Should There Be Trigger Warnings on College Literature Books?

GalwayGuy2

Here's a bit of a rundown from the guardian:

Just to sum up the above, it is not just a trigger warning about violence, but also about racism, homophobia, sexism, misogyny, so on so forth.

I'm of two minds about it.

On the one hand, I don't think anybody should be forced to read a college novel that they may find traumatic.

On the other, I genuinely think hiding people away from things that can cause trauma increases the effect that that trauma could have.

But, anyway, what do the after hours people think?

cloud493

What a load of ****e.

Hande hoche!

Seems strange
http://24.media.tumblr.com/2d2e2e05987b1e13afd413df98b5a8eb/tumblr_n2juhvK9Xv1s71q1zo1_1280.png

Amirani

No.

kneemos

How do you suffer a "trauma"from reading a book and how old exactly are these beer guzzling fornication little mites?

Overheal

50 shades of grey caused everyone to drop their trousers and turn into sex zombies. Don't you see them? They're ****ing everywhere.

GalwayGuy2

kneemos wrote: »

How do you suffer a "trauma"from reading a book and how old exactly are these beer guzzling fornication little mites?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's more for people that the academics class as 'traumatized'.

I have no doubt that a well written scene can bring back bad memories for someone who has gone through an ordeal, but I don't think avoiding is the best solution.

Actually, a correction, I think it's the worst solution.

pharmaton

some medical literature I can understand, we covered subject today and half the class went missing after lunch

Sound of Silence

Please keep this Tumblr nonsense out of our education system. . .

Mr. CooL ICE

Overheal wrote: »

50 shades of grey caused everyone to drop their trousers and turn into sex zombies. Don't you see them? They're ****ing everywhere.

No

mickydoomsux

Young people these days are pathetic babies.

Cookie_Monster

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Young people these days are pathetic babies.

need a good wars to harden them up

catallus

Especially in the USA, politics has become such a rarefied and professional business; these kids on the boards of student bodies use their positions to cause a bit of a ruckus; it really is just something for them to put on their future CV after they leave education for the real world of politics. And the Guardian, always eager to undermine the significance of politics for the common person, prints this stuff as serious news.

"Why are they laughing in those cages?"

NegativeCreep

All this talk about "triggers" on the internet these days actually make me want to leave society and live in a hole. People need to get the hell over themselves. Imagine being that self absorbed you have to seek out things that you might get offended by in the future and make sure people put "trigger warnings" on them. Jesus wept. Deal with it.

catallus

There is a time and a place for trigger warnings; it has little to do with being self-absorbed; serious literature (as in the OP) is not the place, but I think there can be valid uses of such warnings on internet sites, some of which provide real-life and often graphic representations of things some people would prefer to be given the choice to avoid if possible.

As usual, it is a question of degree.

Shakespeare's Sister

Seems OTT, but people who have never experienced trauma are in no position to be telling those who have, how they should feel about possible "triggers" of painful memories.
Still though, it does seem far-fetched in relation to novels. And why only now...

Queen-Mise

I think they kinda have a point - albeit not about the texts they have quoted above, they are not the worst of the stuff on courses.

I am avoiding doing an entire History module next year because they are covering Nazism and concentration camps. I know enough, I have been to a concentration camp, it is will just be too upsetting for me. So will do anything else bar do that history module.

I found some of the poems of William Blake upsetting. No one else did - but they must have tapped into something with me.

My name is URL

People have gone mad altogether. If folk are that sensitive and traumatised by what happens around them they'd be better off locked up in their rooms rather than making the world a more difficult place to live in for everyone else. Idiots is the only word for them.

Sound of Silence

Magaggie wrote: »

Seems OTT, but people who have never experienced trauma are in no position to be telling those who have, how they should feel about possible "triggers" of painful memories.
Still though, it does seem far-fetched in relation to novels. And why only now...

It's just part of the whole SJW movement that's gathering momentum online, especially on the likes of Tumblr. Trigger has become a buzz word for these people and has pretty much lost any real meaning. Apparently pretty much anything can be a trigger, no matter how benign.

/r/Tumblrinaction is a good place to start if you want to see just how bizarre these people get.

Davarus Walrus

The only warnings that should be inside college reading material is that they may turn students into insufferable arseholes with ideas above their stations and grand notions about their intellect.

Should certainly be placed inside Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson novels for the attention of English lit students. And inside the works of Marx and Bukharin for undergraduate Arts students doing a class in economics and/or political theory.

J_E

Absolutely nuts. Another Social Justice Warrior fad that has somehow made it out of oversensitive blogospheres. Whatever happened to the good old fashioned 'viewer discretion advised'?

Let it have it's 15 minutes of fame before the Tumblr-dwelling 20 somethings come up with the next thing to wail about.


How utterly crazy would it be if every piece of challenging material in university was prefaced with a 'trigger warning' and allowing students to skip classes? What is the point of education at all then?


Trigger Warning: Might make insufferable assholes concerned. Seriously...

Tokyo

I look forward to the inevitable AH thread where some incompetent twat wins a lawsuit over their poor grades because the course literature didn't have enough "trigger warnings"...

mickydoomsux

Cydoniac wrote: »

How utterly crazy would it be if every piece of challenging material in university was prefaced with a 'trigger warning' and allowing students to skip classes? What is the point of education at all then?

They just want the bit of paper and a career handed to them because they are used to all being special little stars and everyone getting a medal.

Heavens forbid that the might be challenged by their course material and actually have to learn to deal with real world ideas and situations :mad:

oak5548

Trigger what? Thats fkkin insulting to people with actual triggers that suffer from PTSD etc.

Tumblr shíte needs to go.

It reminds me of the campaign to change a number of classics so as not to offend modern sensibilities.

pharmaton

would they get to skip classes or would the warning allow them to just 'brace themselves'?

J_E

oak5548 wrote: »

Trigger what? Thats fkkin insulting to people with actual triggers that suffer from PTSD etc.

Tumblr shíte needs to go.

That's the worst part. The people advocating this are not the people suffering serious stuff like this. Even those with PTSD will tell you that avoiding any such trigger is worse than learning to deal with it in a real life situation. Not to mention the term 'Trigger Warning' will probably have most people think it refers to epilepsy or something.

I really do hope the US colleges have the sense to not take these requests seriously.

My name is URL

Queen-Mise wrote: »

I am avoiding doing an entire History module next year because they are covering Nazism and concentration camps.

No offence, but that is bizarre. Why are you studying history at all if you can just pick and choose which parts you want to learn about? I mean trigonometry freaks people out but they wouldn't graduate with a math degree if you chose not to learn about it.

Muise...

Lolita triggered in me a great respect for the talent of Nabokov, that he could write so beautifully and make me sympathise with a paedophile.

Ficheall

My name is URL wrote: »

I mean trigonometry freaks people out but they wouldn't graduate with a math degree if you chose not to learn about it.

Of course they would.

(Not saying I agree with QM though).

Shakespeare's Sister

Sound of Silence wrote: »

It's just part of the whole SJW movement that's gathering momentum online, especially on the likes of Tumblr. Trigger has become a buzz word for these people and has pretty much lost any real meaning. Apparently pretty much anything can be a trigger, no matter how benign.

/r/Tumblrinaction is a good place to start if you want to see just how bizarre these people get.

Very Upworthy too.

Muise...

Magaggie wrote: »

Very Upworthy too.

Some day Upworthy is going to trigger me into turning total fascist out of spite. :mad:

oh, and privilege-checking? FLAMES!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Raf5JdFecPQ

catallus

Actually, now that I think about it, it's definitely an insidious plot by secularist capitalists to expand their programme of self-imposed censorship on the masses.

languagenerd

Literally anything could be a "trigger", though. PTSD and other such issues are particular to person experiencing them, so something that's completely mundane to one person could induce full on panic-attacks in others. We can't wrap the entire world in cotton wool in case it hurts/offends/causes pain to someone.

If someone genuinely does suffer from flashbacks or panic attacks triggered by certain topics, it takes five seconds to google the title of a novel on their reading list and find out the main themes in advance. It shouldn't be a case that you're sitting in class and suddenly realise it's about war, or sexual abuse, or racism, etc. If something affects you that badly, you will find out in advance if it's going to be a major part of a class; you don't need someone to do that for you, because you'll already have checked it out for yourself.

Labelling things as "triggers" just makes them worse in the long run anyway. It makes them a taboo topic, rather than normalising them as something that can be discussed and understood (not that things like violence or sexual abuse should be normalised, but they shouldn't be set apart as something secret or shameful). Literature reflects life and it shouldn't be sugar-coated, because life is not sugar-coated. I can see a lot of students using this as an excuse to get out of class...

Muise...

languagenerd wrote: »

Literally anything could be a "trigger", though. PTSD and other such issues are particular to person experiencing them, so something that's completely mundane to one person could induce full on panic-attacks in others. We can't wrap the entire world in cotton wool in case it hurts/offends/causes pain to someone.

If someone genuinely does suffer from flashbacks or panic attacks triggered by certain topics, it takes five seconds to google the title of a novel on their reading list and find out the main themes in advance. It shouldn't be a case that you're sitting in class and suddenly realise it's about war, or sexual abuse, or racism, etc. If something affects you that badly, you will find out in advance if it's going to be a major part of a class; you don't need someone to do that for you, because you'll already have checked it out for yourself.

Labelling things as "triggers" just makes them worse in the long run anyway. It makes them a taboo topic, rather than normalising them as something that can be discussed and understood (not that things like violence or sexual abuse should be normalised, but they shouldn't be set apart as something secret or shameful). Literature reflects life and it shouldn't be sugar-coated, because life is not sugar-coated. I can see a lot of students using this as an excuse to get out of class...

Yup, and a university course in literature should be analytical and objective; it's not a lachrymose book club for "victims".

RDM_83 again

I can see the relevance if they have to studies of something like American Psyco, for me the book triggered a deep dislike for mens fashion seriously though I could see how something like that might effect certain people.

Mike747

Queen-Mise wrote: »

I think they kinda have a point - albeit not about the texts they have quoted above, they are not the worst of the stuff on courses.

I am avoiding doing an entire History module next year because they are covering Nazism and concentration camps. I know enough, I have been to a concentration camp, it is will just be too upsetting for me. So will do anything else bar do that history module.

I found some of the poems of William Blake upsetting. No one else did - but they must have tapped into something with me.

Wtf?

hatrickpatrick

Just to sum up the above, it is not just a trigger warning about violence, but also about racism, homophobia, sexism, misogyny, so on so forth.

*sigh*

Since when does being offended by something count as "traumatic"?
God almighty.

Queen-Mise

Queen-Mise wrote: »

I think they kinda have a point - albeit not about the texts they have quoted above, they are not the worst of the stuff on courses.

I am avoiding doing an entire History module next year because they are covering Nazism and concentration camps. I know enough, I have been to a concentration camp, it is will just be too upsetting for me. So will do anything else bar do that history module.

I found some of the poems of William Blake upsetting. No one else did - but they must have tapped into something with me.

I'm baffled as to why you would doing a degree and then choose to skip an entire module. It makes absolutely nosemse and I'm wondering how you will make use of your degree if you are missing out on a chunk of it. It's somewhat sad that people think it acceptable to not bother with part of their degree because it may upset them. Maybe I should have not bothered with the German language aspect of my degree because I found having to learn it upsetting.

J_E

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

*sigh*

Since when does being offended by something count as "traumatic"?
God almighty.

There lies my real beef with the term 'trigger warning'. A genuine trigger is a lot, lot worse than feeling uncomfortable or a little upset about something. It's a complete misappropriation of the word.

Olive8585

My name is URL wrote: »

People have gone mad altogether. If folk are that sensitive and traumatised by what happens around them they'd be better off locked up in their rooms rather than making the world a more difficult place to live in for everyone else. Idiots is the only word for them.

You can't see how someone who was sexually abused by a family member for years might prefer to avoid reading a book about that subject? You'd call them an idiot for preferring to know in advance exactly what's in the modules they choose?

Nice.

J_E

Olive8585 wrote: »

You can't see how someone who was sexually abused by a family member for years might prefer to avoid reading a book about that subject? You'd call them an idiot for preferring to know in advance exactly what's in the modules they choose?

Nice.

All of us in life have come across material that has personally affected us and sometimes upsetting, it doesn't give way to a demand that every detail in any story is explicitly given, because the context of such issues can be entirely different from one another. It is far more realistic and healthier to learn how to cope with something and be able to talk about it, than wrap every controversial issue in cotton wool and actually make it more taboo and negative. Most people look up the plot/review of a book before they read, anyway. Usually if something is quite extreme it is often known about before reading.

catallus

Olive8585 wrote: »

You can't see how someone who was sexually abused by a family member for years might prefer to avoid reading a book about that subject? You'd call them an idiot for preferring to know in advance exactly what's in the modules they choose?

Nice.

I'm pretty sure that's not what she meant. The idea that an abused person should avoid a book about abuse is bad. Context is key here; it is about the misappropriation of the term "trigger", it being applied to classical novels, works of art that have been accepted into our common culture, for good or ill.

I can see some people's point of view, that this is just an avenue for privilege-chasing by emotional cripples; but the reality is is that this is just another example of serious journalism being undermined by the meme-culture run riot; the Guardian is just one of the more egregious examples of this.

The real wrong here is the valid concept of "trigger-warning" of the information highway being undermined by the slave-media of the elite.

Standman

"Trigger warning" has to be one of the most irritating buzzphrases to become popular in recent times - it's up there with "PC brigade", ironically.

When I think about why people feel the need for "trigger warnings", I just imagine someone reading something about their "sensitive issue", and then beginning to uncontrollably thrash around on the ground beside their computer because they have been "triggered", without warning no less :eek: .

Grow up.

Mike747

Olive8585 wrote: »

You can't see how someone who was sexually abused by a family member for years might prefer to avoid reading a book about that subject? You'd call them an idiot for preferring to know in advance exactly what's in the modules they choose?

Nice.

It's just a book. Can't be that bad.

Foxhound38

I've started noticing this nonsense online of late - it would be nice if it didn't spread into our schools. Most of the time it's SJW crapology of the highest order. Unless it's a VERY graphic portrayal of something like rape, there is simply no need for it.

On the other hand, there is an argument that you can't wrap the world and reality in bubble-wrap in an effort to ensure you never, ever get offended or see/read/think something you dislike or that makes you feel in any way uncomfortable - which is what many SJW's seem to want. Life doesn't work that way.

Here is a case in point of how bloody ridiculous it can get...

Discussions of consentual sex trigger warnings? Slimy things trigger warnings? FFS :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

blatantrereg

Catharsis is a primary purpose of literature. Triggering changes in emotions is the point.

Just BS excuses by the students imo.

Queen-Mise

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm baffled as to why you would doing a degree and then choose to skip an entire module. It makes absolutely nosemse and I'm wondering how you will make use of your degree if you are missing out on a chunk of it. It's somewhat sad that people think it acceptable to not bother with part of their degree because it may upset them. Maybe I should have not bothered with the German language aspect of my degree because I found having to learn it upsetting.

It's a wonder you got your degree if that is your level of understanding and comprehension.

I have no interest or intention in following up on History after my degree. I have to pick 'x' amount of electives, one of them happens to be a Module on Nazism and Concentration camps. So shall pick something else [On a side note: I will have to avoid all history next year, the other option is even worse].

You could see it in the people doing the essay on concentration camps this year - you knew exactly who they were when walking into the library. They all had haunted faces. Thanks but no thanks, I like being able to sleep, minus nightmares.

Queen-Mise

My name is URL wrote: »

No offence, but that is bizarre. Why are you studying history at all if you can just pick and choose which parts you want to learn about? I mean trigonometry freaks people out but they wouldn't graduate with a math degree if you chose not to learn about it.

Probably because I am not doing a History degree. It is one of the Elective options in the final year of my degree.

Trigger warnings are a good idea in theory but overusing them completely waters down the whole point, plus makes them an object of ridicule. Something that's very graphic (like American Psycho, say) I can understand having warnings.....but is there ever a danger of someone reading it without knowing beforehand what they're getting into? The Great Gatsby is an odd one for them to mention; yes there are unpleasant incidents in it but I can't recall any overly graphic descriptions of violence - anybody who could possibly suffer a PTSD incident from reading The Great Gatsby is someone whose threshold for being triggered (for want of a better phrase) is unhealthily low and needs serious help.

A reader being traumatised and a reader being upset are two different things; the former is a highly unfortunate situation that trigger warnings could help avoid but the latter is something the reader just needs to learn to deal with.

Permabear

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