at least, used to be.
Second, what the hell kind of professor shows porn to their class!? The warning required in that case is that the professor is unfit to teach, and/or the course offered is unworthy of any curriculum. I'm not a prude, and I can imagine perhaps some sort of graduate criminal psychology class where that might be justifiable, but it seems some sort of written description would do just fine even then.
In my grandparent post, I advocate treating trigger warnings and safe spaces separately. I have no intention of defending safe spaces in a university context.
Trigger warnings do not prevent the consideration of any particular idea. They help students choose the best time to engage with the material in question. If you've been warned that a particular piece of content is potentially disturbing, you can schedule your reading (or viewing) for when you're ready- so afterwards you can actually think about it instead of attending to your screaming autonomic nervous system.
Your post is an amazing contradiction, all within about 20 seconds. An incredible read!
< One of the most effective ways of learning is to hear and consider ideas opposed to the ones you currently hold.
< Second, what the hell kind of professor shows porn to their class!?
Am I missing some joke or sarcasm? I'm normally pretty good at detecting it in text. How can you advocate for learning to explore all ideas, even if they may seem opposite to what you (or others) may hold and at the same time say its repugnant that a teacher would show a taboo idea in video form?
No joke or sarcasm. While I advocate being exposed to different ideas and opinions, I still think there are some subjects that are not worthy of rational consideration as academic subjects, especially for undergrads.
I recognize this is an unpopular view. To go even further down the unpopular path, I also maintain that many of our colleges and universities have failed in their evaluation of what a formal education should include and exclude. For example, I have had the unhappy experience of hiring many new graduates who cannot write complete sentences, let alone organize their thoughts into some coherent whole with a beginning, middle, and end. I'm told that kind of thing doesn't matter any more, but I disagree. It reflects their thought process, which affects their ability to make good business decisions.
Also, parent post was about the trauma caused when rape victims were exposed to same without warning. Apparently it's not that uncommon to think this subject is taboo for a reason.
I'm confused. Did she spring the porn on them? Did she just hit play as soon as everyone sat down without preamble or context? The students had no opportunity to object or excuse themselves beforehand? If that's how that actually played out, then that professor is either tone-deaf, or used to students with more...mettle?
Indeed. The term "trigger warning" seems to have been coined to give unjustified moral weight to the idea of content warnings, by implying their absence causes PTSD attacks, rather than just being material upsetting to many people.
And I can't help thinking that, like many ideas from social justice, overly moralising a reasonable idea has made it much less palatable that it might otherwise have been.
>And I can't help thinking that, like many ideas from social justice, overly moralising a reasonable idea has made it much less palatable that it might otherwise have been.
...Sounds familiar...
"...much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs."
>> But trigger warnings are a really simple common courtesy.
>No, they aren't. They are neither simple, nor are they,
You are mostly right, but there is danger here.
Traditional courtesy and political correctness do overlap a lot -- they tell us to do the same sort of things. They are not the same. As you suggest, personal consideration is not the same as political sensitivity.
But when the backlash against PC comes, that too is a kind of political sensitivity. Fear of being PC can lead people to be offensive when they would otherwise have been polite.
Not the GP, but referring to the more broad anti-PC movement... Lets say The War On (the war on) Christmas. Fear of being PC in a context like that may work out as somebody avoiding the term "Hanukkah", even while speaking about / to a Jewish person, for fear of papering over Christmas, or looking like they're trying to change the name of the holiday.
Some other anti-PC things, like use of the term "black people" in preference to "people of color" or "african-americans"; Or describing men and women in drastically different terms, or painting them as inevitably vastly different (to avoid papering over the differences or making them look non-existent) are their own kind of cultural sensitivity. Or in some cases, even a similar sort of language policing that has long been attributed to political-correctness, just on avoiding terms that people view as originating from it.
Thanks for explaining that. Is this a thing that happens? I've heard of Christians grumble when the PC crowd demands that some business/school/etc stop using Christmas-specific greetings/decorations/etc. I've also heard white people grumble when the PC crowd insists everyone use a new designation for 'African Americans', but I've never heard of anyone actually exerting social pressure on others to use un-PC terms. In other words, I've never heard of anyone being told off for saying "African-Americans" or "Happy Holidays". Perhaps my experiences are atypical?
My experiences (including through the American mass media) are the reverse of yours where Christmas is concerned. I've literally never seen someone attacked for references to Christmas, but i have seen a larger faction complaining about a "War on Christmas" and attacking people and institutions for using genetic holiday greetings, etc., and not specifically acknowledging Christmas, even sometimes attacking, on this basis, institutions which do specifically acknowledge Christmas out of hypersensitivity.
Wow, this surprises me, as I've been surrounded by Christians most of my life. I'm less surprised by the media, however--they're not very charitable in their representations of Christians (e.g., the Starbucks cup fiasco was literally one guy complaining about the cup design, but the media made it out to be some sizable portion of Christians). At any rate, do you perceive anti-PC pressure to be so prevalent as to be a legitimate concern? Do you think it would sway the speech of the average person toward legitimately offensive terms?
"black people" isn't necessarily anti-PC. Lots of people identify that way in preference to African-American. (And PoC is a wider group, not an equivalent alternative.)
I can't decide whether or not I'm playing devil's advocate with this question. In any case, please don't take it too seriously, but I think it might be interesting.
Why did you not include a trigger warning about the discussion of rape in your comment?
I'm sure we can find someone who is uncomfortable at the mere mention of the word. Not that we should necessarily accommodate such extremes, but how do you decide where to draw the line?
You work together to find a reasonable balance between accommodating the most common and severe trauma triggers without shutting down general discussion.
For example, there are people who were raped by a man with a deep voice and are triggered by men with deep voices. That's a really shitty situation to be in, but it's unreasonably onerous to expect deep-voiced men to warn everyone in the vicinity (perhaps with a sign) before speaking, especially since there are very few people with that particular trigger. Asking people to give a warning before they intend to discuss rape in detail is not onerous, and it helps a rather larger number of people.
Edit: I'd really like to know why this is getting downvoted.
I actually know someone who just shuts down and freezes for a few minutes at the mere mention of the word "rape". This person has made their discomfort known to their friends and requested the word be avoided in conversation, which is an easy enough request to comply with out of courtesy.
Note that this is a group of people drawn from 4chan and adjacent communities whose primary socialization is voip and online games, all areas known for a "challenging" discussion environment. The line seems to be, in this case, that one can reasonably expect to carve out a "safe space" among family and friends, but not total strangers.
If we try to have a culture that considers trigger warnings a courtesy worth extending, rather than having a policy saying yes/no, then the question of where the line should be drawn can be answered by each instructor as they see fit.
It's likely that a few obviously triggering things can be labelled as such and good can be derived from that even if we can't or shouldn't label everything.
You guess and invite people to correct you if you're wrong? How is anything that requires judgement decided? Eventually there will be an accepted norm but at the beginning there never is.
That's a nice solution if everything is more or less working properly. The problem is, "What do you do when they tell you you're wrong about everything?"
One of the links in the article was to an article by a law professor talking about the difficulty of teaching rape and sexual assault law. The point being made there was that the entire subject has become off-limits -- literally, a large number of her colleagues had simply elected not to teach it anymore.
If your complaint is that, today, students are demanding an abuse of the notion of trigger warnings and safe spaces to effectively prevent exposure to potentially upsetting discussions, and that we are harming the long-term development of students by doing so, then by definition, you believe the corrections you'd get would essentially take the form "bring back all the trigger warnings we had when you started this process".
That might be true, but there are a variety of cases where we've decided to stop using a word in general in order to avoid causing undue distress; "slave" (i/r/t "master" and "slave") in a computing context is now generally always phrased in another way, for example.
That's mostly self-contained on Github. Where busybodies have little else to do but open issues on projects in the name of social justice without ever contributing to the project itself in a meaningful manner. See: /r/gitinaction
The word "master" was also under fire not too long ago. They replaced it with "head". I'm honestly surprised a certain political group haven't jumped at the opportunity to get "head" replaced due to being too phalic.
Databases have been using master/replica lately, which, fortuitously is (usually) actually slightly more precise anyway, and so is strictly better in every way
No, it's literally to use 'leader'. Not a German word that has a rather specific meaning when used in languages outside of German (although I suppose it's at least somewhat loaded in Germany too).
It’s severely loaded in German, and how’d you teach students about "leader/follower" without translating that part?
There’s something like other languages, which you translate to for documentation or teaching purposes, which means the German material will either have only this one in english (which leads to everyone immediately realizing why), or just using Führer.
That’s not in any way solving the issue.
For every word, there is a context in which it is offensive. Just stop caring about that, instead of trying to do the impossible for no benefit.
I've went the opposite direction. I now describe the organization of a typical plantation in mid-19th century America as being run by a white leader with black followers doing the work.
Source: I am a professional high-volume database guy doing this stuff since the mid 1990's and still deeply embedded with it now.
There are projects that have chosen other nouns, and they have ridden the wave of publicity around this, but by my estimation* more than 90% of database-related projects still use master/slave.
*as in I haven't done any formal record-keeping, nor will I.
The article links to another on teaching rape law to criminal-law students.[1] From that article:
One teacher I know was recently asked by a student not
to use the word “violate” in class—as in “Does this
conduct violate the law?”—because the word was
triggering.
So in some cases, even mentioning the word is included in this issue.
I would agree. (And was responding to the parent comment.) It begs two questions, though:
1. What's "reasonable"?
2. Does the meaning of "reasonable" change? (E.g., a criminal-law class vs. a computer science class) To me, this could be redefined as "topic appropriateness".
1. If I started posting the N-word over and over again this very moment, you would instinctively consider that unreasonable, so let's stop pretending to not know the definitions of things.
2. You can't rigorously define the boundaries of context.
With those two axioms, we can conclude that the root of the matter, which protecting the feelings of children who have been catered to their whole lives, is not a path worthy of resource or virtue. These are the same overmedicated people who simulanteously hold the belief they are just specks of dust in the universe while screaming about the importance of their feelings. Too many TED talks, not enough TED debates.
They are of zero consequence when you account for these factors.
I was with you on the first two points. I'm not sure how you got from there to the third.
> With those two axioms, we can conclude that the root of the matter, which protecting the feelings of children who have been catered to their whole lives, is not a path worthy of resource or virtue.
No, the root of the matter is protecting sexual assault victims with PTSD. Certainly some entitled children have tried to hijack that train for their own petty benefit, but we don't eliminate Medicaid just because Medicaid cheats exist. (Well, most of us don't.)
You're quite right that you can't rigorously define the values of context: something can only work with broad guidelines interpreted on a case-by-case basis. That does not mean that they're completely unaddressable and we shouldn't bother. People are not machines.
I never said the problem wasn't addressable. I said the types of people “safe spaces” are supposedly "protecting" are of zero consequence. As long as they are engulfed by their trauma, they are literally, of zero consequence. The problem of handling trauma is very addressable: Eliminate the safe space.
To elaborate, we have to talk about the nature of neurons and, specifically, neural plasticity.
Trauma is trauma (regardless of mass media campaigns to favor one type of trauma over another on a monthly basis) and neurons adapt accordingly. (Not always optimally in regards to personal development in an industrial context, mind you) Most importantly, they also heal accordingly. VR/AR experiments show the important of the visual cortex in rewiring the neural systems of paraplegics, allowing them to move their feet. This clearly shows the need of people to experience the world beyond what they have already modeled to be a reality to overcome massive trauma.
If people who have literally endured physical destruction of parts of the spinal column can utilize therapy to reprogram massive regions of the neurology to restore some physical functionality to a previously unrecoverable fate, I'm left with no choice but call into question the entire premise of "the safe space" and what function it is actually serving. (Other than unofficial voter turnout rallies)
Neurons are feisty things and to undermine their amazing abilities by claiming an individual's trauma is beyond neural plasticity is ultimately discrediting the fundamental humanness of the people you are aiming to protect. You are effectively saying "This victim is so broken and so subhuman, not even their neurons work anymore." In essence, you are the one saying people are machines because your altruism has concluded they are incapable of engaging in neural plasticity, and thus, must be denied sensory input via safe spaces to reflect that incapacitation.
Protecting the traumatized from what YOU think they should be protected from ultimately deprives them of the experiences and opportunities that neurons need to adapt to the trauma. No one heals in a jail cell of sensory denial, no matter how well-intentioned the warden. Thus, putting rigid borders on context will always fail, even if you are successful in the feat.
Have a little bit more faith that two billion years of biological evolution knows slightly more about itself than a few hundred thousand Xanga/LiveJournal ex-pats who are spending their 30s in one last angsty hurrah on Tumblr.
I realize this conclusion regarding the necessity of novel and unpredictable experiences to assist in trauma recovery contends against the widespread obsession of pathological altruism; the idea that those who mean well must do anything regardless of efficacy. This explains why Medicaid will always exist, no matter how many ill-willed scammers or high-power lobbyists game the system to their respective favors. Pathological altruism dictates that no cancer can ever be large enough, even as it devours the system whole. This just creates an ecosystem of competing parasites that undermines the legitimacy of that altruism via Poe's Law. Eventually, recruitment drives start to fail as essential outsiders and new blood no longer view your altruism as meaningful. Then it's off to the next monthly flavor of altruism, which is the same as the last one, all made up of the same previous players, but now with slick new branding to attract the freshly unaligned and uninitiated!
(Not all that sure myself) Perhaps because it's difficult to simulate the brain of all the other readers and reasonably anticipate offense. Like I know rape happens and describing it in detail might be something that most people are asking for 'trigger warnings' about. But only because it's been talked about. I actually can't simulate the brain of a rape victim and anticipate such things independently.
When a trigger warning is announced, a triggering concept is mentioned. When a triggering concept is mentioned, people are triggered. Soon, people associate trigger warnings with the triggered symptoms.
With regard to veterans and fireworks, I think that would actually be an example of a "safe space", in that the vets in question are demanding that neighbors not celebrate America's independence within a given radius of their homes. They're not asking for a heads-up before people shoot off roman candles...they're saying, don't do it near my house, period.
FWIW, I don't think this is a consideration worth extending to veterans, and I am dismayed by the fact that many vets have embraced the culture of competitive victimhood that has infected much of American popular discourse.
With that said I do think that a professor giving a heads-up to students that they're going to discuss uncomfortable topics (e.g., rape) in class is probably the right thing to do, within reason (e.g., if it's going to be the central theme of that day's discussion).
> With that said I do think that a professor giving a heads-up to students that they're going to discuss uncomfortable topics (e.g., rape) in class is probably the right thing to do, within reason (e.g., if it's going to be the central theme of that day's discussion).
I'd disagree with that. If it's central to the lecture, it should be essential/relevant to the course. If it's not, there's no reason to bring it up in the first place.
The concept of a trigger wasn't created as something to be avoided. Identifying a trigger is the first step in identifying and dealing with the underlying psychological issue. It's similar with safe spaces. They are things that people need post-trauma to help recovery. It's not meant to be a permanent need or something that should be broadened to the world at large.
Your therapist creates a safe space for you to discuss your triggers.
> I don't think this is a consideration worth extending to veterans, and I am dismayed by the fact that many vets have embraced the culture of competitive victimhood that has infected much of American popular discourse.
That seems a bit callous. Care to elaborate? I don't think they are usually framing these as "demands", and I don't see how asking for this consideration necessarily crosses into "competitive victimhood". Also, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, physical stimuli are the type of "actual" triggers than can cause real panic attacks in those with PTSD, unlike verbal discussions of uncomfortable topics which can cause emotional distress but not true panic attacks.
Elaboration as follows: I think that people putting signs on their lawn asking others to be considerate in their fireworks usage is less an effort to avoid PTSD triggers and more a misguided attempt to gain attention and recognition. It also has the effect of reinforcing the "veterans are damaged goods" narrative that is pervasive through much of our popular culture.
More generally, PTSD is not what most vets have, it's PTS. It's not a disorder to be a bit agoraphobic when you come back from theater, or to drive in the middle of the road, or to have a short temper. These are natural responses to stimuli that dissipate over time. The best way to help people through these acquired reflexes is to treat them as normal people, not as special snowflakes in need of coddling.
Also, people putting signs on their lawns identifying themselves as combat veterans and saying "please be courteous" or whatever else....that's classic passive aggressive behavior that is a demand for all practical purposes.
I don't think veterans are the best example for this point, but I totally understand what you're trying to say. I say this because I've never had someone legitimately and purposefully try to end my life. I have no idea what that feels like. Therefore, there are some topics of discussion that I avoid when I'm around combat veterans.
I think your comment about "special snowflakes" hits the nail on the head. I've been using that phrase for years to describe the type of people that push the "trigger warning" and "safe space" rhetoric at universities and on the Internet. These people, for the most part, are not victims of significant trauma of the type to actually cause the types of disorders for which the term "trigger" was originally defined in the psychological community. These people are living the life of what I like to call "perpetual victim-hood" in order to garner attention and give meaning to their lives. These people choose to take this route because the other paths to a meaningful life are more difficult and require much more effort. Why actually invent something or do meaningful research when you can complain on the Internet and garner millions of followers who throw continuously resonating rhetoric into your own personal echo chamber?
This has become a bit of a rant. I apologize for that. I just get very frustrated with these kinds of things because I believe it stifles the spread of new ideas and hinders progress.
It's just not an equivalent analogy. Explosions sound and light are somewhat recreating a war time experience. The classroom equivalent for trigger warnings would be telling veterans that a discussion of a war in history class was coming.
I think you're looking for a depth of equivalence that I wasn't suggesting was there.
To further muddy things, you should know that explosions themselves don't produce the responses they do just in veterans. High-bandwidth sounds trigger an autonomic response as soon as they hit the brain stem- long before the cortex has a chance to think "I recognize that as an explosion", the brain stem said "HOLY SHIT SOMETHING IS HAPPENING". This mechanism is observed in rape and abuse survivors as well as veterans.
So in what classroom circumstances would a warning be necessary?
I'm all for being courteous, I just have serious concerns about giving college students the impression that the world around them needs to adjust to them rather than vice versa.
A warning is never required. If you are unable to listen (or god forbid a disturbing image) to controversial issues that are literally occurring in real life you won't be able to handle the real world once college is over.
These things do occur in real life. Granted I don't foresee a professor showing a beheading video in class. However, for the sake of discussion, if the class is about geopolitical theory/issues and the discussion is regarding how do we deal with terrorists. Maybe the student believes we should treat them with peace and love but has actually never dealt with this issue in real life. By all means show them a beheading video without warning to see how their opinion immediately changes.
People used to congregate for miles around to watch a good beheading. They sold beer and pastries, and people fought to dip their handkerchief in the blood of the executed. It was a grand entertainment.
Now we watch Bachelor in Paradise. I'm not sure it's an advancement.
I don't think TWs should be required. But explicit descriptions or depictions of assault are pretty low-hanging fruit here.
By not making a policy, but encouraging a culture of learning about common triggers, we also encourage a more adaptive approach. If someone is distressed and they let you know, you can decide whether it makes sense to warn about that content in the future.
> But trigger warnings are really a simple common courtesy.
Yes and no. Sure, it is courteous to warn folks of overly graphic material. But at the same time, if folks cannot handle discussing such things in a university setting, they should seek help. Which should be readily available and affordable. It also shouldn't be frowned upon if someone needs to leave the room in such a discussion - and teachers should be open to private requests for trigger warnings when appropriate... With the understanding that the person will or is seeking help as a condition.
> If you think this consideration worth extending to a veteran...
But I don't. It isn't that I don't feel empathy for the veterans, but I think they should be offered (by the government) a safe place to go so they aren't triggered. This is a yearly event. And I think we (citizens and government) have a responsibility to provide help. The veteran has the responsibility to actually follow through with the help.
Why do you think it would be hard on a college campus? You simply declare an office in a building to be a "safe space", or a space designated for certain groups and then promote, encourage the use of, and fill it with people that align with <idea>. Additionally, the safe space is placed in a building that is not funded by taxpayers, thus can be managed in basically whatever way the university sees fit (including denying access to the space).
It's really hard to actually create a safe space. You have to actively intervene to prevent (or provide redress for) the "wrong" kinds of speech. I can totally see why a university would not think safe spaces were worth it, or even consistent with their goals.
But trigger warnings are a really simple common courtesy. There was a popular meme spread around the Fourth of July to be considerate of veterans who may be distressed by the sound of fireworks. If you think this is a consideration worth extending to a veteran, it seems perfectly consistent that you'd want survivors of rape or abuse to know that a discussion of rape or abuse was coming up.