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

eephus emphatically otm

It's funny how it doesn't matter how many examples of this behaviour come up, the response of some people on the left is simply to deny it exists. This allows the right to pretend that the left doesn't give a shit about free speech. It doesn't strike me as a great strategy.

― impossible raver (Re-Make/Re-Model), Monday, October 5, 2015 10:33 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know, I think there is plenty of policing of speech and social norms on both sides of the political divide. TBH we're not that that far removed from the "how dare you question america, don't you support our troops"-era among conservatives, and that's still very much a part of that discourse.

Anyway, I don't deny that there are examples of college students going to unnecessary extremes that contradict traditional American ideas of free speech. I do, however, deny that it is a very important social trend that deserves cover stories in major magazines, or frankly much of my attention at all. Like, I wouldn't even put this in the top 100 problems with American's higher education system.

yeah - beautifully put eephus xpost

xp like trigger warnings are stifling our freedom of speech? jesus christ, wait until you find out there are rating systems for movies and video games that tells you how much sex and violence they contain!

eephus otm

tbh how our ratings systems of movies works in practice is actually a bigger threat to free speech than trigger warnings on college campuses.

I do, however, deny that it is a very important social trend that deserves cover stories in major magazines, or frankly much of my attention at all.

two things:

i basically agree, this isn't a huge societal problem or really even a major problem on campuses (maybe there are some exceptions). it is however of particular interest to a few of this on this board since we're "in" academia. it's also likely fodder for a lot of articles because a lot of journalists are not-so-distantly connected to that milieu.

er wait was that two things? it was originally. oh well.

More than anything cases like Seinfeld etc seem more about connecting money w speech in a post citizens united world.

Seinfeld not admitting the culpability for his sins of the 90s. If I ever hear anyone my age or older using the phrase "not that there's anything _wrong_ with that!" again I'm going to walk out of the room.

like let's get real these middle-aged white comedians are horrible

@amateurist

Yeah, totally, I'm not saying that we shouldn't discuss this or other articles, or that they're of interest to no one! I was responding specifically to RM/RM's claims that the left is shooting itself in the foot by not publicly distancing itself from this "trend," because the right can now accuse the left of not supporting free speech. I think actors on the left have no obligation to respond to this because it seems pretty clear that there's less to this trend than meets the eye. Also "the conservatives will call us fascists" isn't really that scary, it's been an ineffective strategy for like 15 years now.

I think that you're absolutely right that journalists' connections to that milieu is one reason why editors are happy to run these articles. I think it's interesting to think about why there is a recent spate of articles, and I've posted about that upthread!

the left is shooting itself in the foot by not publicly distancing itself from this "trend,"

As if the world doesn't have enough articles about this "trend".

Feel like Free Speech these days is more akin to saying "Not it!" while playing tag.

I guess in the same way that what you do as a rebellious young person can come back to you via scandalous FB photos, what you do as a young person in the social sphere can come back to you via an article from the establishment shaming your way of protest.

Unless the article starts with "We should raise minimum wage for teachers nationally and make drastic cuts to tuition." there is no reason for any school-going folks to listen to these clowns. If student protests are supposed to be held to some national standard then let's make public tuition free. If teachers are expected to add more micromanaging to their already overflowing schedules then let's give them some of that plutocrat dough.

Some anti-free speech bollocks from the opposite direction:

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2015/10/goldsmiths-diversity-officer-bahar-mustafa-receives-court-summons-wake

I did wonder if anyone on ILX was going to bring up that specific case and the background to it.

It seems like understanding the context of a joke meme like "#KillAllWhiteMen" requires a kind of nuance with regards to understanding the context of what it's like to be a woman living in a world of constant male harassment, and what it's like to be a PoC living in a world of constant racist harassment. This is nuance that gets lost, but it's harder to get people who have never experienced any of it to recognise, let alone care about that kind of nuance.

I've been going back and forth about even reading this thread, let alone contributing to it... to be honest, I can't even begin to explain the kind of cringe I experience on contemplating getting involved. Like, even down to the titles, and how they already slant the discussion in certain ways: the specific choice of phrases like "creepy liberalism" and "coddling" just indicate to me that a certain opinion and mindset has already been formed about them (a negative one) and as someone who is not just in favour of trigger warnings and content warnings but (gasp... even worse!) is the kind of person who needs them is starting, not with a level playing field of "what's this about" but already facing an uphill battle of having to justify one's own existence.

I've been operating for over a decade (maybe more? the idea of content warnings were discussions I was having in the 90s, though we didn't call it that, then, because we lacked the terminology) in communities that now use them by default. It's never been a big deal. But I've given up on reading news articles about them because the blatant lack of understanding or misrepresentation of What They Are For and How They Work just bears absolutely no resemblance to how I've seen them function in communities I'm in that use them. I honestly sometimes feel like, if Trigger Warning were a doom-metal band from Siberia releasing lathe vinyl on some trendy label, you can bet that every dude on ILX would have found more relevant an accurate information about what they were than simply taking the word of scaremongering Atlantic thinkpieces making them the scapegoat for the ills of the American educational system. But "it's a Social Justice thing" just seems to make some people kick in an automated defensiveness where they do not want to investigate further than reacting to what is presented in some kneejerk thinkpiece. If you find yourself missing "nuance" in the discussion of things, maybe that's a gap in your own knowledge and understanding, that you could remedy?

I have a lot of experience (on both sides) of What Trigger Warnings Are For, Who They Are For, How They Work, that in a perfect world, I'd be happy to share. But it's obvious from just skimming this thread that there's a vast disparity in terms of knowledge, and I don't want to over-explain to people who already know all about the subject and are tired of it, or under-explain to people whose literal only exposure is to Atlantic articles or "college kids today are kinda weird and I don't understand their lingo." And I can't shake the nagging suspicion that a lot of the hostility directed towards "Trigger Warnings" is actually veiled hostility directed towards "The Kind Of People Who Need Trigger Warnings" - that is, ~college kids~ as cipher for feminists; rape survivors; abuse survivors; refugees; veterans; people who have been on the receiving end of hate crimes for race, gender, sexuality etc; people with mental health conditions (and how scary and needy and yet oddly... "Coddled" we are?) This list is starting to look, kinda... hmmmmm?

Talking about this stuff is hard. It often makes people uncomfortable. But I often feel like people who experience discomfort at these conversations (because they are not part of the groups likely to need these things) project this idea of "this is awkward and discomforting for me to hear" into their mental picture of what People Who Want Trigger Warnings are talking about when they say "Triggered". It really isn't; it's people who are dealing with the kinds of trauma that may be totally outside of your experience. I get nervous when I see "I want a nuanced conversation" becoming a kind of code for "I don't want to feel awkward or uncomfortable by difficult conversations that implicate people like me." So it becomes this kind of handwaving ~why can't we all be more reasonable~ which is again, not a level playing field, when for one side of the debate, it's an academic discussion involving "something they read on the internet" and for the other side of the debate, it's a highly charged emotional discussion asking people to defend and justify their experiences of some of the most harrowing events of their lives.

I understand this may have contributed absolutely 0 to the thread or the debate or whatever. But this thread has been eating away at me for days now so there it is. I'm not going to be in for the rest of the day to discuss it any further though.

If you need a place to vomit, the toilet is that way.

Wow. I have literally no idea what you mean by that statement.

Here's another piece on Bahar Musafa and power dynamics and the idea of "safe spaces" and the reaction to them

http://mediadiversified.org/2015/10/07/from-safe-spaces-to-court-summons-how-did-we-get-here/

― Three Word Username, Wednesday, October 7, 2015 6:31 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wtf -- flagging post

Aw come on - it's a lot of words, but some of them are quite short!

"I am not contributing to this thread, but it bothered me. I will not be back to read it." So you are just releasing bile and running. Nothing wrong with that, just no need to do it here.

It seems like the social context for these issues is significantly different in America and Britain. I'm fully willing to admit that the American veneration of free speech above practically all else can go to far (and maybe even more so in internet forums dominated by Americans). But when I see the text of the British Communications Act of 2003 outlawing "sending by public communication network an offensive/ indecent/ obsecene/ menacing message/ matter", it just seems wide open to authoritarian abuse. Maybe again my view is colored by the American lens of distrust of authority.

Maybe "I feel uncomfortable contributing to a thread because of reasons that I detail in my post; but I really think it's necessary because I seem to have experience and perspective that does not appear to be represented so far. P.S. I'm on an overground train going in and out of signal for most of this afternoon so I can't respond at length" is a more nuanced interpretation of my post if you could get past that bile of your own that you clearly feel towards me!

Now why might I feel weird about participating in threads like this, facing posts land attitudes like that? Why? I have no idea!

Oh, come on - I've can't remember seeing you join any thread, on any subject, where something almost exactly like that wasn't your opening gambit. "I'm a trauma victim/Most of you are horrible/I don't know why I'm even here since most of you are going to be horrible/Here's what I think anyway/I don't really want to discuss it further." You do this every time. Eventually you post something productive, but there's always this ridiculous poor-me throat-clearing first.

X-post because it took 4 stations to get enough signal to post that...

See I just do not understand the framing of trigger warnings as a "Free Speach" issue. Every community I've been in that employed them, it lead to a larger conversation, with a wider audience than I ever encountered in communities that didn't use them. They have always *functioned* in practice, with self imposition, as a way of producing more and freer speach.

But, like this Communications Act was probably introduced with propaganda about protecting "women from threats" and "minorities from hate speach" yet gets used by a racist and sexist institution as a blunt instrument of power against ... you guessed it. Not a surprise. I don't know the answer either.

Sorry for phone typing!

You say "more nuanced interpretation", I say "less bothersome second draft", let's call the whole thing off.

Dude. I get criticised if I post without a thousand apologies and clarifications and couching terms first. I get criticised even more if I do. There is literally no position I can take that pleases people who have already decided to see me (and people like me) in certain ways.

I do think it the tendency of nuanced concepts designed to make more and better conversations happen to eventually be pick up and used by dummies as magical silencing spells. That's where we are the phrase "trigger warning", although I suspect powerful people screaming in terror at the very concept are the bigger problem. This phrase does have a curious mix of political and pseudo-psychotheraputic about it that I think makes people want to pay attention to it one way or the other.

x-post

See I just do not understand the framing of trigger warnings as a "Free Speach" issue.

i dont think they are a "free speech" issue either. it's an education issue. i think the majority of the legitimate concern about trigger warnings comes from a sense that it is not a concept that can be effectively, fairly, or coherently deployed without negative consequences in the education system. the whole idea immediately cascades into a infinite regress of individualism and special dispensation that is an intensely difficult thing for the current education system in the US to cope with. so what's at stake--as far as i can see--is a shift in what we think it means to "get an education" or "be educated."

some people seem ok with the idea of education being entirely "overcoded" with political (or moral) values, but perhaps they only think that way because many campuses tend to be guided by political values they already agree with. when the other guys get in power they may feel differently.

(also worth pointing out that the entire reason college campuses in the US can be such bastions of liberalism is paradoxically because the education system has this measure of autonomy from the political, so maybe that's the sense in which this issue intersects with "free speech.")

I think warning people about content, as a signal of mutual respect and understanding, is an action that can help build trust and frame conversation.

The vocal minority of people who are getting highlighted (scott's link, etc) are college students, which, as always, is a convenient tip of the iceberg for people to write about, even if they're not necessarily representative of groups that use content warnings constructively.

I don't think "college kids" is being used as a cipher here, just a convenient target for analysis considering it's a visible, identifiable group that always has more than enough members that latch on terminology/concepts and use them as a bludgeon with no grace or tact. Trigger/content warnings are, at heart, about helping to claim mutual safe space, but there's a better lede for a story in concentrating on the individuals who, wittingly or unwittingly, use the same tools to _take_ space.

The word sophomore was not coined by accident; college students are very often wise idiots. To the extent that identity politics are loudest among young people without fully formed identities and a psychological tool is being self-prescribed by immature souls, it makes sense that people are freaking out and hollering. I just haven't seen any real evidence of real harm coming from a mass trigger warning movement.

That is to say, the majority of time it's about finding common ground and shared space, but for someone who's skeptical, it's easy to see insistence on warnings as a power play, and the more insistent of critics will find a myriad of microaggressions to be tallied in any response from, say, a professor or teacher who feels criticized. A college class doesn't need to be a "safe space," but it does need to be a space based on mutual respect.

I'm not overly familiar with Bahar Mustafa’s case, but as far as I can tell I'm completely in favor of what she was doing. White people (especially white dudes) need to stop feeling disrespected when other people just want breathing room.

I think there's a pretty broad variation in life experience and maturity among college students, let alone the population at large. No need to tar them all

There is no need, and I didn't do it. Most undergrads are under 21, and I am talking about many of those most, which is a long way from all.

I know we're all olds here but tbh if a college kid was in the room telling them they're a wise fool isn't exactly going to endear them to your point of view

nice rhetorical flourish, though

It's kind of not about endearment, which is something I learned in college.

Nice post Branwell. Good stuff.

Mostly I'm confused about what exactly these types of articles want. It's not as if we can really stamp out Trigger Warnings etc by now. And if the point is to make sure students don't grow up shielded and ignorant of the world, well that now includes a world full of Trigger Warnings and PC culture, particularly in digital/new media spaces. By testing and experimenting with that new social world the students are learning how to function in it. So again, what exactly is to be done? It seems like a 'problem' with no offered solutions.

Beyond cutting the budgets to these schools. That is a fake solution.

if a college kid was in the room telling them they're a wise fool isn't exactly going to endear them to your point of view

Again with the coddling! Jeez...

I think they want readers and clicks on their ads, tbh xp

bbl, have to do my daily work of being a foolish fool

In my experience common ground and shared space don't always make for the best educational environment. This probably depends on what is being taught, and who is doing the teaching.

I've been operating for over a decade (maybe more? the idea of content warnings were discussions I was having in the 90s, though we didn't call it that, then, because we lacked the terminology) in communities that now use them by default. It's never been a big deal. But I've given up on reading news articles about them because the blatant lack of understanding or misrepresentation of What They Are For and How They Work just bears absolutely no resemblance to how I've seen them function in communities I'm in that use them.

otm

ffs trigger warnings are not about "coddling" anybody, they are about (among other things) working with people dealing with PTSD and dealing with them as human beings about whom you care, and for whom you would like your classroom to be a maximally educational, useful space. from what i know you don't learn a lot when you're experiencing a panic attack.

my perspective here is as an educator struggling (and often failing) to be a good educator, which i think is not mutually exclusive with being an ally and being a good human being. i also have a lot of problems with the idea that the only kind of learning possible is the one where students are "challenged" at every minute, and that anything that isn't "challenging" them is "coddling." but i teach in a field (architecture) that has really internalized a lot of fucked-up practices with regard to students and their well-being and their intellectual development so maybe i'm particularly keyed-up about this. i'm not saying i have found a perfect feminist mode of practice; i have a ton of really bad ingrained habits that i would like to root out one by one. but this is where my head's at.

it's also just weird like, ILX has a whole thread, maybe multiple ones, mocking the "political correctness GONE MAD!" trope in right-wing discourse. but when it's "trigger warnings GONE CODDLEY!" we pretend it's a serious expose of a major issue of our times or something. it's all bullshit and it all comes down to (a) "in my day we learned better when the teacher told us to shut up and had the switch at the ready" and (b) "these kids in these colleges, it's just a big liberal feel-good fest, they don't learn anything!" which also includes (c) "the liberal arts are bullshit." fuck that.

branwell & casino otmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

it's also just weird like, ILX has a whole thread, maybe multiple ones, mocking the "political correctness GONE MAD!" trope in right-wing discourse. but when it's "trigger warnings GONE CODDLEY!" we pretend it's a serious expose of a major issue of our times or something.

wonder if this isn't also a symptom of aging ILX

i haven't really contributed to this thread much apart from calling out some posts as very truthful and otm. i'm so annoyed by these kinds of articles and i feel a little exhausted by the attention they are getting. i work at an research university that was once almost entirely white men and is now one of the most diverse elite schools around right now thanks to enormous amounts of work done by people who were sick of sexist and racist bullshit. this is a far better school than it was before thanks to this work. people say far less racist and sexist things than they used to. that shit is not tolerated anymore and as a result so many different types of people other than white dudes are able to succeed here. the global impact this school has is far more immense now that we have all types of people enrolled here. i run a "diversity/inclusion/social justice" committee in the dept i work in and it is astonishing how much more of an effective, caring, and open department we are now than before when people weren't having these types of conversations. people are waaaaaay happier than they used to be. the cluelessness and yes definitely "political correctness gone mad!!!!" bullshit spoken about social justice movements on campuses is so fucking exasperating.

branwell, casino, marcos otm, great posts.

yeah, bravo.