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I think the explosive reactions by people who think the next enemy of freedom of speech are survivors of PTSD is both convenient and telling. Triggers are behavioural associations and are thus individual and impossible to predict with complete accuracy—but for topics like rape, child abuse and assault, it is easy to make an educated guess. Trigger warnings aren’t mandatory, and they don’t change any content. They are a courtesy, indicating compassionate human beings who want to do something easy to spare someone’s day becoming dysfunctional. They are not about you, unless you want to make them so. —WWSD
This article appears in May 5-11, 2016.
What Would Satan Do?
You aren’t owed a trigger warning or safe space by society. That reaction is because free speech is the corner stone of our democracy and needs to be protected and defended at all cost. Language deemed “offensive” needs to be protected even more. Hiding from harsh truths is not going to make the issues go away.
Things like trigger words and safe spaces are part of a collection of artificial constructs that I would classify as “well intentioned but misguided”. Ultimately, they probably do more harm than good. A large part of being mentally healthy is to learn strategies for coping with the many challenges and difficulties of life. Things like trigger word warnings don’t protect people. They merely delay the process of learning to cope with the world and with working through whatever troubles them. It is a well documented phenomena that an increasing number of young people are showing up at university with very poor coping skills due to having been excessively coddled and “protected” by their parents. There was a good article about this in The Atlantic. “In the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. Here’s why that’s disastrous for education—and mental health.” http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archiv…
The road to Aytch Ee Double Hockey Sticks may not be paved with good intentions; but it’s jam-packed with scaley mingers just itching to use a good cause for a bad purpose.