Trigger Warnings - What's your take? (1 Viewer)

[Ilov80s]

The thread is called trigger warnings and asks for our takes. As one of the only people here in education and who uses them, I’m giving my take on when it’s smart practice and when it’s potentially not. Warnings before graphic content is the most (and maybe only) useful place for them. I do think written word can be graphic though as well. I would likely give a warning before a detailed description of a murder or rape. I know those aren’t the kind of trigger warnings that you dislike but they still are trigger warnings. 

 

[rockaction]

Things like trigger warnings and the adoption thereof are the reason I tacked to the right in the nineties. It seemed like people like Allan Bloom, Walter Berns, Herbert Storing, and others were the true heroes of intellectual freedom rather than the cool professors that kowtowed to their students' docile and safe sensibilities about what were appropriate topics for discussion. Similar to how Tom Wolfe (in his essay about the college lecture circuit and the O'Hare airport) described a college lecture by Gunther Grass, German postmodern author extraordinaire, about his reaction to the American campus: 

(paraphrased): "You're all so morbid. Do you not realize that you're living in the middle of a happiness explosion?" Grass spoke to the immaturity and unwillingness to look at the hard facts of life by the college students he saw. Forty years later we reap trigger warnings about topics.

 

[Ilov80s]

It’s weird because I never encountered anything like this in college and my HS students don’t really give a ####, they will talk about any topic no matter how brutal it is (including being molested, murdered family members, etc). Maybe it’s a coastal issue? 

 

[Ilov80s]

Also the early science on them shows that they aren’t effective. Being warned doesn’t seem to lessen the impact of whatever it is being talked about.

 

[bigbottom]

Love getting Ilov80s perspective in this thread.

 

[Politician Spock]

It took me reading a page or two before realizing this thread is NOT about a Winnie the Pooh character. 

 

[Joe Bryant]

It’s a broad concept and I think it has some useful applications and many applications that are absurd. I think the trigger warning everything crowd is wrong but so is the trigger warnings are all bad crowd. Like most things, it should be judged case by case.

Thanks. What’s your opinion on how Buttigieg used it in the original post?

 

[Ilov80s]

Thanks. What’s your opinion on how Buttigieg used it in the original post?

Unnecessary and likely having no real impact.Columbine and school shootings are so ubiquitous in our media and conversation that the topic is familiar to everyone, it’s not surprising a politician might talk about that as part of a gun control platform and there’s nothing gory in there. What was the subject of the email? Considering the topic, it seems like it would have the word “gun” in it which should be a common sense give away of what might be in the email. I don’t think he’s wrong to put it there, I just think it’s not really serving any purprpse but to show he’s a modern sensitive liberal. 

 

[Ilov80s]

Also I’m sure most will be happy to know I’ve never heard a kid say triggered seriously. When they do use it, it’s sarcastically. Like one kid says “Fortnite is stupid” and the response back is “Oh I’m so triggered right now.”  And I teach in about as Democratic leaning an area as there is in the country.

 

[Binky The Doormat]

Unnecessary and likely having no real impact.Columbine and school shootings are so ubiquitous in our media and conversation that the topic is familiar to everyone, it’s not surprising a politician might talk about that as part of a gun control platform and there’s nothing gory in there. What was the subject of the email? Considering the topic, it seems like it would have the word “gun” in it which should be a common sense give away of what might be in the email. I don’t think he’s wrong to put it there, I just think it’s not really serving any purprpse but to show he’s a modern sensitive liberal. 

His use of the warning would worry me about his handlers.  He didn't write that ...hopefully he read it and might have done some light editing.  

And maybe it was his idea to post something about the topic, but that's no lock either.   

 

[GroveDiesel]

The thread is called trigger warnings and asks for our takes. As one of the only people here in education and who uses them, I’m giving my take on when it’s smart practice and when it’s potentially not. Warnings before graphic content is the most (and maybe only) useful place for them. I do think written word can be graphic though as well. I would likely give a warning before a detailed description of a murder or rape. I know those aren’t the kind of trigger warnings that you dislike but they still are trigger warnings. 

That seems perfectly reasonable and fair.

 

[Man of Constant Sorrow]

After readin' here, I think we may need trigger warnings for trigger warnings. 

Seriously, I have never taken them personally - and have never given it much thought. 

Now, I will think about it more, but at present, I just kinda skip over em, unless it's something that I do prefer to avoid. 

I always thought that was how they worked. 

Interesting discussion. 

 

[rockaction]

I know those aren’t the kind of trigger warnings that you dislike but they still are trigger warnings. 

While this is technically correct, the trigger warnings that people are seeking to impose/debate these days generally revolve around warnings about the ideas themselves, not the graphic nature of the material covered therein. The controversy is about the extension of the trigger warnings to ideas. 

The Atlantic covers trigger warnings of all sorts. Do they work?

 

[Leroy Hoard]

It took me reading a page or two before realizing this thread is NOT about a Winnie the Pooh character. 

Or a horse owned by Roy Rogers.

 

[Ilov80s]

While this is technically correct, the trigger warnings that people are seeking to impose/debate these days generally revolve around warnings about the ideas themselves, not the graphic nature of the material covered therein. The controversy is about the extension of the trigger warnings to ideas. 

The Atlantic covers trigger warnings of all sorts. Do they work?

I’m totally aware of what’s going on here and elsewhere, again it’s tied directly into my profession.

 

[rockaction]

I’m totally aware of what’s going on here and elsewhere, again it’s tied directly into my profession.

Yes, it is. I'm just saying where the heart of the controversy lies. It also lays in my brother's profession and my sociopolitical area of interest, too. 

 

[Ilov80s]

Yes, it is. I'm just saying where the heart of the controversy lies. It also lays in my brother's profession and my sociopolitical area of interest, too. 

I know where it lies but what often happens in these types topics is they become politicized or semi-politicized and all the nuance goes out the window. We get people outright defending the entirety of the idea and people mocking the concept. There’s nuance here and it shouldn’t be lost in whatever political-cultural machinations that are also at play. 

 

[Man of Constant Sorrow]

Or a horse owned by Roy Rogers.

Owned?!

Where's the warn'n, bub? 

 

[rockaction]

I know where it lies but what often happens in these types topics is they become politicized or semi-politicized and all the nuance goes out the window. We get people outright defending the entirety of the idea and people mocking the concept. There’s nuance here and it shouldn’t be lost in whatever political-cultural machinations that are also at play. 

That's quite anticipatory. I think people are debating the term as is used in modern-day parlance. I think that one has to look at warnings about "the graphic nature of..." things as a given and the debate that is being had in the thread concentrates on warnings about ideas.

YMMV. 

 

[Man of Constant Sorrow]

Oh, I am taking all the serious stuff seriously guys, but I just need to learn & think more. 

I honestly have never given this deep enough thought. 

Don't take my stupid personally. 

 

[belljr]

TiL this was even a thing

 

[Ilov80s]

trigger warnings, safe spaces, toxic masculinity, snowflakes, etc etc etc-------any reference to or discussion of those phrases can just go away and never come back

Is there really a controversy around this?  I don't understand how anyone could have a problem with it.

I replied in a similar vein in one of your other threads but I think trigger warnings are a manufactured social construct by the radical left as an attempt to limit free speech.  

How am I supposed to have a conversation with you about anything that's mildly controversial if I have to censor what I say so that I don't risk offending you?  It's not possible.

@rockaction  These seem like pretty 1 sided takes totally devoid of nuance and seem to be in some cases injecting cultural-political views into it

 

[rockaction]

These seem like pretty 1 sided takes totally devoid of nuance and seem to be in some cases injecting cultural-political views into it

I guess, man. I don't know. Two of them don't seem too egregious. I think the "snowflake" one was the most sociopolitically charged one of the bunch. Not sure chet's was anything to write home about in terms of lack of nuance, and Free BaGel's assertion might call into question my assertion that people were accepting the given nature of "graphic depiction" warnings, but like I said upthread, YMMV.

 

[Ilov80s]

I guess, man. I don't know. Two of them don't seem too egregious. I think the "snowflake" one was the most sociopolitically charged one of the bunch. Not sure chet's was anything to write home about in terms of lack of nuance, and Free BaGel's assertion might call into question my assertion that people were accepting the given nature of "graphic depiction" warnings, but like I said upthread, YMMV.

Maybe I should just leave it be but...To me, someone saying they don't understand how anyond could have a problem with it-when people clearly do-comes off as dismissive of any possible cons of the approach. On the other hand, saying "radical left" and "limit free speech" is clearly a political take. It also IMO steers the conversation into the extreme. He says anything "mildly controversial" might need to be censored.  I just see lots of people and some posters here with these bold all or nothing takes on this and I think it's the wrong way to view this issue. 

 

[Apple Jack]

See also: overthinking it

 

[Joe Summer]

"Warning: this email contains a trigger warning. Those who may be triggered by trigger warnings are advised to proceed with caution."

 

[Ilov80s]

See also: overthinking it

What’s interesting is that I think that message could be applied to the pro- and anti- trigger warning crowd. I actually don’t know where you stand on it based on that comment.

 

[ChiefD]

I used to think trigger warnings were odd and unnecessary, and after hearing about how colleges are having to adjust how to present their curriculum's because of trigger warnings...well, to me it was just dumb.

But...last fall, when my daughter was 8, one of her best little buddies at school passed away. Just out of the blue - no warning or anything. She has taken it pretty hard, that even now every once in awhile she just gets really sad thinking of him.

And I can tell you with 100% certainty that any words of death, or dying, triggers sad emotions for her. Now, I feel confident she will grow out of it, but I've changed my tune on triggers. So I'm not so fast to judge those things anymore. 

 

[DallasDMac]

I am so clueless about this topic that I wonder if I need to get out more. I mean, I read this entire thread and really still have no idea where all this stuff is occurring. Other than recalling a few TV movies where I saw "graphic nature" stuff mentioned, I have no idea WTF folks are talking about in here.