I think the real reason for trigger warnings is to say “what you are about to hear is ideologically problematic, and all moral people should immediately dismiss it without thought.” It is priming for self-censorship, not an attempt to reduce harm to an individual.
This is not true. The rare times someone has actually issued a trigger warning in my experience, it has been right before they talk about rape or child abuse.
Your experience seem to conflict with the linked article that states:
"a lecture or guest speaker may aggravate those issues or traumatic experiences... , the university also stated that it would not provide zones on campus for students to freely visit where they can be sure to avoid hateful and re-traumatizing rhetoric."
I don't think university campuses have a problem of lectures, guest speakers, or other students showing or advocating for rape or child abuse. The administrators are clearly advocating for much broader use of trigger warnings.
Further down in the linked article, the author says:
> ...A simple message saying “This lecture today pertains to sexual assault,” perhaps, will give students some insight into what’s about to be discussed and those who feel it may influence their mental health will be warned accordingly."
Later on she says:
> Should every lecture be flagged if it mentions sex or war? No.
I'm not sure what administrators you are referring to, since the ones at U Chicago explicitly were against trigger warnings, but the non-administrator author of the article seems to not support an overly broad or annoying or political requirement, or even a requirement at all.
I think maybe that you have been exposed to a small segment of people who want trigger warnings for discussions of stuff like welfare policy because it could be traumatic for people who grew up on welfare or something dumb like that. This is very much not the mainstream view or reflective of how trigger warning have been implemented in practice.
The real reason for trigger warnings is that advocates think it is bad for e.g. rape victims to be exposed to discussions of rape without a warning or ability to opt out.
So if trigger warning are exclusively used for rape and child abuse as you seem to believe, then I am not so concerned. I am skeptical that those topics actually come up on campus very often.
But my guess is that the vast majority of individuals who want trigger warnings also want to expand the practice FAR beyond rape and child abuse, including race, gender, sexuality, climate change, etc.
Hence their use of the term "harm," which can be expanded to include a very broad domain.
I think that it is motte-and-bailey defense that is intellectually dishonest.
Nobody claimed rape or other sensitive topics come up very often on campus, in fact I said they were rare. I saw 2 trigger warnings during my time in college, one was before an explicit discussion of Female Genital Mutilation in a course about human rights, the other was before a discussion of rape and sexual assault in developing countries in a Global Health course. I never saw a trigger warning in a constitutional law class, even though we discussed race, gender, gun control, abortion, etc, likely because reading the dissents couldn't actually be triggering to someone with PTSD.
I think your guess about what people who want trigger warnings actually, (secretly?) want is totally wrong. The professors I had that proactively decided to include trigger warnings for select topics did so in a very limited way. If they held the belief that trigger warnings should be expanded, well, they have control over their course, they could have issued trigger warnings before many other discussions in the course, like gay rights in Africa, but they didn't. I am not sure how you arrived at this view, other than perhaps by overestimating the size of a tiny vocal minority who think that saying "marriage is between a man and a woman" is *literally* violence, but I'm not sure, maybe you have some data on this?
I have a right to talk. And you have the right to walk away if you don’t like what you hear. But I’m under no obligation to preface my utterances with a warning….cuz then I wouldn’t be able to say anything without a preceding warning….cuz who can a priori know what might trigger and offend who that might be within earshot.
I have a better idea. If you’re easily offended or triggered, it behooves you to cease contact with humans who might offend you (ie everyone). It’s your job to avoid your triggers, and not mine to guess what they might be.
Besides, it’s mostly signalling these days anyway.
It seems to me that people who grew up without trigger warnings are better adjusted than the generation raised with them, but my evidence is anecdotal. Still, the empirical research doesn’t contradict that intuition. Studies consistently show that avoidance increases anxiety, while exposure to mild stressors builds resilience. Trigger warnings encourage avoidance rather than habituation, and controlled experiments have found that they do not reduce distress and can increase anticipatory anxiety. At the same time, college mental-health data show sharp rises in anxiety and depression beginning around the period when avoidance-based norms, including trigger warnings, became widespread.
None of this proves that trigger warnings themselves caused generational differences, but it does mean the mechanism behind my suspicion is real. Younger cohorts have grown up in a cultural environment that emphasizes emotional protection, safetyism, and pre-screening of potentially upsetting content, while older cohorts grew up in environments where exposure to discomfort was unavoidable. The best evidence suggests that exposure builds psychological calluses and avoidance erodes them, so the idea that trigger-warning culture might correlate with lower resilience is plausible, even if the causal story is broader than trigger warnings alone.
I think the real reason for trigger warnings is to say “what you are about to hear is ideologically problematic, and all moral people should immediately dismiss it without thought.” It is priming for self-censorship, not an attempt to reduce harm to an individual.
This is not true. The rare times someone has actually issued a trigger warning in my experience, it has been right before they talk about rape or child abuse.
Your experience seem to conflict with the linked article that states:
"a lecture or guest speaker may aggravate those issues or traumatic experiences... , the university also stated that it would not provide zones on campus for students to freely visit where they can be sure to avoid hateful and re-traumatizing rhetoric."
I don't think university campuses have a problem of lectures, guest speakers, or other students showing or advocating for rape or child abuse. The administrators are clearly advocating for much broader use of trigger warnings.
Further down in the linked article, the author says:
> ...A simple message saying “This lecture today pertains to sexual assault,” perhaps, will give students some insight into what’s about to be discussed and those who feel it may influence their mental health will be warned accordingly."
Later on she says:
> Should every lecture be flagged if it mentions sex or war? No.
I'm not sure what administrators you are referring to, since the ones at U Chicago explicitly were against trigger warnings, but the non-administrator author of the article seems to not support an overly broad or annoying or political requirement, or even a requirement at all.
I think maybe that you have been exposed to a small segment of people who want trigger warnings for discussions of stuff like welfare policy because it could be traumatic for people who grew up on welfare or something dumb like that. This is very much not the mainstream view or reflective of how trigger warning have been implemented in practice.
The real reason for trigger warnings is that advocates think it is bad for e.g. rape victims to be exposed to discussions of rape without a warning or ability to opt out.
So if trigger warning are exclusively used for rape and child abuse as you seem to believe, then I am not so concerned. I am skeptical that those topics actually come up on campus very often.
But my guess is that the vast majority of individuals who want trigger warnings also want to expand the practice FAR beyond rape and child abuse, including race, gender, sexuality, climate change, etc.
Hence their use of the term "harm," which can be expanded to include a very broad domain.
I think that it is motte-and-bailey defense that is intellectually dishonest.
Nobody claimed rape or other sensitive topics come up very often on campus, in fact I said they were rare. I saw 2 trigger warnings during my time in college, one was before an explicit discussion of Female Genital Mutilation in a course about human rights, the other was before a discussion of rape and sexual assault in developing countries in a Global Health course. I never saw a trigger warning in a constitutional law class, even though we discussed race, gender, gun control, abortion, etc, likely because reading the dissents couldn't actually be triggering to someone with PTSD.
I think your guess about what people who want trigger warnings actually, (secretly?) want is totally wrong. The professors I had that proactively decided to include trigger warnings for select topics did so in a very limited way. If they held the belief that trigger warnings should be expanded, well, they have control over their course, they could have issued trigger warnings before many other discussions in the course, like gay rights in Africa, but they didn't. I am not sure how you arrived at this view, other than perhaps by overestimating the size of a tiny vocal minority who think that saying "marriage is between a man and a woman" is *literally* violence, but I'm not sure, maybe you have some data on this?
Totally agree.
I have a right to talk. And you have the right to walk away if you don’t like what you hear. But I’m under no obligation to preface my utterances with a warning….cuz then I wouldn’t be able to say anything without a preceding warning….cuz who can a priori know what might trigger and offend who that might be within earshot.
I have a better idea. If you’re easily offended or triggered, it behooves you to cease contact with humans who might offend you (ie everyone). It’s your job to avoid your triggers, and not mine to guess what they might be.
Besides, it’s mostly signalling these days anyway.
Your blog is like good comedy - showing the absurd outcomes of well intentioned but poorly reasoned priors. I often laugh out loud at your posts.
It seems to me that people who grew up without trigger warnings are better adjusted than the generation raised with them, but my evidence is anecdotal. Still, the empirical research doesn’t contradict that intuition. Studies consistently show that avoidance increases anxiety, while exposure to mild stressors builds resilience. Trigger warnings encourage avoidance rather than habituation, and controlled experiments have found that they do not reduce distress and can increase anticipatory anxiety. At the same time, college mental-health data show sharp rises in anxiety and depression beginning around the period when avoidance-based norms, including trigger warnings, became widespread.
None of this proves that trigger warnings themselves caused generational differences, but it does mean the mechanism behind my suspicion is real. Younger cohorts have grown up in a cultural environment that emphasizes emotional protection, safetyism, and pre-screening of potentially upsetting content, while older cohorts grew up in environments where exposure to discomfort was unavoidable. The best evidence suggests that exposure builds psychological calluses and avoidance erodes them, so the idea that trigger-warning culture might correlate with lower resilience is plausible, even if the causal story is broader than trigger warnings alone.
"people – like me – are terrified of paperwork"
Amen, Brother.