@dfbdfb While it’s hardly the first case of overzealous political correctness on college campuses, the recent development would seem to be the grounding of students’ complaints in their personal reaction to an event. It’s possible to dismiss some accusations of racism as clearly spurious, for instance, but the claim that an offhand remark triggered harmful memories of discrimination is all but impossible to refute-who’s to say what a student did or didn’t feel?
I think there’s some merit to the idea put forth by a few posters here: that some students merely want a cause to fight for. In the absence of real issues-another Vietnam, blatant discrimination, or wrongheaded actions by university administrators-anyone can make an argument that a microaggression or triggering has affected them emotionally, demand justice, and play activist in order to get their 15 minutes of fame.
Sadly, the CC community isn’t entirely devoid of similar ideas. I remember a thread some time ago where a student asked for advice on handling a disciplinary issue after he was called a name and threw something at the offending party. Among the suggestions given were that this kid attend a workshop on sensitivity (or bias, or intolerance, or whatever) and talk about his constructive response to the incident as a positive for his university application-a rather cynical way to respond to an incident that’s best neutralized by moving past it and not making a mountain out of a molehill, rather than treating it as a severe trauma that only a truly ‘good’ person (*and excellent candidate for X university-please accept me) could overcome.
“If someone tells me that I’ve hurt their feelings; I say ‘I’m still waiting to hear what your point is.’ In this country, I’ve been told, ‘that’s offensive’ as if those two words constitute an argument or comment.” - Christopher Hitchens
The censoring of words that have USEFUL meaning (such as violate) is a ridiculous act that only modern liberals can justify.
I think what people need to remember in an educational situation is that nothing is meant to be a personal affront. The literature professor knew he wanted to discuss Upton Sinclair long before he knew there would be any students it might affect or offend. Upton Sinclair wasn’t thinking about some college student in a hundred years being offended by what he was writing. The law professor needs to discuss sexual assault in order for the students to fully understand the law and speak for defendants or accusers.
“That hurt my feelings” is fine if I am talking with friends and someone says something rude, but in discussing the world it seems to blow things out of proportion.
Am I the only person who has never actually seen a trigger warning before? I hadn’t even heard of them until people started getting offended by them and writing article to complain about them.
24: They've existed for years (decades, actually)—they've just emerged onto the public consciousness relatively recently, and as a result have (had to?) become more explicit. It's an odd self-feeding cycle.
Perhaps the schools are merely responding to the results of parents who:
a. Helicopter parented and sheltered their kids so that they are less able to handle potentially insulting or offensive situations than previous generations were able to.
b. Get offended themselves if anyone suggests that their kids are less prepared for life outside the sheltered childhood home under parental supervision in a familiar community.
What is this, North Korea? I’m a pretty conservative, Christian male and I love learning about new ideas, beliefs, etc. I may not agree with them all the time, but it benefits me by either solidifying my stances or changing them for the better.
I am a moderate liberal, but I actually did agree with what Trump said at the recent debate on political correctness. The incidents in the article are just disgraceful. People honestly need to grow up.
GMT, don’t equate not having a pre-schoolers head smashed open with trying to protect a few, and it really is only a few, adults from hearing things they may not want to hear.
Part of the college experience should be to expose young people to alternative points of view, even offensive ones, and prepare them for the real world. Creating a PC bubble where certain words are prohibited will leave these young people unprepared.
I personally find censorship of speech very offensive!
“Signing off with thanks to all who have participated in our discussions of fiction writing today. I want to leave you with this thought: I think we are facing a new era of censorship, in the name of political correctness. There are forces at work in the book world that want to control fiction writing in terms of who “has a right” to write about what. Some even advocate the out and out censorship of older works using words we now deem wholly unacceptable. Some are critical of novels involving rape. Some argue that white novelists have no right to write about people of color; and Christians should not write novels involving Jews or topics involving Jews. I think all this is dangerous. I think we have to stand up for the freedom of fiction writers to write what they want to write, no matter how offensive it might be to some one else. We must stand up for fiction as a place where transgressive behavior and ideas can be explored. We must stand up for freedom in the arts. I think we have to be willing to stand up for the despised. It is always a matter of personal choice whether one buys or reads a book. No one can make you do it. But internet campaigns to destroy authors accused of inappropriate subject matter or attitudes are dangerous to us all. That’s my take on it. Ignore what you find offensive. Or talk about it in a substantive way. But don’t set out to censor it, or destroy the career of the offending author. Comments welcome. I will see you tomorrow.”
Actually, that sheet is more about recognizing expressions that may be bothersome or insulting to some people, whether or not they were intended as such, as opposed banning them (which is impossible anyway).
There’s a fascinating thing that happens every time (okay, that’s too broad, but it is a pretty frequent pattern) there’s a significant social change: The change starts to happen, people don’t really notice it, then the change accelerates (basically, starting to follow a classic S-shaped curve of adoption vs. time), people continue to not really notice it, and then the change reaches a tipping point where people notice it.
The fascinating thing is that people don’t tend to notice social changes until they’ve really started to take hold—and the reaction is very, very often a reaction along the lines of “Oh noes! This is a terrible new thing and it must be stopped!!”
The fact: It generally isn’t a new thing. It also isn’t necessarily terrible, it’s just a change. Of course, even if it isn’t terrible, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily easy or painless.
I repeat my assertion that what people are discussing here isn’t remotely new. It has, however, reached a point in its adoption cycle that it has popped into salience, and so it feels new.
Now, as to whether it’s good or bad, I don’t actually know. I do know that generally speaking, if a social change gets to this point the adoption of it in some form is likely to continue to completion (even if it’s only because the last holdouts will—and sorry for the bluntness, but there’s no nice way to put this, really—eventually die off). There are some changes that reverse once the backlash starts, yes, but they’re actually pretty rare. I’d say, for those who think this is horrible, that your best bet isn’t to try to reverse things and bring them back to the comfortableness that you were used to, but rather to join in and try to shape the way the change ultimately takes hold.
“As they have done often over the years, the Stigmores spoke openly about the time their daughter attended a class in which her political science professor “completely ambushed” her with standard course material that did not fit comfortably within her world outlook. Feeling unsettled, the college student reportedly had no way of coping with the challenging position that did not require her to consider the opinion, analyze its shortcomings, and think of possible counterarguments.”
The problem is basic philosophy classes have been eliminated from required curriculum. Too much emphasis on know-how and answers, instead of asking the right questions and the process of rational thought.
Despite technical advances, we’re on a long march back to savagery.
This quote made me think of a current TV show (Humans) that deals with synthetics (aka robots) that interact with humans, sorta like Rosie in the Jetsons (I’m dating myself). When these robots come face to face with other robots they are supposed to share info about themselves to other robot. Maybe that’s where we’re headed, from free range to sheltered kids who grew up at home playing video games and now to kids whose human contact is primarily via texts, tweets, etc. Maybe we’ll all just carry a USB drive that has everything that’s acceptable or not to an individual and then when we meet someone we can swap USB drives, share and process each other’s personal info so that we can decide to walk away or tailor our interactions so as not to avoid conflict. Add in a few more generational evolutionary/technologic steps, second amendment rights, we’d be terminators