Ship of Fools: Are trigger-warnings really that ridiculous?

Thread: Are trigger-warnings really that ridiculous? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

You can read the article on your own, the topic is pretty self-explanatory.

Like probably 99% of the people living outside the relevant ideological milieu, my first inclination of course was to think that the proposals were pretty stupid. And like many people my age and older, I am somewhat inclined to think along the lines of "Kids today, just a bunch of over-sensitive wimps."

However, upon further reflection, it occured to me that we don't consider it ridiculous for films to be advertised with warnings about "disturbing scenes" or "brutal violence", even in cases where the audience for the film is legally restricted to adults. And one of the cases discussed in the article involved a professor who showed a film "depicting rape" in a sociology class that included a woman who'd been sexually assaulted.

I dunno. Maybe the difference is image vs. word? I don't think it's ridiculous for a film based on De Sade to have a warning included in the advertising, but I'd consider it pretty silly for the original book to have that on the cover.

Not sure why I harbour that discrepancy, but I've speculated that there is a difference, perhaps subconscious, between how we approach literare vs. how we approach visual media, related to the populist nature of the latter. If a De Sade film plays at the local theatre, there is the idea that all sorts of people are gonna walk in off the street to see it. Whereas it's kind of understood that only a select group of readers(probably academic or artistic types who generally fly under the public's radar) are gonna walk into a bookstore and buy a copy of the novel.

Personal recollection, but in university, one of my literature profs showed the Ken Russell film of Women In Love, which is midly risuqe. When I described a few of the scenes to my ultra-conservative Catholic mother, she responded "They shouldn't show a film like that to students." When I counterpointed that university students are all adults(or at least legally allowed to see the film in question, in my province), she came back with "Yes, but those students are still somebody's child." Suffice to say that the idea that students need paternalistic protection from harmful material is not something that was just cooked up by 21st Century activists.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

I guess it's another "Where do you draw the line?" issue. I can see there being a good case for warnings in some contexts, just out of common consideration, but taken to extremes you'll just end up with "Life: may be triggering for some people".

At an educational level, surely the place is in the syllabus description, not before individual items? "Materials in this course address issues of blah ..." and then only an extra if something exceptionally graphic is about to be used. And perhaps more useful would be an "If you have been affected by ..." support system, rather than breaking out the bubble-wrap and cotton wool from the get-go.

I can't help thinking that the statue example (as described) in the article is one where if someone is so messed up they can't handle that, they're going to have a hard time walking down the street without extensive professional help in the first place, so it's a bit stable door ....

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I think this sound far too much work. If a course has a reading list, it might be that certain items are marked as being potentially triggering.

If students then pursue further reading - which is always a positive thing - then they will probably know the nature of the material.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

I can cope with a higher level of violence in a novel I am reading (less so for a book I am listening to)than I can in a true story, but I don't cope at all well if it's in a movie, even a fantasy, no matter how well it was flagged in advance.

I think that's because if I'm watching a movie the action is on a big screen with high sound levels, whereas if it's a novel I can more easily close my mind off to it because the characters are not real people Lord of the Rings being a case in point.

Life experience comes into it too. It has taken me 3 years to not burst into tears if I hear a news item about an earthquake anywhere in the world.

I usually avoid violent books and movies, I used to avoid even listening to the news, but I've begun to think that switching myself off from what is happening in the rest of the world is a very priviledged position to be in, so now I am less likely to do it.

As for flagging material for students I really don't know. I was much more resilient when I was younger and none of the required reading harmed me, although the material on child abuse left a lasting memory, but then it's not something I would expect anyone to be unchanged by.

Huia

Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :

The movie ratings are to help adults decide if movies are appropriate for their children. Some parents may allow their teenage children to see some R rated movies but not others. Trigger warnings are a different thing. And put me in the 99% who find them ridiculous.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

It's so nice to know that the mental health of others is so unimportant to people - because that is what trigger warnings are for.

I need a warning that something contains depictions of rape or sexual assault, or I will have anxiety attacks which render me unable to leave the house. I am interested to know how such warnings are ridiculous.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

I think there is a difference between content you might find distasteful, such as anti-semetism in The Merchant of Venice, and content that may trigger flashback.

When I was a student I was part of a group shown, without significant prior warning, footage of the aftermath of atrocities in the Bosnian war that would not have been considered broadcastable. If I think about it, I can still - twenty years later - see the images in my minds eye. Likewise being read eye witness accounts of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing in school when I was seven.

I note that one of people quoted in the article suggests accommodations for individual students, I think this is probably the way to go unless material is so extreme that it is likely to be mildly traumatic to virtually anyone exposed to it - e.g. Film of the liberation of Belsen.

It is also a fact than in any group containing more than about 25 women you are almost certain to have at least one rape survivor and people should generally be aware of this. (I find that probability extremely depressing, but I have seen it demonstrated in practice.)

[ 18. May 2014, 10:27: Message edited by: Doublethink ]

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
It's so nice to know that the mental health of others is so unimportant to people - because that is what trigger warnings are for.

I need a warning that something contains depictions of rape or sexual assault, or I will have anxiety attacks which render me unable to leave the house. I am interested to know how such warnings are ridiculous.

While I don't think that warnings regarding content are ridiculous, you have to balance (since this is an academic context) that against what is necessary for academic rigour. If you choose to study modern history, you're not going to able to avoid a whole slew of really unpleasant stuff that's integral to your course.

Something which isn't so much of a problem in geology or physics.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I think there is a difference between content you might find distasteful, such as anti-semetism in The Merchant of Venice, and content that may trigger flashback.

Indeed. PTSD and rape trauma are, AIUI, recognised medical conditions, and warning about potential triggers seems analogous to putting allergy warnings next to foods in restaurants. Whereas I doubt there is any medical condition that is triggered by, say, Huckleberry Finn.

Posted by Bostonman (# 17108) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I think there is a difference between content you might find distasteful, such as anti-semetism in The Merchant of Venice, and content that may trigger flashback.
Indeed. PTSD and rape trauma are, AIUI, recognised medical conditions, and warning about potential triggers seems analogous to putting allergy warnings next to foods in restaurants. Whereas I doubt there is any medical condition that is triggered by, say, Huckleberry Finn.

A wide variety of topics, when encountered as a surprise, can trigger anxiety (in the sense of panic attacks), etc. in people. This can involve discussions of weight or eating disorder behaviors for people who have suffered from (or have loved ones who have suffered from) those illnesses, depictions of suicide for people with suicidal ideation in the past or present or whose lives another person's suicide has affected, depictions of domestic abuse, war, and on and on, in addition to just rape.

The point of a trigger warning isn't "Don't read this, we'll protect you and coddle you from the real world." They are intended for people for whom these experiences HAVE BEEN the real world, more so than for 90% of internet talking heads or for the professors who assign them. The intent is not "don't read this" but "prepare yourself for what's coming."

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I think there is a difference between content you might find distasteful, such as anti-semetism in The Merchant of Venice, and content that may trigger flashback.
Indeed. PTSD and rape trauma are, AIUI, recognised medical conditions, and warning about potential triggers seems analogous to putting allergy warnings next to foods in restaurants. Whereas I doubt there is any medical condition that is triggered by, say, Huckleberry Finn.
A wide variety of topics, when encountered as a surprise, can trigger anxiety (in the sense of panic attacks), etc. in people. This can involve discussions of weight or eating disorder behaviors for people who have suffered from (or have loved ones who have suffered from) those illnesses, depictions of suicide for people with suicidal ideation in the past or present or whose lives another person's suicide has affected, depictions of domestic abuse, war, and on and on, in addition to just rape.

The point of a trigger warning isn't "Don't read this, we'll protect you and coddle you from the real world." They are intended for people for whom these experiences HAVE BEEN the real world, more so than for 90% of internet talking heads or for the professors who assign them. The intent is not "don't read this" but "prepare yourself for what's coming."

Exactly. I need trigger warnings because of very real experiences, not because I need wrapping in cotton wool. They are necessary for my health in the same way allergy warnings are.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I need trigger warnings because of very real experiences, not because I need wrapping in cotton wool. They are necessary for my health in the same way allergy warnings are.

This is not a good analogy.

If I have a peanut allergy, that means I'm going to go into anaphylactic shock and possibly die if I eat something containing peanuts. The warning is so that I can totally avoid the peanut-containing product.

What you're saying is that you need to brace yourself for the content in exactly a way a food allergy sufferer can't.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

From the article :

quote:
The warnings, which have their ideological roots in feminist thought,

I did a short course on Forensic Medicine as part of a law degree in 1983. We were given advance warning of a lecture which was going to include slides of rape victims, and told that we didn't need to attend that lecture. The lecturer was a doctor in his (IIRC) 50s, so I doubt he was influenced by "feminist thought."

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I need trigger warnings because of very real experiences, not because I need wrapping in cotton wool. They are necessary for my health in the same way allergy warnings are.
This is not a good analogy.

If I have a peanut allergy, that means I'm going to go into anaphylactic shock and possibly die if I eat something containing peanuts. The warning is so that I can totally avoid the peanut-containing product.

What you're saying is that you need to brace yourself for the content in exactly a way a food allergy sufferer can't.

Actually I generally do need to totally avoid the content. For example, I cannot watch films containing rape at all.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Actually I generally do need to totally avoid the content. For example, I cannot watch films containing rape at all.

Given that (my sympathy is probably not required, but offered sincerely anyway), how do you cope with your academic studies - which, IIRC, is social sciency?

Posted by moron (# 206) on :

Thank God I'm old enough to have grown up influenced primarily by the ordinary men and women who participated (many against their will) in the ugliness that was destroying the Nazis and then came home to diligently build their lives, largely absent whining.

It couldn't get much better than that.

[Votive]

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

quote:
Originally posted by moron:
Thank God I'm old enough to have grown up influenced primarily by the ordinary men and women who participated (many against their will) in the ugliness that was destroying the Nazis and then came home to diligently build their lives, largely absent whining.

It couldn't get much better than that.

Did you read the article?

quote:
Loverin draws a distinction between alerting students to material that might truly tap into memories of trauma - such as war and torture, because many students at Santa Barbara are veterans - and slapping warning labels on famous literary works, as other advocates of trigger warnings have proposed.

“We’re not talking about someone turning away from something they don’t want to see,” Loverin said in a recent interview. “People suddenly feel a very real threat to their safety - even if it is perceived. They are stuck in a classroom where they can’t get out, or if they do try to leave, it is suddenly going to be very public.”

This lecturer is advocating trigger warnings for former soldiers who are now university students. Would you class these soldiers as "whining"?

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by moron:
Thank God I'm old enough to have grown up influenced primarily by the ordinary men and women who participated (many against their will) in the ugliness that was destroying the Nazis and then came home to diligently build their lives, largely absent whining.

It couldn't get much better than that.

Whereas those who returned from the Vietnam war were disproportionately traumatised by their experiences?

Just because the WWII generation didn't (in general) talk about what they'd experienced didn't mean that everything went swimmingly for either them or their families. Far from it.

Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :

I wonder if people would need trigger warnings if we actually had decent mental health provision in this country. Surely part of the problem is that so many PTSD and sexual assault cases go untreated.

My husband, one of the lucky ones, has been in treatment for about four years and does still find some things triggering. But he has two therapists and can generally get in for an extra appointment pretty quickly if he needs it. Knowing the state of student health services at most colleges I doubt many students have the same opportunity.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Actually I generally do need to totally avoid the content. For example, I cannot watch films containing rape at all.
Given that (my sympathy is probably not required, but offered sincerely anyway), how do you cope with your academic studies - which, IIRC, is social sciency?

It's politics, and fortunately the side of things which does not require much reading on rape/sexual assault.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by moron:
Thank God I'm old enough to have grown up influenced primarily by the ordinary men and women who participated (many against their will) in the ugliness that was destroying the Nazis and then came home to diligently build their lives, largely absent whining.

It couldn't get much better than that.

Erm, WWII troops were hugely affected by PTSD. My paternal grandfather was one of them after he was part of the Belsen liberation forces. He then became an alcoholic because talking about his experiences and getting help for PTSD, or as you put it 'whining', was not encouraged.

It's people like you who condemn soldiers to a life of misery and ridicule because open discussion of mental health problems and the need for some consideration from others is seen as 'whining'.

People with PTSD and similar disorders do not 'whine' enough, getting people to open up about their issues is half the problem. People like you are utterly disgusting in your contempt for those with mental health conditions. I almost hope you get some idea, just a taste, of what the horror of PTSD is like.

Posted by moron (# 206) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I almost hope you get some idea, just a taste, of what the horror of PTSD is like.

I do hope you get some idea, more than a taste, of how much you're assuming.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

There has been a social change, where then focus on the self is more important than it was. This includes the fact and the meme of victim-hood.

There has also been a change in the acceptance of the idea - with the acceptance also of its complete opposite - that violence and trauma are bad things and they go together. In the past, violence was seen as something to be borne and tolerated, e.g., when your parent or teacher slapped you, whipped you with a belt, or more formally told you to bend over and take you medicine.

The acceptance of violence has been in the willingness to tolerate the destruction of people in war and pseudo wars, which are more comforting today because they are executed roboticly by drones.

So it has become important to warn the helipcopter-parented univ students that they might be upset if they view violence that is actually a moral good, like killing people in the mid-east so they could have fuel to drive to the lecture that will upset them.

This, like so much else, is part of our culture of make believe and pretend.

This said, I was upset with my sleep for a couple of weeks after watching Sean Penn get executed in the film Dead Man Walking. It was vicarious trauma, but not real trauma. The revision to the American diagnostic manual as I understand it, DSM-5, removes the possibility that seeing a media portrayal, say of the Sept 11 planes crashing into the 2 identical buildings, can result in an accepted diagnosis.

I think the message is to buck up more, get over it. Be less self-focussed, and get your protective parents away (my univ prof wife presently has to tell students, adults all, that she will not meet with their parents, answer their emails or phone calls, nor discuss marks with them, FGS).

Realize that your response pales in comparison to the actual violence, and if you cannot manage the content, it is the wrong class for you or wrong degree program. I stopped taking animal-based biology classes after a lab course (which I completed) where we were each given an aborted foetal pig to dissect, kept in a fridge for the purpose for the duration of the class. It looked rather human. Wrong class for me.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

For the avoidance of doubt (seeing as my cotton wool phrase seemed to get picked up on), I don't take anyone's mental health lightly (apart from possibly my own).

There are clearly some issues and some people for whom trigger warnings are helpful, compassionate, right and proper. However, there's also a risk of a massive load of old bollocks growing up around it which ultimately devalues the whole exercise. Hence the observation that it's about where one draws the line, and how it's implemented.

As has been observed, there's a difference between things that our current sensibilities find offensive, and things that might actually throw someone into a flat spin*.

And I stand by the belief that helping folk actually deal with the shit that prompts the anxiety attacks/flashbacks etc. is a better and more sensible thing to do than to feel good about how caring we are by just facilitating avoidance and not addressing the fundamentals (although obviously avoidance is going to be required at the start of that process, no doubt).

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by moron:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I almost hope you get some idea, just a taste, of what the horror of PTSD is like.
I do hope you get some idea, more than a taste, of how much you're assuming.

Then why talk about people 'whining' when in reality a) PTSD affected WWII troops hugely and b) people needing trigger warnings isn't them 'whining' but simply them taking care of their mental health?

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
There has been a social change, where then focus on the self is more important than it was. This includes the fact and the meme of victim-hood.

There has also been a change in the acceptance of the idea - with the acceptance also of its complete opposite - that violence and trauma are bad things and they go together. In the past, violence was seen as something to be borne and tolerated, e.g., when your parent or teacher slapped you, whipped you with a belt, or more formally told you to bend over and take you medicine.

The acceptance of violence has been in the willingness to tolerate the destruction of people in war and pseudo wars, which are more comforting today because they are executed roboticly by drones.

So it has become important to warn the helipcopter-parented univ students that they might be upset if they view violence that is actually a moral good, like killing people in the mid-east so they could have fuel to drive to the lecture that will upset them.

This, like so much else, is part of our culture of make believe and pretend.

This said, I was upset with my sleep for a couple of weeks after watching Sean Penn get executed in the film Dead Man Walking. It was vicarious trauma, but not real trauma. The revision to the American diagnostic manual as I understand it, DSM-5, removes the possibility that seeing a media portrayal, say of the Sept 11 planes crashing into the 2 identical buildings, can result in an accepted diagnosis.

I think the message is to buck up more, get over it. Be less self-focussed, and get your protective parents away (my univ prof wife presently has to tell students, adults all, that she will not meet with their parents, answer their emails or phone calls, nor discuss marks with them, FGS).

Realize that your response pales in comparison to the actual violence, and if you cannot manage the content, it is the wrong class for you or wrong degree program. I stopped taking animal-based biology classes after a lab course (which I completed) where we were each given an aborted foetal pig to dissect, kept in a fridge for the purpose for the duration of the class. It looked rather human. Wrong class for me.

People respond because they endured violence.

I am not helicopter-parented at all, I still need a trigger warning - unless you think that my trauma is somehow morally good.

Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :

To warn students that materials may have distressing content seems quite reasonable - though who is to decide what counts as distressing may be slightly moot in some cases. Coriolanus and King Lear are bad, but what about The Merchant of Venice? But then I get (slightly) distressed at Malvolio's treatment in 12th Night* which I cannot feel really warrants a trigger warning. Who will decide?

But what happens in exams and course work? Are students still required to study the material, upsetting as they find it?

* I know he's a pompous fool but then lots of us are.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

no prophet wrote:

quote:
I stopped taking animal-based biology classes after a lab course (which I completed) where we were each given an aborted foetal pig to dissect, kept in a fridge for the purpose for the duration of the class. It looked rather human. Wrong class for me.

TRIGGER WARNING: DEAD HORSE AHEAD

One thing I really dislike seeing is photos of aborted human fetuses. Not sure why I have that aversion(I don't mind seeing other types of gory pictures), I suppose the pro-lifers would say that, as a pro-choicer, I hypocritcally avoid trying to see what abortion looks like.

In any case, I am glad when articles or websites containing such photos include prior announcements of the material, so I may either avoid seeing them or at least brace myself. But that aversion is one of the things that makes me hesitant about mocking the people who want trigger warnings in classrooms. If a prof were showing a film with an aborted fetus in it, I'd like to know about it beforehand.

Persuant to my earlier point about images vs. words, I don't really care if someone describes abortion or its results in a literary context.

[ 18. May 2014, 16:25: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

If I have a peanut allergy, that means I'm going to go into anaphylactic shock and possibly die if I eat something containing peanuts. The warning is so that I can totally avoid the peanut-containing product.

Peanut butter requires no label. Chips cooked in peanut oil do.

sigh I suppose I cannot let the implied analogy rest on its own. In literature where one can expect a situation, no warning is needed. In that which it is unexpected, a warning might be considered.
----------------
Literature v. Films. For the vast majority of people, a visual depiction is much stronger than a written description.
Lord of the Rings is a good example. One of the reasons it was successful is they took fan favourite illustrations as inspiration for much of the visual. A visual depiction trumped reader's own imaginations from reading descriptions.
And one encounters film differently from books, typically.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
People respond because they endured violence.

I am not helicopter-parented at all, I still need a trigger warning - unless you think that my trauma is somehow morally good.

I hadn't directed my post to you specifically. No, I don't think trauma is morally good. I have a personal history related to violence, and also with loved ones. The issue in this post and topic is not anyone's personal experience of trauma, rather the necessity of warning everyone about every possible trouble and peril.

I am also of a mind that people need to be taking care of themselves to the point of not needing to be handled differentially by others. I believe that resilience is a general good thing, and that burdening others with one's troubles is generally a thing to be avoided.

Similarly, I object to the necessity of fencing off hazards, forcing people to use particular safety equipment by law (e.g., helmets), and other forms of excessive regulation and protection from self.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Similarly, I object to the necessity of fencing off hazards, forcing people to use particular safety equipment by law (e.g., helmets), and other forms of excessive regulation and protection from self.

Forcing employers to keep the public and their employees safe is an unmitigated good.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Similarly, I object to the necessity of fencing off hazards, forcing people to use particular safety equipment by law (e.g., helmets), and other forms of excessive regulation and protection from self.

Forcing employers to keep the public and their employees safe is an unmitigated good.

I'm thinking about people riding their bicycles, skiing, kids playing in the woods and building forts, swimming at a random beach, climbing trees, using a sling shot, among other things that are heavily regulated.

I had no thought about employers and occupational health and safety. An entirely different area for discussion.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Similarly, I object to the necessity of fencing off hazards, forcing people to use particular safety equipment by law (e.g., helmets), and other forms of excessive regulation and protection from self.

Forcing employers to keep the public and their employees safe is an unmitigated good.
I'm thinking about people riding their bicycles, skiing, kids playing in the woods and building forts, swimming at a random beach, climbing trees, using a sling shot, among other things that are heavily regulated.

I had no thought about employers and occupational health and safety. An entirely different area for discussion.

Er, none of those things are regulated here in the UK (except maybe slingshots).

Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
I dunno. Maybe the difference is image vs. word? I don't think it's ridiculous for a film based on De Sade to have a warning included in the advertising, but I'd consider it pretty silly for the original book to have that on the cover.

Not sure why I harbour that discrepancy, but I've speculated that there is a difference, perhaps subconscious, between how we approach literare vs. how we approach visual media, related to the populist nature of the latter. If a De Sade film plays at the local theatre, there is the idea that all sorts of people are gonna walk in off the street to see it. Whereas it's kind of understood that only a select group of readers(probably academic or artistic types who generally fly under the public's radar) are gonna walk into a bookstore and buy a copy of the novel.

The things that are likely to trigger me are not actually graphic descriptions or images about traumatic events - I'm in the role of observer at those times, and I have to make a conscious effort to identify with the character or characters undergoing the violence. It does seem that images are more likely to trigger other people, though (for me, sitting in a darkened movie theater or classroom puts me at a far enough remove from the events that I can shield myself from them if necessary). So I could maybe see warnings about films.

But generally US college campuses have gone so over-the-top when it comes to restricting speech that I'm in the 99% of people who think this is just frickin' ridiculous. At this point I don't think the offenderati (note that the woman at the center of the story is concerned about other people ) are ever going to stop, and there's too much absurdity already.

When I was in college, we were responsible for reading the course descriptions, syllabi, and book and movie descriptions. That should be even easier to do these days, what with the internet and wikipedia and everything. I don't see how professors can reasonably be expected to have any idea what might be triggering to every single one of their students. And I don't see how this is going to help do anything but persuade people that, in the end, women really are too delicate and fragile for higher education.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Er, none of those things are regulated here in the UK (except maybe slingshots).

Regulation is also via lawsuit.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Er, none of those things are regulated here in the UK (except maybe slingshots).
Regulation is also via lawsuit.

I write regulations. I don't write lawsuits. Lawsuits are supposed to be about redress for specific, individual behaviour. Using lawsuits and fear of lawsuits as some kind of general control of behaviour is completely inappropriate.

Posted by EloiseA (# 18029) on :

A quotation from Kafka not intended to minimise the vulnerability of those with PTSD or survivors of rape/violent assault.

Literature (even films, theatre, art) that disturbs us is necessary. With trigger warnings certainly to warn the vulnerable or unwary, but still necessary for most of us to encounter:

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.” ~ Franz Kafka

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

Eloise, I understand what Kafka is getting at, and I agree to some extent, except I think to read only that kind of book would narrow my life in immeasureably. I do read some books like those he describes, but I also ready for the sheer enjoyment of words, comfort, entertainment, learning, distraction, information and other reasons, some of which I am probably totally unaware.

(Actually the quote reminded me of Dicken's Hard Times and Mr Gradgrind's approach to education.)

I went back to listening to and sometimes watching the news because I think that to be part of the world, and to pray for this world, I need to know what people in other countries are living though. (apart from the praying, that's where I have some sympathy with Kafka's statement).

Huia

Posted by EloiseA (# 18029) on :

Huia, yes, I wouldn't read this as an all-encompassing literal prescription (the context is a letter back to a friend who believes literature should make the reader happy).

I am grateful though that at university I was obliged to read some very demanding and troubling literature, not least Kafka's Metamorphosis that repelled me as much as Sartre's Nausea.

Reading about the 'shellshocked' anguish leading to Septimus committing suicide in Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (one of the books mentioned in the original article) gave me insight into WWI trauma. Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart showed the underbelly of colonialism and even though I initially hated both Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner, I began to think about differing experiences of the American South.

Would I have read any of those books without a syllabus that obliged me to do so? And supportive teachers and fellow students who also flinched and battled alongside me?

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

I have been a bit bemused by the idea of trigger warnings in general. Not because I don't understand being triggered - I experienced continual abuse as a child and had PTSD for a long time in adulthood. But the many things that triggered me simply couldn't be anticipated - it wasn't always the obvious. Often it was such small innocuous things - things it would never occur to anyone to consider triggering, but which had specific traumatic associations for me. Being triggered was simply part of everyday life - it would have been impossible to avoid it.

And I didn't actually want to avoid it - each trigger drew my attention to the fact that this was something I needed to work through, to be able to live with. I would even read triggering books on purpose as part of the healing process. The idea of avoiding painful memories seemed worse than facing them - I wanted to relive and remember to be able to work through it. My approach is perhaps unusual though, and maybe not the best approach for everyone, although for me it was what I needed to do. But I find it hard to know how it's possible to anticipate triggers - unless my trigger system was significantly different from the norm, which may well be the case.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

In threads like this I'm always amazed by the number of people who campaign against good manners. "This might hurt some people. I should therefore warn them first." If not accidently hurting people isn't the bedrock of good manners, I don't know what is.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

For one thing, I do think exaggeration hurts the case for triggers rather. I have some doubt that there are a significant number of people who find reading Shakespeare's plays emotionally trigger them such that they find it hard to function. (Mind I am sure there are people who are reminded of a horrible event like an earthquake by such things, but it wouldn't seem practical to label for such things, even if the will was there because there are so many possibly upsetting things like earthquakes that most of us wouldn't think of.) Certainly, even if I am being ignorant about the triggers in Shakespeare, it's tiny compared to the number of people triggered by a video about rape or child abuse or war violence ...etc. As a child who grew up where videos always had blue/green screens warning about things like explicit language, I can't imagine that they were a great inconvenience to have to wait through!

It's also very relevant that how much various people need trigger warnings really varies. For instance, I completely avoid reading or watching content on a particular topic because of past history. If I do read it, it makes me liable to fall apart emotionally for the next few hours. So yes I really resent when newspapers use shocker headlines to present content I would otherwise have avoided. However I'm nothing like my friend L who is completely destroyed by material that triggers her. She will literally shut down and curl up into a moaning ball stuck reliving trauma if blindsided by something. If the world had no one more triggerable than I, trigger warnings would be nice, but really not necessary. I'm pretty good at avoiding content I don't need to be seeing, honestly. But there unfortunately are a significant number of people who are much much more injured than I. Why is it necessary to destroy L so that other people don't have to see a "silly trigger warning"?

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Can't resist (sorry!) but I avoided going to see Shakespeare's Julius Caesar precisely because of the theme of betrayal and backstabbing that runs through it--and it was being played at the same time as the sociopaths in our old parish were taking out my husband and me.

Didn't need a trigger warning, though--I knew the play.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

(Self-indulgent "When I was your age..." anecdote alert...)

Just as an example of how subjective impressions differ over time and possibly geography. From Virginia, 2010...

Teacher suspended for showing Polanski's Macbeth

(That page freezes up my screen for a brief period)

Apparently, some parents objected to the nudity and violence.

In Alberta, 1985, our high-school English teacher, a Catholic priest, announced on the first day of class that we would be watching Polanski's film of Macbeth, casually identifying the notorious director by name. He further informed us that it was "rather gory", and jocularly predicted the girls might have to close their eyes.

During the actual screening, he pointed out that the witches were really nude, not wearing body suits.

[ 19. May 2014, 15:42: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

I have a few thoughts on this. I think it's a really good idea for trigger warnings for certain things - namely the kinds of experiences that commonly cause PTSD. You can't cover for every situaation that might upset someone, somewhere, but some are pretty predictable. It's particularly important in situations where the person can't easily get away. If you're reading a book on your own time it's quite simple to put it down if it starts upsetting you. If you're watching a film in a lecture theatre, and you're in the middle of a row, and something comes up that you find very upsetting, you can't get out without drawing attention to the fact that you're leaving - and that's some attention that a survivor of sexual assault probably doesn't want.

Personally I will never willingly watch a film or TV programme with a rape scene in it - and there are a LOT of those around. The fact that we still get more warning about media that involves swearing than we do about graphic sexual violence seems utterly ludicrous to me. And the problem with rape scenes in particular is that they often appear out of nowhere as a lazy plot point. If you watch a film about war or gangsters or a serial killer, the stuff that happens might be pretty horrific but you know what kind of thing to expect. Rape just shows up where you don't expect it.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
In threads like this I'm always amazed by the number of people who campaign against good manners. "This might hurt some people. I should therefore warn them first." If not accidently hurting people isn't the bedrock of good manners, I don't know what is.

Hey, I'm agreeing with Justinian. That doesn't happen often!

As others have said, it's not reasonable to expect people to predict that you might have a trigger issue with something obscure, but mentioning rape, graphic violence or child abuse, say, doesn't seem unreasonable.

Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
In threads like this I'm always amazed by the number of people who campaign against good manners. "This might hurt some people. I should therefore warn them first." If not accidently hurting people isn't the bedrock of good manners, I don't know what is.

It is a matter of how much effort one expects other people to take to accommodate one's idiosyncrasies. Warning a group before showing a film containing graphic rape scene seems reasonable but, if one student has a panic attack when he sees mushrooms, how much effort should the lecturer go to to check films before hand for depictions of mushrooms and to warn the student?

[x-post with lc, who said it better]

[ 19. May 2014, 17:11: Message edited by: JoannaP ]

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

Trigger warnings are fine up to a point. Don't ask me to precisely define that point, because like all kinds of other social imponderables it depends on a number of factors.

I have a friend on Facebook who went a bit crazy with them a year or so ago. Every other news story she shared was prefaced with "Trigger Warning : Racism, Imperialism and Colonialism". It's that kind of over-scrupulousness that most of us react to and not the idea that someone's PTSD could be triggered by unanticipated violence.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Rape just shows up where you don't expect it.

Art imitates life.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

We used to have these fairly low-key notices to parents at the beginning of TV shows that would indicate if there was going to be violence, etc. (I think they used a big V and a lot of small print). I wouldn't mind something of the sort on movies, etc. maybe down in a corner at the beginning, with a small degree of specialization (e.g. SV for sexual violence, since rape is a trigger for many people who wouldn't have issues with the usual movie shove-him-through-a-highrise-window stuff.)

Of course, I expect most people read up ahead of time on movies they see in the cinema. But for videos shown in class, etc. it might be helpful.

Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
(Self-indulgent "When I was your age..." anecdote alert...)

Just as an example of how subjective impressions differ over time and possibly geography. From Virginia, 2010...

Teacher suspended for showing Polanski's Macbeth

Fuck me with a thistle! I watched that with my kids when they were 5 and 7. They watch things on CBBC that are more likely to disturb me.

On the general point - yes, have all the warnings you want. There's nothing wrong with telling people about things that might hurt them. Just don't tell me what I and my family are allowed to watch.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:

quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:

Teacher suspended for showing Polanski's Macbeth
Fuck me with a thistle! ...

Think we'd better have a trigger-warning before that's depicted, Eliab. There may be people with a thistle phobia out there...

[Code fix -Gwai]

[ 20. May 2014, 13:15: Message edited by: Gwai ]

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
As others have said, it's not reasonable to expect people to predict that you might have a trigger issue with something obscure, but mentioning rape, graphic violence or child abuse, say, doesn't seem unreasonable.

It seems that what is being proposed is less about PTSD and more about things that might be offensive to any minority group. So anything with racism, colonialism, ableism, etc. This seems hard to judge objectively - because of course literature from past centuries was written with very different understandings of, say, disability, or race, or gender. Much of it could be seen as sexist in some way or another, for instance. I wonder whether, with these things, it isn't a better idea for the lecturers to be explaining this whole concept to the students - that the literature is likely to be written from very different assumptions than they have, and that it is important to be aware of this while reading, and think about how they could challenge these assumptions. This would be better for critical thinking in general.

I'm also wondering whether the warnings are being given with the idea that the student can opt not to study certain books - whether there is a choice of which books to study - or whether it's just to let them know beforehand. I'm also thinking that, realistically, a student who knows s/he is easily triggered would be likely to google the books beforehand anyway.

The example of the class being shown a video with a graphic rape scene in it seems more pertinent than reading lists - they would have no way to know about that beforehand, and so make an informed decision about whether to attend. And to me it seems common sense that a lecturer should warn a class about that beforehand. When I was studying a health professional degree, we were always warned about lectures and videos on topics that could cause distress, such as death and bereavement, and given an option to speak to the lecturer about not attending.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

Some things are meant to traumatise: health and safety films, I'm looking at you.

Posted by Horatio Harumph (# 10855) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Huia:

quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Rape just shows up where you don't expect it.
Art imitates life.

THIS!

Posted by Horatio Harumph (# 10855) on :

A really fascinating conversation to sit and read through - thank you to all who have contributed.

As a survivor of abuse as a child, and a separate stranger rape as an adult life for me can be quite challenging. I have massive sleep issues, at times have anxiety issues which I manage reasonably well, and then am prone to spontaneous out of the blue flashbacks once in a while (maybe several times a year) which are very hard to control as they really do come just out of the blue, and the last few especially leave me wondering what actually triggered them in the first place.

Over the last few years I've found a voice/continuing to find my voice in speaking out about issues relating to my experiences, which include talking to people, writing, blogging etc. I'm involved with various things and keep myself up to date with current affairs etc especially ones relating to abuse/rape.

This means I read a lot of stuff. I hear a lot of stuff. Engage with a lot of stuff on these topics - and some stuff has trigger warnings. Some doesn't.

Stuff I have written myself has sometimes been seen as quite triggery for some - I tend not to put official trigger warnings in front of them because I always ensure the titles of what I have written are expect about what the nature of what I have written is about.

Personally I think there needs to be a balance. As someone said above, who knows where the line needs to be drawn, but I think there is a place and a need for TW to be put in front of something - and for the sake on a few words, really, is it that problematic?

However, I think we do have to be careful we don't end up 'trigger warning' everything.

It is a tough one.

I'm reminded of an survivor network I was asked to get involved with, to work on developing their online facilities. They had an online chat room, not dissimilar to the one the SoF used to have (maybe still does?) - I logged in several times as a guest to check out what was happening/how the conversations went etc - I got thrown out. Twice. Because I had unwittingly used words that were 'triggery' to someone in there. When I feedback to the team how it was going I mentioned this, and asked for the 'list' of words that were deemed triggerry and therefor not allowed to be used in said room - there wasn't one ... turned out there were SO many random words and things that would trigger one person or another at any given time that it was almost impossible to have any kind of proper conversation about anything - and there were no markers for anyone. How did I know what would trigger someone else or not? I remember the word butterfly being a trigger word for someone. To me, personally, that was taking it all too far.

BUT I also see a need for them in some areas too.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but thanks for this discussion - its though provoking and I will go away and think on it some more now ...!

Posted by Horatio Harumph (# 10855) on :

(apologies for poor spelling and grammar errors in my above post - teaches me for trying to write late at night after a long day - I tried to edit but its been quite a while since I've posted here, and forgot the edit time rule!)

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Horatio Harumph:
I'm reminded of an survivor network I was asked to get involved with, to work on developing their online facilities. They had an online chat room, not dissimilar to the one the SoF used to have (maybe still does?) - I logged in several times as a guest to check out what was happening/how the conversations went etc - I got thrown out. Twice. Because I had unwittingly used words that were 'triggery' to someone in there.

Reminds me of a child abuse survivor network I was once part of, years ago. I didn't get thrown out, but my posts were edited - the word 'abuse' was changed to 'ab**e'. I found that quite bewildering - everyone had joined the site to talk about abuse, and the name of the site had 'abuse' in it. I genuinely didn't (and still don't) understand why using the word itself would be any more triggering than the act of talking about it. And even if it was, I couldn't see that asterisks would make a difference - everyone could still see what the word was. I'm sure everyone gets triggered in different ways, but for me personally, that sort of censorship was more confusing than anything.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

It seems to me that such an extreme level of avoidance risks sensitizing people even further - making them believe that any kind of exposure is going to be shattering, world-ending stuff.

And that's a key difference from physical allergies, where exposure really CAN be world-ending. With psychological issues, though, it's a lie our brain has constructed. Sometimes, I hasten to add, with very good reason, but it's still a lie.

One of the more successful treatments of phobias involves controlled exposure, teaching the brain that in fact that horrible, terrifying thing isn't going to hurt, allowing the brain to first experience the terror and then to calm down because nothing happens.

I suppose that's an argument for some kind of trigger warnings, preferably tailored to individuals. It seems to me that just slapping warnings all over everything in an environment like a university, which is SUPPOSED to be challenging and thought-provoking, is going too far and won't actually help the people who genuinely need help coping with their psychological stress.

What it isn't is an argument in support of just pulling all the potentially uncomfortable stuff and not showing it.

[ 19. May 2014, 23:01: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Lamb Chopped wrote:

quote:
(e.g. SV for sexual violence, since rape is a trigger for many people who wouldn't have issues with the usual movie shove-him-through-a-highrise-window stuff.)

Yeah, we never got any trigger warnings when they used to run the ads for Sharky's Machine on afternoon TV.

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :

The principle of trigger warnings is reasonable. The application is problematic because triggers are so individual. I once had a client who was triggered by the sweater I was wearing (I immediately took it off and never wore it to work again), and who probably would have been triggered by a movie in which a character wore a similar sweater--but that's not something anyone could anticipate. People being triggered by graphic depictions of violence (sexual or otherwise) is common enough to warrant a warning, though people who can't handle that sort of thing should probably avoid fields like psychology. If being reminded that racism and colonialism have been important factors in human history and persist to this day is unbearable... well, I don't know what you do about that. There's evil in the world--we all need to confront it at some point.

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

You have to draw a line somewhere of course. I have a good old-fashioned aspie obsession which I never talk about on SoF although it's pretty apparent to anyone who knows me IRL. It can lead to fairly extreme emotional reactions when harm is done to a certain kind of thing which I guess you guys would all consider an inanimate object but which has a special significance to me. (I'm still tiptoeing around not saying what it is because I don't want to give thousands of anonymous strangers that much power to play with my emotions.) I have occasionally been subjected to material that I find distressing in a way that other people don't, but there's absolutely no way that people could be expected to give a trigger warning for this.

Posted by FCB (# 1495) on :

When I have used Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves in class I have warned students ahead of time that it contains graphic scenes of sexual violence and told them that if any of them had strong objections to watching it I could give them an alternative assignment. On the other hand, when I teach the short stories of Flannery O'Connor, I warn students ahead of time about the racially offensive language, but don't given them the option of not doing the reading.

I'm not sure why my practice differs in the two cases. Perhaps it has to do with the different media -- a sense of film having a more immediate and visceral impact than the printed word -- or perhaps it is the difference between sexual violence and racial epithets. In any case, the distinction seems to make sense to me on some intuitive level. And I would certainly resist the powers that be at my institution taking the decision out of my hands.

Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :

quote:
Jade Constable maintains:
I need trigger warnings because of very real experiences, not because I need wrapping in cotton wool. They are necessary for my health in the same way allergy warnings are.

I have decided as I get older that there are many images and themes common in video media which are distinctly damaging to my spiritual health. They include cut or burned flesh—or its anticipation, needle injection, bleeding, sadism or torture (I'm thinking especially of the torture chamber in one of Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who..." series), some depictions of marital infidelity, physical abuse of an animal—or its anticipation.

I've long ago cut out much audio media for similar reasons, upsetting or dissonant sounds—much rap music.

Unlike Jade Constable, it is not to ward off acute reactions to such material, but it is because of the chronic spiritual corrosion such material inflicts on my spirit.

Further, when in the company of recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, one is ever aware of the multitude of possible triggers for relapse. These triggers may relate to alcohol or drug use itself (merely driving by the Liquorama or outdoor drug market) or may relate to the life experience associated with it (grief for a lost loved one, claustrophobic quarters, loud noises).

So while my initial reaction to these warnings was to scoff with the rest, upon reflection I can see how it could be pastoral and prudent to be aware of these reactions; and, to act prophylactically.

Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:

quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:

quote:
Stetson suggests:
Teacher suspended for showing Polanski's Macbeth
Fuck me with a thistle! ...
Think we'd better have a trigger-warning before that's depicted, Eliab.

And, a young man's dreams turn to nostalgic images of rusty farm implements.

I miss the alligator. And, ken, too.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
I'm not sure why my practice differs in the two cases. Perhaps it has to do with the different media -- a sense of film having a more immediate and visceral impact than the printed word -- or perhaps it is the difference between sexual violence and racial epithets. In any case, the distinction seems to make sense to me on some intuitive level. And I would certainly resist the powers that be at my institution taking the decision out of my hands.

The distinction makes sense to me too, and not just intuitively: Racial epithets, and racism in general, is horrible, but it's all over our world. It is generally not going to be a trigger that makes people not functional, but a trigger that makes people angry. And honestly we all need to face our own anger. A student who can't handle depictions of sexual violence may not be able to work through what they feel and move past it now (or ever perhaps.) A student who can't work through their own anger at injustice has much much deeper problems than Flannery O'Connor.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
Fuck me with a thistle!

I nominate this to replace "What, you egg!" for the murder of Macduff's son in any contemporary language version of the play.

And, a propos of not much besides the general topic, it seems to me that there is a certain "tyranny of the majority" factor in trying to determine which traumatic themes warrant trigger-warnings.

My father suffered from a very debilitating medical conidtion that ended his life at 58, after making his last fifteen or so years a hell on earth. It was not a particularly common ailment.

One night, we were watching a comedy show, and the two hosts were singing a funny song about feeling tired and exhausted, which included a hyperbolic line that went "maybe you need [something used to treat my father's condition]".

Suffice to say, it was an awkward moment, probably spilling over into painful for both of us. And I'm pretty sure that, had the line been written as "maybe you need chemotherapy", the question of trigger-warnings would have been moot, since the censors would have edited it out of the script before the show was ever taped(unless it was some kinda dark-humour show, which this definitely wasn't).

In all likelihood, the writers didn't know anyone who suffered from my father's ailment, and the number of sufferers or even friends-of-sufferers in their TV audience would have been in the low dozens, if that. So, it gets by as a respectable joke, whereas a more recognized illness would likely have been nixed.

I should say that, if a joke about my father's illness were writen for a family-hour broadcast in the year 2014, it would probably be cut out, what with "political correctness" and all. My point still remains about the majority-rules aspect of determining what's insensitive and what's not, and that this would likely come into play with trigger warnings as well.

Posted by FCB (# 1495) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:

quote:
Originally posted by FCB:
I'm not sure why my practice differs in the two cases. Perhaps it has to do with the different media -- a sense of film having a more immediate and visceral impact than the printed word -- or perhaps it is the difference between sexual violence and racial epithets. In any case, the distinction seems to make sense to me on some intuitive level. And I would certainly resist the powers that be at my institution taking the decision out of my hands.
The distinction makes sense to me too, and not just intuitively: Racial epithets, and racism in general, is horrible, but it's all over our world. It is generally not going to be a trigger that makes people not functional, but a trigger that makes people angry. And honestly we all need to face our own anger. A student who can't handle depictions of sexual violence may not be able to work through what they feel and move past it now (or ever perhaps.) A student who can't work through their own anger at injustice has much much deeper problems than Flannery O'Connor.

Thanks. You've helped me clarify my thinking about my own practice.

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