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Series: On gender and other agendas
We've gone too far with 'trigger warnings'
Universities and blogs do students no favors by pretending that every piece of offensive content comes with a warning sign
Chinua Achebe's postcolonial classic Things Fall Apart is one of the books that Oberlin College has recommended faculty teach with a trigger warning. Photograph: Michael Neal
Trigger Warning: this piece discusses trigger warnings. It may also look askance at college students who are
now asking
that trigger warnings be applied to their course materials.
If you've spent time on feminist blogs lately or in the social-justice-oriented corner of Tumblr, you have likely come across the Trigger Warning (TW): a note to readers that the material following the warning may trigger a post-traumatic stress reaction. In the early days of feminist blogging, trigger warnings were generally about sexual assault, and posted with the understanding that lots of women are sexual assault survivors, lots of women read feminist blogs, and graphic descriptions of
rape
might lead to panic attacks or other reactions that will really ruin someone's day. Easy enough to give readers a little heads up – a trigger warning – so that they can decide to avoid that material if they know that discussion of rape triggers debilitating reactions.
Trigger warnings in online spaces, though, have expanded widely and become more intricate, detailed, specific and obscure. Trigger warnings, and their cousin the "content note", are now included for a whole slew of potentially offensive or upsetting content, including but not limited to: misogyny, the death penalty, calories in a food item, terrorism, drunk driving, how much a person weighs, racism, gun violence, Stand Your Ground laws, drones, homophobia, PTSD, slavery, victim-blaming, abuse, swearing, child abuse, self-injury, suicide, talk of drug use, descriptions of medical procedures, corpses, skulls, skeletons, needles, discussion of "isms," neuroatypical shaming, slurs (including "stupid" or "dumb"), kidnapping, dental trauma, discussions of sex (even consensual), death or dying, spiders, insects, snakes, vomit, pregnancy, childbirth, blood, scarification, Nazi paraphernalia, slimy things, holes and "anything that might inspire intrusive thoughts in people with OCD".
It is true that everything on the above list might trigger a PTSD response in someone. The trouble with PTSD, though, is that its triggers are often unpredictable and individually specific – a certain smell, a particular song, being touched in that one way. It's impossible to account for all of them, because triggers are by their nature not particularly rational or universally foreseeable. Some are more common than others, though, which is why it seems reasonable enough for explicitly feminist spaces to include trigger warnings for things like assault and eating disorders.
College, though, is different. It is not a feminist blog. It is not a social justice Tumblr.
College isn't exactly the real world either, but it's a space for kinda-sorta adults to wade neck-deep into art, literature, philosophy, and the sciences, to explore new ideas, to expand their knowledge of the cultural canon, to interrogate power and to learn how to make an argument and to read a text. It is, hopefully, a space where the student is challenged and sometimes frustrated and sometimes deeply upset, a place where the student's world expands and pushes them to reach the outer edges – not a place that contracts to meet the student exactly where they are.
Which doesn't mean that individual students should not be given mental health accommodations. It's perfectly reasonable for a survivor of violence to ask a professor for a heads up if the reading list includes a piece with graphic descriptions of rape or violence, for example. But generalized trigger warnings aren't so much about helping people with PTSD as they are about a certain kind of performative
feminism: they're a low-stakes way to use the right language to identify yourself as conscious of social justice issues. Even better is demanding a trigger warning – that identifies you as even more aware, even more feminist, even more solicitous than the person who failed to adequately provide such a warning.
There is real harm in utilizing general trigger warnings in the classroom.
Oberlin College
recommends that its faculty "remove triggering material when it does not contribute directly to the course learning goals". When material is simply too important to take out entirely, the college recommends trigger warnings. For example, Oberlin says, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is a great and important book, but:
… it may trigger readers who have experienced racism, colonialism, religious persecution, violence, suicide, and more.
Students should be duly warned by the professor writing, for example, "Trigger warning: This book contains a scene of suicide."
On its face, that sounds fine (except for students who hate literary spoilers). But a trigger warning for what Oberlin identified as the book's common triggers – racism, colonialism, religious persecution, violence, suicide (and more!) – sets the tone for reading and understanding the book. It skews students' perceptions. It highlights particular issues as necessarily more upsetting than others, and directs students to focus on particular themes that have been singled out by the professor as traumatic.
At Rutgers,
a student urged professors
to use trigger warnings as a sort of Solomonic baby-splitting between two apparently equally bad choices: banning certain texts or introducing works that may cause psychological distress. Works the student mentioned as particularly triggering include F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Junot Diaz's This Is How You Lose Her and
Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. The warnings would be passage-by-passage, and effectively reach "a compromise between protecting students and defending their civil liberties".
But the space between comfort and freedom is not actually where universities should seek to situate college students. Students should be pushed to defend their ideas and to see the world from a variety of perspectives. Trigger warnings don't just warn students of potentially triggering material; they effectively shut down particular lines of discussion with "that's triggering". Students should – and do – have the right to walk out of any classroom. But students should also accept the challenge of exploring their own beliefs and responding to disagreement. Trigger warnings, of course, don't always shut down that kind of interrogation, but if feminist blogs are any example, they quickly become a way to short-circuit uncomfortable, unpopular or offensive arguments.
That should concern those of us who love literature, but it should particularly trouble the feminist and anti-racist bookworms among us. Trigger warnings are largely perceived as protecting young women and, to a lesser extent, other marginalized groups – people of color, LGBT people, people with mental illnesses. That the warnings hinge on topics that are more likely to affect the lives of marginalized groups contributes to the general perception of members of those groups as weak, vulnerable and "other".
The kinds of suffering typically imaged and experienced in the white western male realm – war, intra-male violence – are standard. Traumas that impact women, people of color, LGBT people, the mentally ill and other groups whose collective lives far outnumber those most often canonized in the American or European classroom are set apart as different, as particularly
traumatizing. Trigger warnings imply that our experiences are so unusual the pages detailing our lives can only be turned while wearing kid gloves.
There's a hierarchy of trauma there, as well as a dangerous assumption of inherent difference. There's a reinforcement of the toxic messages young women have gotten our entire lives: that we're inherently vulnerable.
And there's something lost when students are warned before they read Achebe or Diaz or Woolf, and when they read those writers first through the lens of trauma and fear.
Then, simply, there is the fact that the universe does not treat its members as if they come hand-delivered in a box clearly marked "fragile". The world can be a desperately ugly place, especially for women. That feminist blogs try to carve out a little section of the world that is a teeny bit safer for their readers is a credit to many of those spaces. Colleges, though, are not intellectual or emotional safe zones. Nor should they be.
Trauma survivors need tools to manage their triggers and cope with every day life. Universities absolutely should prioritize their needs – by making sure that mental health care is adequately funded, widely available and destigmatized.
But they do students no favors by pretending that every piece of potentially upsetting, triggering or even emotionally devastating content comes with a warning sign.
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4 people, 5 commentsalanredangel43Students should be duly warned by the professor writing, for example, "Trigger warning: This book contains a scene of suicide."Erm, wouldn't reading that be enough of a trigger for someone anyway? Wouldn't most of the plot lines in Eastenders be a trigger for somebody somewhere no matter how much they water it down? Someone gets killed in Midsomer every week, isn't that a trigger for relatives of a murder victim?Mind you I spose 'Midsomer Murders' is a trigger warning.
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CordwainerBird alanredangel96"Trigger warning: This book contains a scene of suicide."Elsewhere, this is called a spoiler.
Show 2 more replies Last reply: 05 March 2014 10:13pm -
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8 people, 11 commentsTystnaden106Trigger warnings, and their cousin the "content note", are now included for a whole slew of potentially offensive or upsetting content, including but not limited to: misogyny, the death penalty, calories in a food item, terrorism, drunk driving, how much a person weighs, racism, gun violence, Stand Your Ground laws, drones, homophobia, PTSD, slavery, victim-blaming, abuse, swearing, child abuse, self-injury, suicide, talk of drug use, descriptions of medical procedures, corpses, skulls, skeletons, needles, discussion of "isms," neuroatypical shaming, slurs (including "stupid" or "dumb"), kidnapping, dental trauma, discussions of sex (even consensual), death or dying, spiders, insects, snakes, vomit, pregnancy, childbirth, blood, scarification, Nazi paraphernalia, slimy things, holes and "anything that might inspire intrusive thoughts in people with OCD".I fully understand trigger warnings for graphic depictions of rape / murder etcBut jesus, it does make you wonder how some people function in the world if a trigger warning is needed for calories, or holes, or slimy things.Also, shouldn't absolutely everything, ever, have a trigger warning for "death", as that's where we're all heading.
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Edward Phillip Healy Tystnaden9it does make you wonder how some people function in the world if a trigger warning is needed for calories, or holes, or slimy things.Many people with the kinds of problems that would lead them to ask for such warnings often do not function very well at all while in the grips of whatever their problem is and even after recovery might struggle.Part of what can be so hard for somebody with an eating disorder, for example, to overcome that is that even if they are recovering and doing well they will have to encounter situations that have the potential to set them back.
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iammooks Edward Phillip Healy9"Part of what can be so hard for somebody with an eating disorder, for example, to overcome that is that even if they are recovering and doing well they will have to encounter situations that have the potential to set them back."I did some work in addiction a couple of years ago, and was very anxious at the time that even discussing the nature of addiction with people might cause them to relapse. I eventually had a frank conversation with someone where he told me that we can't continually be responsible for other people, nor can we live our lives trying to protect those people from themselves, and that the likelihood was that the people who relapse were always going to relapse anyway.When it comes to issues of rape or abuse, I wholeheartedly support the use of trigger warnings, since these are things that were done to people by others, and as such have and had no control over the consequences and how they experience and interpret subsequent events. When it becomes as ubiquitous as it has though, the action loses its impact.
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CalamityJane123 Tystnaden1I agree entirely.And this is from the woman who has to take her feet off the floor every time there is a snake on the telly.Hey! Do you think I should sue?!!*joke*
*but only just* -
hairymary100 MisterNormal1You should probably not be reading your niece even if she is a very hungry caterpiller [sic].
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Edward Phillip Healy iammooks1...we can't continually be responsible for other people, nor can we live our lives trying to protect those people from themselves...I didn't intend to present any particular opinion on trigger warnings, i was pointing out that the answer to 'how some people function in the world' is quite often that they do not function in the world or that they function very poorly while in these situations.I meant to say, part of what is so difficult for those who suffer in these ways is that, given that they will have to encounter difficult situations, they must learn to cope with the effects of those occurrences.So, in that regard, i agree with you....since these are things that were done to people by others, and as such have and had no control over the consequences and how they experience and interpret subsequent events.That's perhaps reasonable in some cases but in the case of a victim of abuse who develops a problem with addiction, your view becomes self-contradictory.If they have 'no control over the consequences' and the consequences are that they become an addict (or develop an eating disorder or any number of other such outcomes), then the addiction is not self-inflicted (Which i take to be your view based on your having said 'protect those people from themselves').So, in that regard, i disagree.I would be inclined to take the Stoic view and suggest that there is no case in which we are entirely without control over the consequences of our experiences on us. We cannot choose what happens to us but we can choose what it does to us....a Stoic always kept separate files in his mind for those things that are "up to him" and those things that are "not up to him." Another way of saying it is those things which are "within his power" and those things which are "beyond his power." Up to me, within my power, within my will, are my opinions, my aims, my aversions, my own grief, my own joy, my attitude about what is going on, my own good, and my own evil..That's from James Stockdale about his survival as a POW in Vietnam.I have no firm opinion on trigger warnings. I don't think that only using them in cases involving issues of rape or abuse can be justified in your way but that doesn't mean that it can't be justified in another way.
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iammooks Edward Phillip Healy0Of course - my comment wasn't really attempting to debate anything you said, more supplementing it with things I'd experienced myself in the past.Regards the addiction, my contact always put the emphasis on personal responsibility - they were the one who made the decision to use, abuse or not, and so must take responsibility for that - but to see it as a separate issue - deal with the addiction and the abuse/trauma separately and resolve them separately - so a trigger for abuse might well be justified but not so much for descriptions of drug use. A lot of the people I met hated people doing their thinking for them - for example by not inviting them to meet up in a pub, as if they lack the self-control not to drink when placed in that environment, as if they couldn't just go to the pub or off-licence any other time of the day or night...It's a fine line of course, and one person who's had exactly the same spectrum of experiences may brush things off while another may be deeply affected - but even so - is it helpful to shelter people from the fact the world can be a very unpleasant place at times? The overuse of trigger warnings seems to be reducing the impact of triggers for people who would genuinely benefit from them, reducing them to, as the author says, a mechanism for demonstrating how caring the person writing an article is - they've been subverted for selfish, personal reasons, and for that reason I'm quite dismayed.
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madmonty MisterNormal1Indeed, think of Lewis Carrols books and stories, rampant substance abuse, hullucinations, potential child abuse and murder.
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Edward Phillip Healy iammooks1That seems reasonable to me up to the point that if you can argue that a victim of abuse should be held responsible if they develop a problem with addiction (which i believe to be the case) then trigger warnings for abuse cannot be justified by an appeal to a lack of responsibility in that case.Addiction might be seen as on the opposite end in that regard (that they are responsible both for what happens to them and for what they do about it) but consider something like losing a parent to cancer. In the short term, at least, encountering graphic depictions of that might be very troublesome for somebody, would a trigger warning be justified there? I would argue not but if not, why not? They, like the victim of abuse, are not responsible for what happens to them but only for what they do about it. So it can't really be that that justifies a trigger warning in one case but not the other.The problem being that if we then turn to a discussion of sensitivity to their feelings or some other such justification, while it seems perfectly reasonable, it doesn't allow for a clear distinction between abuse and other problems. If the reason for a trigger warning is to be sensitive of the potential effects of something on somebody then the problem becomes almost inevitable, what does that not apply to? As you say, it loses all meaning.
Show 8 more replies Last reply: 06 March 2014 2:58pm -
7 people, 8 commentsPagey106I laughed the other night when a message came up before The Walking Dead - "contains violence and horror".I would've been disappointed if it hadn't.
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SteppenHerring Pagey23I was traumatised when the BBC News went straight into a report on the late Roger Lloyd-Pack
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Robin Dwyer-Hickey Pagey15Clearly you lead a privileged life and have never had to face the trauma of slamming a window shut on the rotten fingers of the undead. Hmph.
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madmonty SteppenHerring3What about Piers Morgan, never got a trigger warning when he was about to come on!
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AhBrightWings Pagey8
I share that impulse, but your post is a perfect illustration of the part of this the misguided folk who want the warning, misunderstand...who decides what is a trigger?I laughed the other night when a message came up before The Walking Dead - "contains violence and horror".
I would've been disappointed if it hadn't.The least offensive, alarming, dangerous part of "The Walking Dead" is the zombies. Frankly, after the first episode they became background noise. I find the understated human moments where someone decides to toss a neighbor, friend, cohort to the fiends (Shane) or proactively kill a sick patient (Carol) or walk away from a situation knowing they're dooming someone else (Rick) or become a Kurtz- like figure (The Governor) incomparably more upsetting. Many of those moments depict no violence.The most disturbing moment in four seasons is the episode where Rick, his son and someone else (Daryl?) head into town. They pass a backpacker emerging from the woods who clearly hasn't turned, is desperately flagging them down, and blow past him. In the closing minute of that episode, we see the car returning and passing the scattered remains of the young man; the car pauses, a hand reaches out, snags the blood stained backpack and the car disappears.Zero commentary. No excuses. No rationalization. No violence in depicting it (we just see the aftermath). Two seasons later I still can't shake it.Using this idiot scale, it would pass with flying colors while a throw away moment of gore might get flagged. Ask five people what moment most disturbs them in Lolita, and you will probably get five different answers. Often what is calculated to shock does not or isn't really the part of the story that matters. Do we really want to reduce Emma to a "suicide story"? Flaubert sure doesn't. And can someone explain why in the world The Great Gatsby has been deemed too upsetting for unprotected eyes?The pertinent question that everyone in the thread has pointed out is this: When did academia become so gormless and cowardly? Is there a reason we think a student couldn't or shouldn't confront a troubling idea in a book? How do we imagine they navigate life?God help us if there ever is an apocalypse, zombie or otherwise, because we're doing everything in our power to ensure this generation won't be able to help itself.
Show 5 more replies Last reply: 06 March 2014 6:19pm -
3 people, 4 commentsMyPoorEar43Great article. Surely a huge part of surviving a traumatic experience is trying to live a normal life afterwards, i.e. overcoming the triggers rather than avoiding them.And I have to admit to being confused by the logistics. Surely 'trigger warning: suicide' is itself a trigger?
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ribenaberry MyPoorEar30It's difficult really. I would prefer to be given a trigger warning that there was going to be a rape scene in a film / book, rather than read get to it and be shocked and end up with a panic attack. Simply saying the word rape is far less "triggering" than not giving a warning at all.
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StrawBear ribenaberry3So you'd read/watch the entire rape scene all the way through? You wouldn't stop the second it became clear that was what was happening in the movie/book?
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ribenaberry StrawBear8No I wouldn't watch it all the way through. As someone who has been through it I think a few seconds would be enough to upset me, and that is my experience which I don't need anyone else's opinion on really. There are "flashbacks" to rape scenes in a few movies and tv programmes I've seen, I can't unsee those things and there weren't warnings prior. Which I would have appreciated.
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5 people, 5 commentsSubterranean99178I have never heard of this before and I find it extraordinary.I actually feel it's an example of something entirely apart from race/gender politics- a perfect example of the way society is becoming 'infantilized'. It seems that increasingly adults not only need to be cocooned from reality, or 'bad things'- they need to be 'protected' from depictions of it.
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UnTribalist Subterranean99125Weird isn't it?I guess it's because taking offense and claiming victim status has become a hobby for far too many.
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Sussexperson UnTribalist77Worse: taking pre-emptive offence on behalf of others. That seems to have become an even more widespread hobby. And far more pernicious, because -- as this fine article indeed suggests -- it cements those "others" into their victim status. It denies them agency in overcoming their trauma, whatever it may be, in their own way, and reduces them to subservient beneficiaries of these self-appointed triggering censors.OK, some of these Emotional Puritans may be acting from the best of motives, and all of them may be sometimes. But you can't help suspecting that there's more going on here: the in-built desire of some humans to dominate others. In this case, those who like to imagine that they and their lives are perfect, claiming status over those who they perceive to be damaged/troubled/euphemism of choice. It may have something to do with caring, yes ... but also much to do with what one can only describe as psychological colonialism.
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SaudiMike Sussexperson11What happens when these people leave college/university and enter the real world? Do they expect to have trigger warnings on everything that may traumatise them for the rest of their lives?
Show 2 more replies Last reply: 06 March 2014 3:16am -
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4 people, 5 commentsShow 2 more replies Last reply: 06 March 2014 7:43pm
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Charleysurf54First time I heard the term was reading about the hysterical reaction to the "sleepwalking man" sculpture at the all-female Wellesley College. Crazy stuff. I don't know how some people will survive in their harsh world, with nothing but their rich American parents.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/arts/design/at-wellesley-debate-over-a-statue-in-briefs.html
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3 people, 3 commentssomethingmorexciting13Mrs Dalloway was all about 'trigger warnings' - the ringing of a bell or chiming of a clock caused flashbacks...
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PlainChocolate mikedow4Fucking madeleines!Was he? I missed that bit. Neat trick if you can do it, given the size of madeleines.
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Jebedee51Thank you for this article. I think having things like this written is important, not just for the specific issue in question, but as a defence of the principle that there really is such a thing as Taking It Too Far.A common motivation given for "social justice"-oriented recommendations (or demands) for what people should and shouldn't say or do is that they're all about respecting people's feelings. Which is reasonable, but can lead to the bad-faith accusation that if you don't follow along, it must be that you're just a malicious jerk who doesn't care about others and values the ability to be mean for its own sake.When I think a lot of time that's not just false, but people push back precisely because they can see that the reasoning offered seems to equate to saying "you shouldn't do this if someone, somewhere might take umbrage". Leaving no room to reply that sorry, you're not setting out to make people miserable, but not every complaint is reasonable, and you're not going to accommodate the ones that aren't. People will probably always disagree about where that line is, but it's nice to have some acknowledgement that it exists.
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3 people, 4 commentsFrostAndFire93I see this a lot on blogs, and it's definitely a more-PC-than-thou statement, more about oneupmanship than protecting anyone.I am fed up with the whole idea that we have to protected from anything that might challenge or hurt our precious little feelings at all times. Kind of like the Science Fiction / Jonathan Ross nonsense the other day.
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WoefulWoefulGuardian FrostAndFire13Jonathan Ross needs to check his privilege and say the words "TRIGGER WARNING" before every joke he tells.
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Fiona Mac FrostAndFire12Maybe that's because you're someone who doesn't need protection. That doesn't mean there aren't those that do.
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FrostAndFire Fiona Mac6Maybe that's because you're someone who doesn't need protection. That doesn't mean there aren't those that do.There are some traumatic events in my recent past that I have no intention of discussing here. And, yes, all sorts of things set off bad memories of them that leave me feeling punched. But that doesn't mean anyone is obliged to pepper their books or blog posts with warnings about what they think may set me or anyone else off.I'm not saying there should never be warnings. A graphic rape scene in, say, a show that appears to be for children should definitely have a warning. But the adult world can't be fenced around for warnings about every potential upset.
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3 people, 3 commentsMrBullFrog40Censors always act in someone's best interests, don't they? Think about the children, think about the servants, think about trauma sufferers. It must make them very warm inside to think that they are protecting so many otherwise defenceless waifs and wimps.I think everyone should read 'Justine'.
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thaumaturge MrBullFrog7I have read Justine. It was horrible far beyond what I'd imagined, but I did not need a trigger warning.It did enlighten me as to what the word 'sadist' really means.
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StrawBear MrBullFrog4the Trigger Warning (TW): a note to readers that the material following the warning may trigger a post-traumatic stress reaction.I thought that was a joke, until I read the rest of the article.
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4 people, 6 commentsJonAustin73It seems to me to have degenerated into a kind of Oppression Olympics. "My bad experience is as bad / worse than yours, so deserves a trigger warning." In other ways it can be used to censor things that someone doesn't want to have to read about.
When will the Royal Shakespeare Company have to put trigger warnings on Hamlet - "contains graphic violence and suicide" or Titus Andronicus "scenes of cannibalism". Or Macbeth: "May cause offence to Wiccans".-
Tippingpoi danjc938Why?I don't mean that sardonically I mean it straightforwardly.But I can see that if reading about it makes you feel unwell then possibly answering my question will equally make you feel unwell ... but, if you feel up to it, what happens to you now that makes you ask for a trigger warning? Is it a panic attack?Do you think you are being "over-sensitive" or not?Can you envisage a time in the future when you won't need a trigger warning?
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danjc93 Tippingpoi9I haven't read Hamlet yet so I couldn't say. I find it easier to deal with in fictional cases. I don't get panic attacks but sometimes reading things about suicide can be the start of a negative thinking cycle of remembering past traumas, dwelling on them and then thinking about it again, in the sense of me considering it. I don't think I'm being over-sensitive, and I don't know if I'll always need them based on the fact I don't know what my future self and future emotional state will be.
Show 3 more replies Last reply: 05 March 2014 6:40pm -
2 people, 2 comments
AzuraTheBlueDevil82This is just one more example of the current trend for being as conspicuoisly inoffensive and sensitive as possible, and its one of the best examples of the road to hell being paved with good intensions there has ever been. It's reached the point where social conscience has become nothing more than a battleground for smug egotists and nacissistic control freaks.
When did being right-on turn so fascistic?-
StevoKingoftheNewts AzuraTheBlueDevil8Ooh, steady on. There's no need for that kind of talk.Calm it down pal, calm it down.
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pikeamus24In liu of a recommend button for the article itself, I'll just say that I agree wholeheartedly.
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4 people, 5 commentsStevoKingoftheNewts32Trigger warning - this post has trigger warnings and may be a bit upsetting to the kind of person who gets upset about things unless they are pre-warned about things that might upset them.I didn't read the article as it had a trigger warning. I never read on after the words trigger warning, just in case.
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MarkB35 StevoKingoftheNewts15I've never read anything more offensive in my life. I feel a funny turn coming on.
Show 2 more replies Last reply: 05 March 2014 5:56pm -
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MrBullFrog13... and if you do not touch terror at some point in our great works of fiction, you are probably not reading properly ... -
7 people, 9 commentsRobyn Samwell221As somebody who struggles with PTSD, I can honestly say that it does more harm than good in the long run. Being surrounded by trigger warnings just re-enforced and validated all of my fears and did nothing to help me work through them.Slapping trigger warnings on everything has also perpetuated the wrong idea about what a trigger actually is. If something makes you angry, uncomfortable or you shed a tear you have not been triggered. You're a human being, you're supposed to experience a range of emotions fully. The term 'trigger' is meant to refer to those with PTSD, those with severe anxiety and/or survivors of various forms of abuse. It indicates an extreme reaction to certain stimulus; i.e. a panic attack/flashback/blackout caused by your brain being unable to handle the resurgence of something horrific that happened to you.In my case I get really dizzy and tend to puke everywhere and then faint.So when I see 'every size is healthy' girls on tumblr ranting about how skinny girls/skinny boys/full fat coke 'triggers' them I am not only insulted, I'm pissed off and any sympathy I had for them goes right out the window.
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unretrofied Robyn Samwell42Agreed, as someone with a couple of triggers of my own related to some things in childhood I would rather not elaborate on in a public forum, it's something you have to learn to live with and manage.For my part I fly into a wild rage of self loathing and hate every time one happens, with suffocating anxiety as a side serving, but they are innocuous triggers and others wouldn't realise what they have done. Avoiding them leads to further problems and makes nothing better. I am past the point of letting my life be limited and ruined by them, however hard that work might be.
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mikedow Robyn Samwell2
Sounds like an adrenaline rush. I often feel a little queasy after a confrontation. Even modern action films are a problem for me to watch.In my case I get really dizzy and tend to puke everywhere and then faint. -
FalseBeard Robyn Samwell15It's a travesty what's happening. PTSD is the new "dyslexia". That is like people claiming to be dyslexic with no real grounds for the claim.I've known ex-soldiers who suffer from PTSD. Military stuff tends to trigger them. But unless you've been a soldier, soldiering type things will not be a trigger. The triggers are from things present at the point of trauma.In a Clock Work Orange, Alex is tortured - specifically to create PTSD, in relation to rape and violence. He's strapped in a chair, with his eyes pinned open, and shown a film, while under the influence of a drug that induces trauma. Beethoven is playing as the sound track to the film he is forced to watch. Subsequently, he is released from prison. Whenever he hears Beethoven he is extremely traumatised - up to the point of trying to kill himself. Beethoven is one of his triggers.For people who've experienced trauma in banal circumstances, it's banal elements that cause the triggers. It could be some music, a smell; like an after shave or perfume. It could be something as seemingly unrelated to trauma as watching someone drink a cup of coffee. The kind of problem PTSD suffers tend have is the banal triggers. They can't run screaming from a room, when someone is wearing the same aftershave as the person who raped them.
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FalseBeard mikedow9Sounds like an adrenaline rush. I often feel a little queasy after a confrontation.Yes, but that is after a confrontation. A PTSD trigger, might make someone experience a confrontation where there is none.Imagine if you're sitting in a comfortable room, having a comfortable chat with someone. They pull out a notebook, with a tartan pattern cover. For an instant you experience receiving a savage beating, even throw your hands up to protect your face. That's the experience. For some people the sight of tartan might make them cataplectic - where they roll their eyes and pass out.It's strange stuff. I woman I knew had a thing for chickens. Anything to do with chickens was deeply traumatic for her. Because she had been abused as a child and chickens had been involved in the abuse.
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snowcat3 Robyn Samwell4Agree with all that you say.A similar thing has happened with the word "traumatic." I hear it quite a lot. "We missed the bus, it was really traumatic." No it wasn't.
Show 6 more replies Last reply: 06 March 2014 1:42pm -
2 people, 3 comments
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corstopitum StrawBear0FWIW I disagree. A snort is like a sneeze, triggered by something but unlike a snigger, impossible to suppress.
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2 people, 2 comments
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danjc93 mikedowThis comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.
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6 people, 12 commentsdanjc9322God forbid we alter our language and behaviours to make the world a less hospitable place for others. I don't trigger warn everything but I do use some of them because people I know unfortunately have experiences with things like mental illness, racism and sexual assault so if I can help them, I will.
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Guardian contributor
Dorianlynskey danjc9323Well doesn't the writer say more than once that there is a place for trigger warnings in certain cases and contexts but that they can be taken too far? I noticed on Twitter that a lot of responses to this article made out that JF was rubbishing the whole concept, which makes me wonder how much of it they actually read. -
danjc93 WoefulWoefulGuardian11Well one friend who was a victim of sexual assaults has had multiple panic attacks after being triggered by things that had no warnings. I don't want a medal but I'd rather trigger warn something than take the risk.
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misanthropretty danjc9318Yeah, but surely you can see the difference between a trigger warning for rape or suicide and one for "slimy things"?
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danjc93 misanthropretty7Some trigger warnings like slimy things are a bit silly but that doesn't mean trigger warnings for sexual assault or suicide aren't important. You can't really group them all together like that.
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danjc93 misanthropretty3Sorry, I was in agreement with you, that was meant in reply to the comments above your own.
Show 9 more replies Last reply: 06 March 2014 12:43am -
garetko24Wouldn't a trigger warning about a rape, murder or whatever be enough in itself to turn one's thoughts to the subject trying to be avoided?
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mikedow7What if you don't know you're susceptible to triggers? Wouldn't outright Bowdlerization be more efficient?
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2 people, 2 commentsaadman19I understand using a warning for topics that are overtly offensive, like racism or sexual assault. The rest sounds like an awful lot of self-obsessed navel gazing to me. Are any of these kids going to be able to cope with the real world after being coddled like this?
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Swiveleyedcapitalist aadman28No, trigger warnings should not be about "offensive" material. They should be used specifically to limit the risk of panic attacks or other adverse reactions in PTSD sufferers. It's not about triggering offense-taking. I agree with the article completely. A well intentioned idea has been taken too far and is now infantalizing people - "protecting" them from difficult topics.
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5 people, 6 comments
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LariaA rmfillingham11
is the daftest thing I've read all day.WORDS DON"T HURTWords are incredibly powerful. If they weren't, we wouldn't spend so much time using them. -
RobHardy StrawBear7I dont agree, a lot of verbal abuse is casual and not really meant, there is little specific intent. We just don't know the inner world that our words fall on, and so should learn caution. When I was young a neighbour's child took her fathers shotgun and killed herself after harsh words said in anger in an argument with her mother. Those words, "I dont love you", definitely without intent but spoken at a terrible moment did such terrible harm.
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snowcat3 RobHardy6Saying "I don't love you" casually to your own child? That should never be a casual thing.My guess would be that that "I don't love you" was simply the last in a whole catologue of abusive remarks and actions.Verbal abuse, especially when doled out by adults to children, is hugely damaging. "Sticks and stones" must be the most stupid and downright untrue proverb out there.
Show 3 more replies Last reply: 06 March 2014 1:48pm -
4 people, 8 comments
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Trogopterus gonzalo19397It means: making someone feel guilty or ashamed about not being neurotypical. See neurotypical syndrome, Uncyclopedia.
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NotProperty gonzalo193911The term "neurotypical" is used by some people on the autistic spectrum to refer to those who aren't. Does that help?
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snowcat3 NotProperty2So is "neurotypical shaming" what neurotypicals do or what they are on the receiving end of?I've certainly come across online discussions about autistic spectrum disorder where some people on the spectrum see nothing wrong with saying "Neurotypicals are all f****** liars and hypocrites."There's a prejudice right there.
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NotProperty snowcat34"Neuroatypical shaming" - with an "a" in the middle - is the term gonzalo1939 was wondering about. I thought it might have some connection with the term "neurotypical".I'm mostly guessing, but might an example of perceived "neuroatypical shaming" be rebuking someone with Asperger's for being rude?To someone who tends to take things too literally, and who is repeatedly told not to lie, to be honest, to tell the truth, being rebuked for being rude when being honest and telling the truth about how they don't like the birthday present they've just been given could seem unfair and unreasonable from their perspective.I've certainly come across online discussions about autistic spectrum disorder where some people on the spectrum see nothing wrong with saying "Neurotypicals are all f****** liars and hypocrites."I can imagine that being a frustrated response to the perceived hypocrisy of those who preach honesty then criticising simply saying what you actually think as rude. Did you see any rants along the lines of, "They tell us to be honest, to tell the truth, and then, when we do, they complain we're being rude! Then they say we should be 'diplomatic', 'discreet', 'polite', and basically lie instead - f***ing hypocrites!"
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snowcat3 NotProperty2Yes, I hear all that. You're probably right.But my argument would be, if someone lives in society, that person has to learn some of its habits. I know where the "they are hypocrites" is coming from but a situation where people are openly, blatantly honest in all circumstances is not feasible either. Poking fun at someone whom we know to have Asperger's could be described as "neurotypical shaming", yes. But someone who is grossly insensitive to the point of being callous can't be allowed to run the show either, whether they have Asperger's or not. It is not socially acceptable, for example, to say to someone (anyone) "You are ugly" (even if we think that.)I think "neuratypical" is a typo for "neurotypical." As far as I know, the former isn't a word.
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NotProperty snowcat33Having now looked at your profile, I note that you have relevant experience when it comes to the autistic spectrum.Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to defend "Neurotypicals are all f****** liars and hypocrites," just trying to explain what I think "neuroatypical shaming" might refer to.I think "neuratypical" is a typo for "neurotypical." As far as I know, the former isn't a word.
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snowcat3 NotProperty2Thank you for looking at my profile, most people don't. I've been shouted at on autism forums for "not having a f***ing clue". Have also been told by one especially angry individual that as a parent of an autistic child, I have no right to speak because "you are speaking for your son and he should be speaking for himself." My son is 15, severely learning-disabled as well as autistic, and I speak for him in situations where he clearly cannot speak for himself.I am familiar with "neurotypical" but accept what you say. About the spelling. And about the shaming.
Show 5 more replies Last reply: 07 March 2014 8:47am -
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Excession7754What can be more dis-empowering and infantilising than other people insisting you must have a serious psychiatric condition (perhaps several) that limits your ability to read literature or really even exist in the world at large when you don't? That you have such little resilience you simply can't be expected to survive having a thought that isn't about fluffy clouds and unicorns?People with actual PTSD are typically impressive fighters against what the 'trigger warning' brigade seem to want everyone to actively succumb to.If there is a widespread psychiatric condition that is getting triggered here it isn't PTSD, its Munchausen by proxy.
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Guardian contributor
DanielDavies23There are basically three kinds of trigger warnings, one of which is over-used and the other two are more or less always pernicious.1. "This product contains nuts".In other words, you're putting a blanket categorisation on something because you don't know if someone might be harmed by it. In some cases, this might be the right thing to do (just like people with anaphylatic allergies do really need the allergy information). I might think of a personal memoir which needed to be written, but which couldn't be written honestly without a graphic description of an event that could genuinely trigger PTSD, for example.But like nut warnings, these are overused, often on content that has very little in it that could reasonably be expected to trigger PTSD - basically any discussion of sexual crime in some quarters is given the warning, even if it's just a passing reference to government statistics. As with the over-use of nut warnings, it means firstly that people will end up not taking part in discussions where their experience might really make a valuable contribution, and secondly that people with PTSD get shut out of large parts of the web of interest to them, or (as often happens) they just start ignoring the warnings. Which is a problem because the other two types of trigger warning are:2. "Lehman Brothers may have conflicts of interest with respect to this security"This is the case where you pretty much know that there's triggering content in there and you don't really care, you just don't want anyone to yell at you so you slap the warning at the top. Promotes careless writing and needless sensationalism; there are really very few cases in which a graphic description of an assault of any kind is actually needed. In my opinion most times when people are feeling good about themselves for writing "TRIGGER WARNING", they should actually be rewriting the piece to take the material out.3. "TOO HOT FOR TV XXX!"This is the, also all too common, case where you're actually using the trigger warning as a form of advertisement that there's something really juicy and prurient below. Obviously nobody would own up to doing this but really - I swear I've seen online articles with a picture of a half-naked body, a twenty point headline describing a sexual assault, and then a trigger warning below it. What are you meant to think when you see something like that? If you worry that you might be accused of this practice, your piece again needs rewritten.Most of the stuff Kill's talking about appears to be in category 1. "Things Fall Apart" needs all of its content. And if anyone is actually in a state of mind where reading "Things Fall Apart" is a serious danger of giving them a PTSD flashback (a really horrible and very serious experience), then really they need to be steered away from doing a literature course at all and concentrating on healing from their PTSD. -
3 people, 3 commentsBobjob2120Jill Filipovic is an American lady, writing about American universities.All is explained.
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misanthropretty Bobjob2134TRIGGER WARNING: MASSIVE ANTI-AMERICAN RACISMI stopped reading a quite good (American) social-justiceish blog after its moderator called out a commenter for "grammar shaming".
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snowcat3 misanthropretty3I don't think it's necessarily anti-American to point out that Jill Filipovic is writing about American universities.I haven't done a study of this, granted, but while being aware of trigger warnings in Britain, I am yet to see ones warning people about holes, slimy things, etc etc. I have seen them on articles that detail sexual assault, self-harming and eating disorders, that is all.JF does seem to be referring to an American phenomenon. Which is why it is rather annoying to hear it see it presented in The Guardian as if it is a widespread phenomenon: "We have gone too far"? (italics mine.)
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4 people, 5 comments
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StrawBear Simpson908711Do you realize how many people died in the Past?What's even worse is the future, the future's going to kill loads more than the past.Someone should put an end to it now.
Show 2 more replies Last reply: 06 March 2014 12:52am -
Grimsterise19Just show this to every new born baby: Life is a disease, sexually transmitted and invariably fatal, get over it.
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3 people, 3 commentsdfic199954Filipovic:But generalized trigger warnings aren't so much about helping people with PTSD as they are about a certain kind of performative feminism: they're a low-stakes way to use the right language to identify yourself as conscious of social justice issues. Even better is demanding a trigger warning – that identifies you as even more aware, even more feminist, even more solicitous than the person who failed to adequately provide such a warning. [emphasis added]This is the interesting bit: the suggestion that it's not about demonstrating a sensitivity towards a topic but rather being 'seen' to be so, and demanding that others 'ought' to do the same to validate one's politics. I suspect such people (by no means limited to feminists) aren't necessarily helping their cause.
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AzuraTheBlueDevil dfic199945This is the biggest problem with it. A lot of it is nothing more than an ugly combination of bullying and halo polishing, and its incredibly damaging while being difficult to counter with reason, as the bully can just pull out whichever card they wish to wave and make you look like an arsehole. Its the ultimate in passive aggression.
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2 people, 3 commentsDegenerate Press5Didn't I already ready this article? Yes, yes I did. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/policies/funding/states08/index.html
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Degenerate Press Degenerate Press6Lazy "reporting," Guardian. At least cite the author whose work you have pillaged.
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Excession77 Degenerate Press6Your link doesn't work but there was a very similar piece to this in The New Republic two days ago.
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RodneyM7226The irony is that the longer one avoids their triggers the more of a slave they become to their illness, abuse etc and the more they open themselves up to victimisation.I speak from experience. When a certain capitalised letter of the alphabet became one of my 'triggers' I eventually came to a sudden realisation:"FFS! I can't avoid the letter 'D' for the rest of my life!"Relational Frame Theory explains quite a lot about how language can cause suffering. And bearing in mind the fact that we think using language, it helps explain the downward spiral of mental ill health.
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3 people, 5 commentscbarr13In my philosophy classes when I was at uni we studied rape. Not sure a trigger warning on all the course materials would have being very practical...Show 2 more replies Last reply: 05 March 2014 6:00pm
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dfic199918Two points. First, Filipovic writes:The kinds of suffering typically imaged and experienced in the white western male realm – war, intra-male violence – are standard.This is, of course, based on the idea that 'white western' men (or indeed most men) aren't 'triggered' by something like intra-male violence because they are not, and never, vulnerable or 'fragile' - so no warnings required. That's how the experience of everyone else gets framed (or claimed) as 'Other.'Secondly, this is a debate entirely about the arts, especially literature - unless creationists are going to start demanding trigger warnings for On the Origin of Species or A Brief History of Time (and to be fair, I wouldn't put it past them).
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2 people, 2 comments
Guardian contributor
fripouille26...dental trauma, discussions of sex (even consensual), death or dying, spiders, insects, snakes, vomit, pregnancy, childbirth, blood, scarification, Nazi paraphernalia, slimy things, holes and "anything that might inspire intrusive thoughts in people with OCD".This causes PTSD in some people?! That's laughable but only marginally less laughable are the categories of;misogyny, the death penalty, calories in a food item, terrorism, drunk driving, how much a person weighs, racism, gun violenceIs this article serious? What would these 'Trigger Warning' fanatics like next. Trigger warnings on press articles, which relate what goes on in this world?-
snowcat3 fripouille5I don't think the suggestion is that mention of those things will cause PTSD but that mention of them might cause a lot of distress to people who already have PTSD.The list is ridiculous, yes.And as someone who has suffered from PTSD, I would say that I knew quite well what my triggers were, and they were quite often things I couldn't reasonably avoid, and I worked out ways of coping. I didn't need triggers to be "helpfully" pointed out by some patronising person who wasn't living my life.
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2 people, 2 comments
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2 people, 2 commentsPaulBowes0122"Listen, don't mention the war! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right."
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CrabbyGit18This Trigger was removed because it didn't abide by our community standards. Trigger's replies may also be deleted. For more Triggers see old Roy Rogers films before they are banned on many, many, pretexts
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Rydell2I somehow doubt they help long term.You can avoid things you know that they may be problematic for you and suffer the odd thing that creeps up on you but practically and morally the emphasis should be on the individual to avoid rather than the content to warn.Whether you should learn to deal with the reactions is another matter but society can't flag up everything and has no duty to warn people that content they are accessing may shock them (barring films and a few other things where it is legally required).
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6 people, 11 commentsMikeOzanne16So idle troll question, what would the trigger warning page look like for the King James's Bible...:-)
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misanthropretty MikeOzanne14Well, aside from the obvious violence, rape, death, incest, I'd imagine "snakes" would be up there.
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danjc93 MikeOzanne5Maybe a trigger warning for dying of boredom if you read something like Leviticus
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MikeOzanne danjc936Ah c'mon Leviticus boring? Incest, sex and bestiality, interspersed with dietary advice. What's not to like....
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StrawBear MikeOzanne1So idle troll question, what would the trigger warning page look like for the King James's Bible...:-)Contains fantasy violence?
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MikeOzanne maclau12Went to work, came home, went to the pub, read this typed stuff anyway... Mea culpa...
Show 8 more replies Last reply: 06 March 2014 3:00am -
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RastaRayI4I thought we were intending to educate people, one assumes that people have a brain and are able to differentiate One also hopes that the Prof/ teacher is smart enough to give students some direction/information when using a book for learning. It seems pathetic to have to publish warnings. To me it take away the students ability to really learn. Am I wrong????. Maybe in Grade/Primary schools it could serve a purpose but after that I cannot see any useful purpose if we are encouraging mature thoughts and thinking.
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3 people, 4 commentsWill Aitken8JR Ackerley had it right: " ... to speak the truth, I think that people ought to be upset, and if I had a paper I would upset them all the time. I think that life is so important and, in its workings, so upsetting that nobody should be spared."
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Mike500019I find trigger warnings traumatizing.Every trigger warning should be preceded by a trigger warning.
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5 people, 7 commentsJackanapes12It's nauseating. Just a more recent example of the pussification of society (OMG A GENDERED SLUR, THE RAPE APOLOGIST), whereby a deeply sickening cadre of faux liberals seek to shackle discourse to the hysterical (OMG, MISOGYNIST) demands and gossamer-skinned sensibilities of the weakest and most damaged members of that society. Which is a great way to drag that society down.
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danjc93 misanthropretty18but I'm only anti-sexism as long as I don't have to change or challenge any of my behaviours...
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misanthropretty danjc9316"I read the Guardian and don't actively beat women, so I can never be sexist!"
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SV5H1 misanthropretty12
No way. That rules out all the really good genital related ones.You could always just...not use gendered slurs? -
MikeOzanne SV5H12After consulting Big Bang Theory (The Scavanger Vortex) the word you need is "Willow" preferably uttered breathlessly by a short blond woman in glasses.
Show 4 more replies Last reply: 06 March 2014 10:12am -
2 people, 2 commentstexasmanhandle8So, granting that the use of "trigger warning" has spread into merely uncomfortable content, I kept waiting to get to the part of the article that argued why this is an actual problem, taking it beyond a crabby Andy Rooney-esque rant. So finally:There is real harm in utilizing general trigger warnings in the classroom. ...
But a trigger warning for what Oberlin identified as the book's common triggers – racism, colonialism, religious persecution, violence, suicide (and more!) – sets the tone for reading and understanding the book. It skews students' perceptions.So the problem is that by saying what the book is about, it will influence people's sense of what the book is about? What? These are college courses--of course the professor's interpretation of the book will be passed on to students; that's the whole point.-
FrostAndFire texasmanhandle2These are college courses--of course the professor's interpretation of the book will be passed on to students; that's the whole point.Is it? That's a bit sad. I'm glad I didn't study Literature. I would have hoped the students would have been encouraged to make their own interpretations. Otherwise, what's the point of university?
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Learfreud8Another fabulous article from Jill Filipovic-hats off.I shudder to think how many trigger warnings the work of students of Jeanette Winterson's must require, if she does her job properly: quote below taken from this article of yesterday http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/04/creative-writing-courses-waste-of-time-hanif-kureishi"My job is not to teach my MA students to write; my job is to explode language in their faces. To show them that writing is both bomb and bomb disposal – a necessary shattering of cliche and assumption, and a powerful defusing of the soul-destroying messages of modern life (that nothing matters, nothing changes, money is everything, etc). Writing is a state of being as well as an act of doing. My job is to alter their relationship with language. The rest is up to them."
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We've gone too far with 'trigger warnings' | Jill Filipovic
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