First, some links: \u00a0A Chronicle of Higher Education blog post, \u201cTreatment, not Trigger Warnings<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0As the title indicates, the post argues that<\/p>\n \u00a0The solution is not to help these students dig themselves further into a life of fear and avoidance by allowing them to keep away from upsetting material. . . . It would be much more useful for faculty members and students to be trained how to respond if they are concerned that a student or peer has suffered trauma. Giving members of the college community the tools to guide them to the help they need would be more valuable than trying to insulate them from triggers. Students with unusually intense responses to academic cues should be referred to student-health services, where they can be evaluated and receive evidence-based treatments so that they can participate fully in the life of the university.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The post also point out that for someone with PTS*, triggers are not as simple as viewing or reading about a violent event, but seeing \u201cinnocent\u201d-seeming things or people that are connected with the specific event.<\/p>\n (*According to George Bush in an interview I saw not long ago, advocates are now dropping the \u201cD\u201d = \u201cdisorder,\u201d in hopes of reducing the belief that people suffering from post-traumatic stress are \u201cdisordered.\u201d)<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an example of a proposed \u201ctrigger warning\u201d requirement<\/a>, excerpted\u00a0(linked to in the above article as well):<\/p>\n The current suggested list of Trigger Warnings includes Rape, Sexual Assault, Abuse, Self-Injurious Behavior, Suicide, Graphic Violence, Pornography, Kidnapping, and Graphic Depictions of Gore.<\/p>\n Whereas: Having memories or flashbacks triggered can cause the person severe emotional, mental, and even physical distress. These reactions can affect a student\u2019s ability to perform academically.<\/p>\n Whereas: College level courses may contain materials with mature content. These particularly affect students if material is being read in the classroom or a film is being screened, as the student cannot choose to stop being exposed to the material.<\/p>\n Therefore let it be resolved by the Associated Students in the Senate Assembled:\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That the Associated Students of UC Santa Barbara urge the instructor of any course that includes triggering content to list trigger warnings on the syllabus.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here\u2019s the proposed policy at Oberlin<\/a> (cited from National Review because it seems a bit too likely that the material will ultimately be removed from the Oberlin website).<\/p>\n And here\u2019s what\u2019s flaky about all of this:<\/p>\n The term \u201ctrigger warning\u201d builds a \u201cprotected class\u201d of fragile \u201cPTSD\u201d survivors, that is, survivors of some kind of sexual assault. \u00a0How many such cases are there? \u00a0The more I read about it, the more improbable it seems that an unsuspecting student could be traumatized because of \u201ctriggering\u201d material. \u00a0The concept of the \u201ctrigger\u201d just doesn\u2019t seem credible. \u00a0If a student suffered trauma in the past and reading such material does cause them distress, then such a student is much better off making more careful course selections and discussing classes with the professor in advance. \u00a0In practice, these \u201ctrigger warnings\u201d came out of the Women\u2019s Studies world, and feel much more like a desire on the part of the aggrieved to make their grievance known to those around them, and to ask for acknowledgement of their distress. <\/p>\n The odd thing is that content warnings are not new: \u00a0television shows regularly carry, not just the \u201cTV-14\u201d or \u201cM\u201d rating, but a notice that the subject matter may be \u201cdistressing for some viewers.\u201d <\/p>\n At the same time, we have, in our media, much more explicit content than ever before: \u00a0each Marvel movie has more violence than the one that preceded it (which is really irritating as a mom trying to decide which movies cross the line to \u201ctoo violent for my preteen to see\u201d). \u00a0Books, too \u2014 one of the reasons I stopped reading fiction is that it seemed like I\u2019d pick up a random title and the \u201cdeep secret\u201d the book jacket promised, would be something a bit too extreme for my taste. <\/p>\n And our kids: \u00a0from what I read in the papers (I\u2019ll experience this more directly starting next year), in an effort to be \u201crelevant,\u201d high schools are assigning kids texts with a lot more graphic sex and violence than in the past. <\/p>\n Of course, to be sure, it\u2019s not as if \u201cgreat literature\u201d in the past was free from sex and violence (e.g., The Canterbury Tales), but I do think that it\u2019s become a lot more graphic. \u00a0Authors also are much more ready to throw in all manner of obscenities. \u00a0(My son asked the other day whether an author, thinking the word would fit the storyline best but not wanting to be direct, would ever write of a character, \u201cthen he said the F word.\u201d)<\/p>\n And if a student doesn\u2019t want to read such books, or if a parent disapproves, we call them prudes and ridicule them, and, so far as I know, school districts are uneven in the extent to which they allow a student an alternate assignment. <\/p>\n At the university level, I\u2019m not sure if even this is an option, when a university assigns a book for all sections of a freshman composition class, for instance.<\/p>\n Which brings us to the \u201ctrigger warning\u201d \u2014 because our betters have told us that preferring to avoid graphic sexual or violent content because we find it unpleasant or it offends our religious sensibilities, isn\u2019t allowed any longer, feminist activists have found it necessary to label it \u201ctriggering\u201d to justify their decisions, and to mark their desire to avoid reading the item in question as \u201clegitimate\u201d rather than just a matter of inappropriate \u201cprudery.\u201d<\/p>\n UPDATE: <\/p>\n