The Coddling Of The American Mind (Trigger Warning Article In The Atlantic...)

One of the few places outside the academy I've regularly seen trigger warnings is in books about self-harm, and suicide. And when you're not well with regards to that stuff there's nothing worse than a TV show unexpectedly depicting it - it's like getting punched in the stomach; sickening, dizzying.

There seems to be an element to this that is about language. The Right seems to have a disgust with certain kinds of 'jargon', which manifests in it's 'anti-PC' stance. When people react to 'triggered', 'BLM', 'man-splaining', 'privilege', 'LBQT' etc. etc. (to pick a bunch of recentish bugbears for the Right, for better or worse) it sometimes seems that it's the fact that these things have been named that is offensive, rather than the idea themselves. The reaction is something like being 'outside' a fashion (because, of course, the Right has plenty of their own magic words)

Lots of psycologists on this thread, which is great because it eliminates the need for any support for the assertions about treatment and diagnosis.

(Less snarky version: using the language of pathology and psychology to score easy political wins is kinda fucked up. There is a difference between asking for proof of a general assertion and denying someone's particular self-identity, and denying that difference is a common tactic in these sorts of debates.)

also common

'you are for this so you are bad'
'you are against this so you are bad'

Lit teachers are also not trained psychologists, so asking them to locate every potential trigger trigger in a text (beyond the obvious) is going to be thorny. Also cases like in the article, where there was disagreement between prof and students about whether a sex scene was consensual, where the instructor may not think something is triggering while a student thinks it is.

Probably the answer is a website that lists the potential triggers for the most widely taught texts that profs can direct students to on syllabus

Perhaps something crowd sourced people with PTSD could make themselves?

when you write a syllabus at most schools you include a little section on disabilities and usually that section informs the student that it is their responsibility to inform the professor of their disability and how reasonable accommodation might be achieved.

I think this is the way forward for trigger warnings because it doesn't leave it up to the professor to figure out ahead of time what *may* be triggering to some generalized and anonymous victim of trauma out there. it allows a particular student to begin a dialogue with a particular professor and, in the best scenario, allows them to work together to find a way through that meets the objectives of the class. there's also common sense, in that a war veteran suffering from ptsd cannot sensibly expect to take a class on war literature if they are liable to be triggered by it.

yes it places onus on the student but from my point of view it's the professor's class and the student is the one who needs to make concessions to enter it (hence my talk about receptivity above).

required classes make this a tougher problem but then I've advocated for getting rid of those.

apropos to chachi/1staethyr

http://www.wired.com/2015/10/how-black-lives-matter-uses-social-media-to-fight-the-power/

(Less snarky version: using the language of pathology and psychology to score easy political wins is kinda fucked up. There is a difference between asking for proof of a general assertion and denying someone's particular self-identity, and denying that difference is a common tactic in these sorts of debates.)

i can't quite figure out who this is aimed it, or which arguments it's opposed to.

I think this is the way forward for trigger warnings because it doesn't leave it up to the professor to figure out ahead of time what *may* be triggering to some generalized and anonymous victim of trauma out there. it allows a particular student to begin a dialogue with a particular professor

students may not be super-excited about having to tell all their professors about their past personal traumas but idk

and I don't want to hear about a student's trauma unless I can help it. Usually our disability services intervenes.

yeah there are FERPA laws about what we can and can't demand that students tell us

all disability accommodations are cleared through a disability center. we get to know what accommodations they need, but typically don't know the specific nature of the disability unless the student volunteers that info (which they often do).

it's not ideal but it's also not a situation where they have to go into great detail other than "X is triggering to me, do you think any material on your syllabus may be a problem for me?" I dont see how disability services can determine this better than the prof teaching the class.

This is better than allowing the professor to determine what may or may not be triggering--and thus making the professor liable in some sense for failing to account for certain triggers that they may or may not be aware of! Again, im starting from the assumption that the classroom is the teacher/professor's space and the student is the one who is--in a manner of speaking--the guest of the teacher/professor, which im sure not all would agree with.

having ready-made trigger warnings, or even a universal trigger database, strikes me as eliding the very personal/singular nature of trauma. it's not as if we can identify triggering materials across lines race/gender/class/history or whatever contextual matrix you want to use. applying TWs in the manner of a kind of universal liberal functionalism is, as they say, ~problematic~ because it's imposing ahead of time what kinds of trauma are admissible and which aren't. and if that sort of thing really what is at issue then what we are discussing isn't necessarily personal trauma and psychological distress so much as a kind of community defining exercise in which certain kinds of speech or representations of certain things are not allowed. then we're back to students dictating to professors what the content of their education should be.

it's imposing ahead of time what kinds of trauma are admissible and which aren't.

right... that was my concern about the posts above, which seemed to create what seems to be a privileged category of (sorry for using this term) politically-correct trauma having to do with minority status, when in reality traumas come in a lot of different forms.

posts above by 1staethyr

to put a finer point on: if the desire is for a pre-set mold of trigger warnings to applied to texts then the whole notion of trigger warnings becomes by definition something that has to be wrangled over politically and determined by a community. which may or may not serve particular victims of trauma.

i think ryan is onto something.

Salon picks up that blog post that Milton linked to a week ago and they add the word CODDLED to the headline.

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/28/i_wanted_to_be_a_supporter_of_survivors_on_campus_and_a_good_teacher_i_didnt_realize_just_how_impossible_this_would_be/

I can't be the only person who enjoys misreading this threadline as "TRIGGER WARNING: Article In The Atlantic"

Shit is blowing up at Yale because of a faculty member's email about Halloween costumes

her original email does sound pretty dumm

from the students et al's open letter

After receiving responses from students and alumni through both social media and email, you responded to critics of your email with a link to the Atlantic Magazine article, “The Coddling of the American Mind.”

haha that's terrible.

i was less sympathetic to the students until i realized these people are being protested for and were acting as master and associate master of a house -- so they're not being protested for any sort of academic capacity where they can say it is all about challenging minds and ideas or whatever, but because they are supposed to have an additional job of actually looking out for students and representing them, and they are clearly being terrible at it.

I was reading quickly but I didn't see anything in the Post article or the open letter that called for a resignation.

Or in the Youtube clips that I watched. All I saw was people exercising free speech and expressing offence.

Oh, OK, a student yells "you should step down" (as house master, not professor) in the third video clip.

LOL college. Attacking someone for standing up for freedom of expression rather than attacking those (if there were any?) who wore offensive costumes is NAGL. These kids have no idea how safe a space they are living in.

"Being protested for"

Wtf

the christakis email ticks every concern-troll box that it's possible to tick, she is obviously a horrible person

"in my vast experience working with children" etc is completely irrelevant but she can't help rattling on about it, why because just can't help talking about herself in this post-midnight email

Why does the guy have to apologize for an email his wife sent?

c'mon that's mansplaining 101

Ha, was wondering that myself, Treeship.

They're asking b/c apparently he endorsed and defended it, and he's master of the house and she's assistant master or something.

I don't think the students are right to want these people to lose their jobs. Also, they aren't right in thinking the "residential" part of the residential college experience has nothing to do with fostering a sometimes uncomfortable community of diverse perspectives where rigorous debate is encouraged. Imo, this atmosphere is something that, in college, is meant to exist beyond the classroom.

This woman wasn't saying racist costumes were good, but that it wasn't the college's place to proscribe expression that seems taboo or shocking. Taboo-breaking offensive speech is often ignorant and worse than worthless -- harmful even -- but occassionaly it can be valuable. As a baby boomer and (i'm assuming) a progressive of the old mold, she seems to want to err on the side of more controversy, more debate, more discomfort, rather than more safety. This is a generational divide, honestly, and I think students and administrators need to fight it out more to come to some sort of understanding or consensus. Calling for people to step down is such a bullshit power move.

As is demanding apologies. That administrator is probably sincerely concerned about what it would mean for the college to police people's expression outside the classroom in the way these activists want. She shouldn't apologize for thinking this, or for having concerns that are different from the protesters. She is a person, and they are people, and they have different ideas about how the institution should be run and they should argue about it in good faith.

"he's master of the house and she's assistant master or something

Proper system, that

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, Treeship, but does "students wanting these people to lose their jobs" actually amount to one or two people yelling "you should step down" in a heated moment? I don't see a call for a resignation or even a demand for an apology here. I also don't see proscription or censure in the Dean's original email: "we encourage Yale students to take the time to consider their costumes and the impact they might have" is not forbidding anything.

*amount to more than

"As a baby boomer and (i'm assuming) a progressive of the old mold, she seems to want to err on the side of more controversy, more debate, more discomfort, rather than more safety. "

Going to go out on a limb here and suggest not a lot of people dress in a way that Erika identifies as for Halloween.

"Imo, this atmosphere is something that, in college, is meant to exist beyond the classroom."

Going to go out on another limb and suggest the same about yourself.

"but associate master, being a thoughtless dickhead IS my halloween costume!"

*strokes chin* "you're onto something there"

I hope he's referred to as "associate master."

reading the original email email that the prof was responding to clarifies things too -- it just sort of said "hey, if you don't mind, maybe try not to be offensive or anything with your halloween costumes, 'kay?" there was never free speech imperiled or anything.

and the actual jobs these people have are as professors. the acting as a master of a house thing is a separate position from their direct academic post, and it comes with another set of responsibilities and expectations. #1 being, i would hope, that you encourage students not to be dicks to one another.

wish someone named CHRISTAKIS would play the hellenic-american-offended-by-american-universities'-GREEK-system card and stir shit up. greeks are a minority too you know and seeing their letters appropriated all over fraternity and sorority events and structures could create a hostile environment for them

Treeship OTM. I also like the idea of dressing up as Associate Master (oh Yale) for Halloween.

Why link to the story on FIRE's website, instead of the Post? FIRE are Koch-funded and assholes, imo. And that article is typical hypocritical bullshit. First it praises Yale for once being 'transgressive' and radically pro-free speech, then it shames all the students for yelling and shouting their demands.

Honestly, this might be one of the clearest examples of this debate as just a clover-leaf for old racist assholes to attack the youth for being young.

I've found FIRE's rating system relatively fair ime

Business-insider with another take on the story: http://uk.businessinsider.com/yale-university-racism-on-campus-2015-11?r=US&IR=T

'Shit is blowing up' at Yale because minority students are speaking up about the discrimination they encounter on campus, and the assistant master of a house decided then was the time to send out an email saying 'isn't there room to be racist anymore?'

But that is not the story that the Koch's are paying FIRE to write.

the problem w/ what she said isn't so much that people don't understand that kids often do things that are inappropriate that they later forget, but that an adult who knows better basically said "can't we just let kids act ignorant and be hurtful as they are wont to do?".

I def don't agree with the cries for their jobs (kinda feel like this is becoming a default reaction which makes me uncomfortable) but I get why people are pissed about it.