Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The Atlantic takes on post-secondary PC/coddling

Then they are oversensitive, IMO. Art is art. We all have personal tastes. When we dislike a piece of art, our dislike does not make any automatic statements about people who do like it.

I mean, I hate turnips. Am I therefore implicitly criticizing people who like them? Of course not.

BTW, I do think "This book stinks" is a different statement than "I hated this book."

Agree with everything here. "I hate this book" is a personal, emotional reaction and it's irrational to regard it as anything but, IMO.

Also: I would think it's acceptable to have an emotional reaction to art, in any circle. It's kind of...the whole point. Or at least a big part of the point. Literary analysis is interesting and a good intellectual exercise, but intellect isn't the entirety of human experience. If it were, there probably wouldn't be any literature to analyze.

Intolerant of Truth: Academic censo...rectness at the University of California
by HEATHER MAC DONALD
City Journal
September 21, 2015

I wonder how administrators would deal with UC Berkeley psychology professor and intelligence researcher Arthur Jensen if he were alive today.

All blind dogma rubs me the wrong way and this is just one more example of it.

I have to say that I stopped giving the UC system any credence when I heard that Shakespeare is no longer required to complete an undergraduate English degree...

Also, even on this site there are taboo topics of discussion or comment. Woe betide all that attempt to have intelligent debate around racial disparities in average intelligence, for instance.

A follow-up/rebuttal in the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/sunday/why-i-use-trigger-warnings.html

I like some of the top-rated comments on this one. If only some triggers matter, then what does that say to those unfortunate enough to have unusual PTSD triggers? It's pretty clear that the two main causes of PTSD encompass a fairly large subset of college students-- combat veterans and rape or domestic abuse victims. As many as 20-40% of those people may have had, or currently have, some PTSD.

If one of them finds clowns as distressing as another finds, say, reminders of gunfire-- doesn't that mean that pretty much everything needs a trigger warning?

If it doesn't mean that, then it does mean that we've chosen to "other" people who have uncommon triggers-- I do have a problem with that. It's like making disabled parking ONLY available for those with some mobility-limitations and not for others. Hip or knee replacement? Okay for you, then. Severe osteoarthritis? Nope. ALS? Not for you either. Wheelchair? Yes, here's your placard.

On some level, this kind of thing constitutes a violation of disability law, even-- because PTSD, the real, diagnosed sort, is a real condition that really impacts life's major activities, and it really constitutes an impairment that can and is accommodated like any other impairment that is severe or pervasive enough to limit access. Offering the accommodation "just in case" is like trying to hand out disability placards at random to anyone that has ever purchased a walking stick, and hoping that one gets it right. This does not follow the process for granting an accommodation for a very real, and very disabling condition.

That's the real question-- does PTSD LIMIT access? (Yes, for some people, it might).

Also, do trigger warnings ALLOW for access for those affected by PTSD? (COMPLETELY un-studied, so far as I can tell-- and actually, PTSD accommodations are not that uncommon on college campuses, and are, as disability accommodations SHOULD be-- individual and idiosyncratic, created with the input of the affected student and his/her treating professional(s).)

If they do, then do they do so in a way which doesn't alter the fundamental nature of the activity? (This is the real sticky point. What IS the "fundamental nature" of a course of study, and is it right to second guess the expert who devised it and included shocking, distressing, or controversial material as a part of that course of study?)

I'd argue that all of those questions are wholly reasonable ones here, and that the answers are troubling, to say the least.

SOME triggers are "reasonably common" (only-- apparently not by relying upon actual data, but on "everyone knows" or "well, anyone can understand that..." kinds of anecdotal information), and others not.

The thing about real PTSD though is that it doesn't really care about what everyone thinks is logical. {sigh}

And before someone starts laughing that one off, it's not at all implausible for a 10yo to be sexually assaulted by a relative at a Halloween party who dressed as a clown. A clown could be just as triggering for a combat vet, who experiences a PTSD event in an urban war zone, and in the midst of carnage sees something incongruous with the surroundings, which draws his attention, and it's this image which is burned into his memory and forever associated with the horrors he has witnessed... a child's clown doll.

But I think the teacher in the NYT piece answered it as well as anyone reasonably could:


and:


The reality is that most sexual assaults and domestic violence go unreported, and digging too deeply could be considered a violation of student privacy, so apart from taking reasonable precautions like the teacher is doing, the only way to discover most PTSD triggers is after the fact.

I thought the professor's approach, which is simply providing notice of what's in the content, seemed sound and not as trendy as the whole "trigger warning" thing -- which seems to often not even mention why there's a trigger. Which seems to make it rather useless.

Students can find synopses of books on Amazon and other places. Since the list of things that could upset people is open-ended, maybe students should research the content of books themselves before reading them. In deciding what courses to take, they could do the same for reading lists that that are posted online.

I agree, Bostonian-- posting reading lists seems the best way to handle this. After all, post-secondary settings are (hypothetically) places for adults, not children. That also serves as a means of GENUINELY empowering those who might struggle with a way to control their own lives (rather than the sense of "being controlled" by external forces).

Trigger warnings-- and I say this on the basis of a fair number of family and friends who have experienced genuine PTSD-- are somewhat patronizing, and may well be isolating in and of themselves. Oh, fireworks aren't triggering for you as a combat veteran? What? Descriptions of others' assaults don't trigger flashbacks of your own??

People who have PTSD have already been traumatized by circumstances that most people cannot truly share in understanding. In a social sense, they are outsiders with a minority identity that they themselves didn't "choose." But trigger warnings serve as a patronizing means of "othering" on that basis, and furthermore, if your alienating experience doesn't meet someone else's specifications, then... it's alienating again. Because you aren't the RIGHT kind of survivor/veteran if your PTSD isn't the "right" sort.

Believe me, in some trauma victims, not responding the way that you are "supposed" to-- that is, to having no particular problem with "trigger warning material" means potentially feeling shame and self-doubt all over again regarding that trauma, and the resultant PTSD. PTSD already comes with a lot of shame that the individual is incapable of managing stress, weak, etc.



Does that make sense? I do get the sense that most of the people using "trigger warnings" are doing so out of a pop-culture understanding of what PTSD actually looks like. "Trigger warnings" do come from internet culture-- and like so much else that does, they may or may not have any particular value or validity when subjected to the rigorous sort of evaluation that decides whether or not they are supportable.

I agree completely both with Bostonian and HowlerKarma.

My favorite comment on that Times piece was the one that said anything can trigger a bad reaction: a smell, a pop song that was playing when the trauma happened, etc. But like HK said, only certain kinds of triggers count in this faculty member's class, and they're the ones that she sees as being triggerish.

Another favorite was the one by Rachel, who pointed out that no one has actually investigated this practice to see if it actually works and that maybe that would be a good idea before embracing it.

I see trigger warnings as simply another extension of the infantilization of school-aged kids through college students, a practice that does them no favors. If a twenty-one-year-old college student needs a "real" grownup to point out what should be upsetting, that student is going to have a lot of trouble in the big mean world next year.