Trigger warnings and Banned Books Week are both trendy on modern college campuses this year. The St. Thomas community has experimented with both movements. These trends reflect the two extreme ways of dealing with “what is considered offensive.” And they are both misguided.
On the one hand, trigger warnings are overly cautious.
Rather than worrying about whether material can be considered offensive, universities should worry about whether the material is worth teaching. The question should be, “Should students learn about the Holocaust?” not “How will students feel about learning about the Holocaust?”
With trigger warnings, professors warn their students that some of the material they are about to cover may be offensive. If these warnings hold any practical weight, then the university must allow students – upon hearing the warning – to opt out of hearing the “offensive” material.
But if a student is able to opt out of certain material in a class or certain subjects in the core curriculum, then apparently that material and those subjects weren’t worth discussing in the first place. Apparently learning those things wasn’t necessary to passing or graduating. But, then, why is everyone else required to learn those things?
Presumably, everyone is required to learn certain material because the teaching authority – the professors and administration – deem that material objectively worthwhile. So, whether you find it offensive or not, if you don’t take the material, you don’t meet what the experts judge as the objective standards.
On the other hand, Banned Books Week is overly callous about offense.
The motivation behind Banned Books Week has some foundation in reality. It is right to oppose authoritarian thought control or censorship.
With that said, Banned Books Week virtually celebrates offensiveness when it makes freedom a greater value or focus than literary truth or beauty. With the “Virtual Read-Out” events, for example, libraries sponsor the continuous public reading of banned books.
Rather than having signs saying, “These particular books are good to read for these particular reasons,” Banned Books Week encourages people to read books merely on the principle that the objective worth of the books is in doubt.
Presumably, books are banned because people are concerned about the objective worth of those books. Let’s find what is right or wrong about those concerns. If we think these people are wrong and one book or another has objective value, then let’s engage the debate rather than celebrating the fact that they are debatable.
This isn’t to say that debate on this objective level doesn’t occur. I merely mean to say that Banned Books Week as such – rather than supporting constructive debate – stifles it with its misplaced glorification of the banning rather than the truth.
Those who promote trigger warnings and those who celebrate Banned Books Week miss the point. If society’s primary concern is offense, then society will never resolve its disputes because everyone will have their own standard for offense.
Avoiding offense is important, but it is of secondary importance. If we first address the objective standards of truth and beauty, we will secondarily discover what is offensive – namely, what is untrue and ugly.
Elliot Polsky can be reached at pols4319@stthomas.edu.
Elliot, I think it’s important to note that generally, Trigger Warnings aren’t announced because something might be “offensive” but actually triggering, meaning that someone who has been put through a certain trauma may be prompted to experience negative reactions by the material covered and that can be really hazardous to their health.
Triggers often result in anxiety or panic attacks, PTSD symptoms and depression. As someone who experiences these because of certain triggers, I think it’s an ableist idea to say that they are “overly cautious.” Why shouldn’t we be cautious of causing harm to someone? Invisible disability (mental illness, learning disorders, etc) are just as valid as visible disability and should be treated as such.
I stopped reading after the first line because characterizing trigger warnings as “trendy” invalidates their purpose.
I don’t know much about trigger warnings but the use of them does seem to me to originate from a mental health motivation as opposed to “people may or may not get offended if we say this”.This is taken from the wikipedia page on Trauma Triggers under the subsection “Trigger warnings” “People may view these as a means of protecting the mental health of their readers or simply common courtesy”. I guess that makes it seem like it comes from both of the motivations I mentioned but just the one concerning mental health seems sufficient to justify their use. From the same section though, is a lot of stuff questioning their efficacy. Like this “in an interview about Trigger Warnings…Professor Metin Basoglu, a psychologist internationally recognised for his trauma research said that “The media should actually – quite the contrary… Instead of encouraging a culture of avoidance, they should be encouraging exposure. Most trauma survivors avoid situations that remind them of the experience. Avoidance means helplessness and helplessness means depression.” This is a quote from another person “avoidance reinforces PTSD. Conversely, systematic exposure to triggers and the memories they provoke is the most effective means of overcoming the disorder.” Like I said, I don’t know much about this, I just thought it was interesting. However, the above article as I understood it, was not concerned with the efficacy of the warnings, but the motivation for them.
Dear Emma,
You say that Trigger Warnings are used to warn people about actual triggers. This might be. However, if the discussions for which the warnings are given are necessary to mastering the material, then Elliot’s argument still holds even if you aren’t comfortable with his rhetoric. Here is a straightforward representation of how his reasoning goes. The conclusion, while certainly unfortunate, is nevertheless a fact of life, if you are legless you cannot play with the NBA. If you cannot take a class, you cannot get credit for the class. While one would hope there would be people to assist you in overcoming the trauma so that in the future you might be able to take the class, it would be condescending and dishonest to give credit where no credit is due. People are people, there dignity doesn’t rest on having a college degree or playing basketball so we needn’t give them a sticker as if that is what they need for their own worth. Ok. Enough prelude. Here is the argument
1) To discuss and understand history one must discuss thing that fall under the “racism” trigger (when talking about US history for example, one must cover, slavery, Jim Crow, KKK, Lynch mobs, anti-semitism, No Nothings, etc) [U]
2) If (1) then to get a degree in history one ought to discuss things that could (theoretically) cause a panic attack or worse [U>M]
3) If to get a degree in history one ought to discuss things that could cause (theoretically) a panic attack or worse, then some people will receive history degrees without the appropriate qualifications [M>R] (since if there are trigger warnings in class before discussions of such things and people leave class and are never asked to discuss these things and yet are given a history degree, then those people get a recognition for things they haven’t learned)
4) If some people will receive history degrees without the appropriate qualifications, then they will be set up for hard times/failure when it comes to using the degree and the degrees themselves will become meaningless because there will be no straightforward way to discern what you’ve skipped. [R>(H&B)]
5) Therefore, if to discuss and understand history one must discuss thing that fall under the “racism” trigger then (people who opt to leave class because a trigger warning) will be set up for hard times/failure when it comes to using the degree and the degrees themselves will become meaningless because there will be no straightforward way to discern what you’ve skipped. [U>(H&B)]
The same argument can be run with many of the other excessive trigger warnings. There is no need to see Saw-like violence in history class, however, if you are a med student you have to be able to face certain “gruesome” things. There is no need to read filth in any class (and it certainly shouldn’t be assigned at a Catholic school), but to be an English major you’ll have to read about some vicious people.
If someone has adverse reactions to math because of a cruel math teacher in kindergarten, while it might be cruel to force the person to go to a university and take the class, it would be ridiculous to let them skip math and give them credit just the same.
Peace!
Hannah
**and correction to my embarrassing type “their” dignity :)
**type-o
TW: Rape mentions
Dear Hannah,
What I find most alienating about your meticulous overview of mathematical logic, is that it discards the humanity that you so briefly mentioned in passing in your introductory paragraph.
The History of the United States is undoubtedly gruesome, but no one should be forced to suffer flashbacks and panic attacks in order to gain qualifications. There are many ways of presenting facts that are humane and non-triggering. You can gain knowledge without being forced to re-live trauma.
Furthermore, there is still a huge misunderstanding on your part of what triggers are. Triggers are very damaging because they cause someone to re-experience past trauma. And though math class is hard, the kind of trauma they seek to guard from is much more serious. Like my trigger warning at the top. It’s there so people who have been exposed to the trauma of rape and wish to avoid it, can. It gives them the opportunity to avoid UNNECESSARY trauma. And by the way, exposure therapy mentioned above should ALWAYS be conducted by therapists because it can backfire.
What I’m saying is this whole discussion on whether or not they are “right” misses the point. What they are is humane. If you and Elliot think it’s “right” to expose people to potentially damaging experiences, then good for you. I don’t feel the need to do that. They can come in contact with their triggers at their own pace, and hopefully with the guidance of a knowledgeable mental health expert.
Hi Elena,
I certainly don’t think that “it’s “right” to expose people to potentially damaging experiences,” at least not in the way you suggest. To willfully expose someone to something that is likely to damage them is wrong, period. I think Elliot’s point was that the way trigger warnings are used is not of use. If someone cannot deal with NECESSARY content of a class, then they can’t just be dismissed and given credit for taking the class. If the content is unnecessary, Elliot asked why we’re teaching it. I’d agree that this might be extreme. There certainly could be cases when the content isn’t necessary and it still is useful and an alternative could be found for a particular student. However, this may not always be the case. Let me take what you say paragraph by paragraph.
1) I don’t know where I discard humanity. I make a distinction between things that are understandably unnecessary (Saw-like violence) and things that must be faced to take the class in question. No one is required to be a doctor and if some content cannot be faced that must be faced for class, that is fine, don’t take the class or if possible work out special accommodations. I think Elliot would agree with this too. Also, note that I said I don’t think the filth should be shown in any class. No class should be showing graphic depictions of rape certainly because its possible triggering effect on victims but also and primarily because it is just filth.
You say that “You can gain knowledge without being forced to relive trauma.” I generally agree. However, if there is someone who cannot deal with the contents of the class they are not less of a person for this and thus the fact they can’t take the class should not be considered a mark against their humanity. I would hope healing could be found and eventually, if the subject was important to them, they would be able to study it.
If your complaint is merely that what I said used logic, that is not ignoring our humanity. We are reasoning creatures and I presented what I took to be Elliot’s argument so that it could be discussed as an argument. I take it that you object to the first premise that to understand topic x one has to face topic y, which is potentially triggering. With the above further explanations, do you still disagree? If the mere mention of slavery is a trigger to someone they really cannot get a degree in US history without working through their wounds. If graphic images of mutilated slaves are a trigger, this is a different thing and seems to fall into the unnecessary category, even if not bad to have available. If movies *depicting* (not just inferring) violent torture of slaves are the trigger, this seems to border on the inappropriate for the teacher to require or show category.
2) In your next paragraph you say that I misunderstand what triggers are. I see how you could misinterpret my example, but I was merely trying to come up with a non-triggering example (so it was a bit far fetched). What I meant was not that math was hard, but rather that someone had an abusive math teacher and thus is made to relive that abuse in future math classes. You also bold the word unnecessary. However, I already stated in my first post that the key to Elliot’s complaint was necessary content. My guess is that Elliot would not be against the idea of putting a warning before showing more graphic materials. What he seemed to really attack was the ability to pick and choose what one will study based off one’s triggers AND still get credit for materials one hasn’t learned. To do this makes it seem like someone only has dignity if they take x class or or get x accreditation. However, such is not the case.
3) I fully agree with your last sentence and it doesn’t contradict anything that has been said