I am absolutely appalled and shocked by the ridiculous dishonesty of this article on trigger warnings:
Time was, a “trigger warning” might have indicated that Roy Rogers’ famous horse was approaching. No longer. These days the phrase denotes a growing tendency among North American university student groups to demand that professors provide advance warning about course material – books, films, discussion topics – that might provoke anxiety, panic attacks, or post-traumatic stress disorder in students who have been victims of abuse or assault, or who believe they are the victims of systemic discrimination. A few universities have even begun asking professors to remove said material from their courses.
The students who prevent professors from teaching what we want, who constantly find literature and film to be objectionable, who complain, leave the classroom in a huff, and are mortally insulted by most works of art are not victims of abuse or assault. They are, in the absolute majority of cases, religious students.
I have mentioned many times here on the blog that I can’t find a single film to show in class that would not offend religious sensibilities because, for some strange reason, movies often portray divorce, adultery, sex outside of marriage, profanity, and don’t always end with a wedding.
If we want to discuss the myriad ways in which professors are bullied into not teaching literature and film that offend certain students, then I’m all for it. But for Pete’s sakes, let’s stop being so goddarn hypocritical about it and pretend that it’s some ultra-progressive super-PC group on campus that is censoring free speech.
Clarissa's Blog 
Yes, well this could be good commentary. Part of the syndrome of lazy intellectual processing is to imply that everything in life comes down to a simple division between left (progressives) and right (conservatives). That is enormously lazy.
I actually can’t decipher American articles, except to notice certain tendencies of this sort. I’m never sure how concretely or practically true the content might be.
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So was the downvote this time an implicit assertion that the voter does not believe itself to be intellectually lazy? Or is it a denouncement of my ignorance of American politics and/or an assertion to the contrary?
Of course a thumbs down in the quintessence of expressed intellectual skill, so far as the person of extreme intellectual weariness is concerned.
Such a benighted and retiring person may even feel that they know more about what I really know about American politics than what I claim to know. I may well be an expert on it then!
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I suspect that people downvote you on purpose because you always post such interesting responses to downvotes and they just want to see what else you will come u with. I think it is a compliment of a kind.
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But I keep saying the same thing to the downvotes, which is that they could mean anything unless their meanings are articulated in words. In fact so much so that they give all their power to me and I get to decide.
Do you think I will ever smoke anybody out with my malicious taunting?
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I’m watching the process with great curiosity. Somebody has got to erupt in a passionate diatribe when just downvoting will get too constraining. Let’s wait and see!
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Well I ought to keep up the pressure then, but I am extremely lazy person, who galivants through life with really only one serious purpose, which is to mock pretentious pseudo-feminists and the pseudo-people who call themselves American Yankees, so my attention may be sporadic.
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Trigger warnings are simple courtesy, IMO, utilizing them has nothing to do with ‘political correctness’ (with its sneering implication of group think).
My university uses them – in my course we cover material in detail ranging from sexual assault, through bigotry and discrimination and up to and including rape, torture and murder.
There’s an annotation in the course materials for students considering which courses to take, and then when the material is covered, the instructor warns beforehand and reminds students of the (free, confidential) counselling and therapy services available should anyone struggle with the topic.
If you opt for the topic, you are expected to engage with the material, the warnings are not an excuse for students to try to censor the course, nor is there any leeway for personal beliefs; frex, when the law on personal autonomy is covered, Catholic students have to study the law on abortion just like the rest of us. There is some leeway in terms of mitigating circs should a student have some form of trauma that is interacting with the course materials in a unanticipated negative way; but that’s usually negotiated via therapy services and personal tutors.
It’s a nice balance between expecting people to be aware of their own boundaries and accepting that some people will for various reasons find objectivity a trifle more difficult than others.
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Actually, having thought some more about this, I wonder if content/trigger warnings being so relatively uncontroversial here has something to do with us having a lower context culture – they fit neatly into the same headspace as ‘mind the gap’ and ‘this program has flickering images’.
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This whole recent hullabaloo about trigger warnings is annoying because it attempts to discuss an issue without naming it. It’s a waste of time and a burning example of the straw man strategy.
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Does the term “trigger warning” come from a religious background? I was under the impression that it is a pretty recent term not originally associated with religions.
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The term comes from the journalist who is too chicken to name what is really happening. The students who make professors shut down discussion and cancel film screenings are not asking for warnings. They demand that this material be cancelled, period.
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Or he is just using that progressive term that typically gets thrown around for everything. Lol, it seems he’s ultrasensitive like the majority who need a “trigger warning” before they read something. 🙂
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Progressives with their often bizarre terminology are an easy target. This brave journalist is too scared to name the real problem.
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My syllabi clearly state that students need not agree with any particular theory or hypothesis dealt with in my course materials, but they are expected to deal with it intellectually. And yes, religious students would rather opt out than have to think about something uncomfortable for them, but in my book, your religious freedom to believe is not a freedom from dealing with factual things that disagree with your beliefs like the age of the Earth or the origin of humans.
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We don’t even discuss anything this “controversial.” But my movies and books often depict things students don’t like, such as divorce or adultery. And there is no way around that because literature of value doesn’t portray completely happy and righteous people who just sit there being righteous and happy and getting married all the time. There is simply no plot in that.
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