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Duck Dynasty, White Supremacist Game Designers, and Censorship

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Posts

  • laservisioncatlaservisioncat Registered User regular
    edited January 2015
    Haha what? Alright lets break down the many ways you're misreading the study.
    "Thus, it would appear that trauma exposure initiates a process of disruption of an individual’s internal psychophysiology that is then progressively sensitized and kindled with the repeated exposures to triggers."

    The paper is saying that it's the repeated exposure to triggers that worsens PTSD, not "They're gonna get worse over time so fuck it". I have no idea where you got that particular idea from. Here, I'll even cite the study THEY cite that reinforces the idea that exposure to triggers causes PTSD to get worse over time http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12136500

    That's what "sensitization" means. Note that earlier in this thread someone put forth the conjecture that trigger warnings make PTSD worse because they coddle them or whatever the fuck. This is an example of people talking out of their ass about a condition they don't know anything about to reinforce a previously held belief.
    an attempt to achieve the impossible ideal of an eggshell world instead of using appropriate therapy to treat serious mental disorders.

    I definitely said that trigger warnings are a replacement for therapy, and that they can cure PTSD. You got me there. If only someone had said multiple times that you're inventing that argument from whole cloth.

    Past a given level of dysfunction, university isn't the appropriate place for people

    And boom goes the "People with PTSD don't have a right to higher education even though they can be accommodated easily" dynamite. A department that helps with PTSD only seems useful in the event that a student was aware they were taking a class that could trigger them. Maybe professors should have some kind of warning system in place?

    e: sorry if the sarcasm is a bit thick in this post, but there seems to be a deliberate misreading of this study to favour an argument that makes no goddamn sense, and I'm getting tired from trying to catch up to these goalposts.

    I'm not misreading it at all. My point, as it always has been, is trying to pretend someone's HIST101 lecture is some terrible, but completely preventable atrocity, when the study you linked gives absolutely not a shred of support to the idea that putting a trigger warning on a play is going to be clinically useful, and again, suggests that due to it being a progressive disorder, Professor Soandso cannot guarantee, without individualized attention, that any given piece of literature is going to be triggering or not.

    And Student Disability Services addresses all conditions, not just PTSD, and students should talk to them before starting classes, not after. That's no different than someone who needs additional time to take tests. Don't wait until it becomes a problem, proactively address the issue. Of course, if this is an ideological battle, as it was in Oberlin college, and not about actually addressing the very limited number of students with PTSD, then it sure makes more sense to label thoughtcrime as such, rather than addressing PTSD like any other learning difficulty.

    No one is saying that a lecture or piece of literature is problematic if it has the ability to trigger anyone. I really, honestly do not understand what you're arguing. So, let me lay out what has been stated:

    1. PTSD sufferers have triggers
    2. Being triggered adversely affects people with PTSD
    3. If people with PTSD are warned about triggers, they can make the decision to avoid the material/talk to a prof/prepare for a possible episode.

    Which of the statements do you need proof for? I assumed it was statement two, but you keep asking for more evidence so I don't know which of these statements you actually disagree with. Unless you want a randomized controlled trial that purposefully exposes PTSD victims to their triggers, which is the only way you're going to have a direct study make a direct statement on the usefulness of trigger warnings. This is not going to happen for ethical reasons, we're going to have to use the tiniest bit of inductive reasoning here.

    Without trigger warnings, what do you think that Student Disability Services is supposed to do? How exactly are they supposed to help with this specific issue? They won't be much help after the fact because part of PTSD is the unwillingness or inability to talk about their flashbacks, and they can only help before the classes if the student knows there will be triggering material in their classes. And PTSD isn't a learning difficulty, which is why you can't treat it as such. Keep in mind approximately 7% of people will experience PTSD in their lifetime, so don't try and minimize this issue by saying that there are a very limited number of students with PTSD.

    laservisioncat on
  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    Keep in mind approximately 7% of people will experience PTSD in their lifetime, so don't try and minimize this issue by saying that there are a very limited number of students with PTSD.

    Most people go to college when they're young, so that 7% statistic is a bit misleading. Even without complicating factors (which might show that PTSD is more commonly found after 30 than before it), you could assume only a 3rd of that 7% will have PTSD during the first third of their lives. So perhaps 2 or 3% of college students might be affected by this.

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  • The Big LevinskyThe Big Levinsky Registered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Keep in mind approximately 7% of people will experience PTSD in their lifetime, so don't try and minimize this issue by saying that there are a very limited number of students with PTSD.

    Most people go to college when they're young, so that 7% statistic is a bit misleading. Even without complicating factors (which might show that PTSD is more commonly found after 30 than before it), you could assume only a 3rd of that 7% will have PTSD during the first third of their lives. So perhaps 2 or 3% of college students might be affected by this.

    Do you have any sources to back this up? It seems to me like combat related PTSD would skew heavily towards college age due to the fact that most people who join the army do so in their late teens, early 20s so they can go to college on the GI bill when they're done.

    Also, isn't 2% to 3% of the population of a college enough people to warrant putting a few lines of text at the top of a syllabus or course catalog description?

  • Caulk Bite 6Caulk Bite 6 One of the multitude of Dans infesting this place Registered User regular
    yeah, 2-3% of a lot of people is still a lot of people.

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  • TheZKTheZK Registered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Keep in mind approximately 7% of people will experience PTSD in their lifetime, so don't try and minimize this issue by saying that there are a very limited number of students with PTSD.

    Most people go to college when they're young, so that 7% statistic is a bit misleading. Even without complicating factors (which might show that PTSD is more commonly found after 30 than before it), you could assume only a 3rd of that 7% will have PTSD during the first third of their lives. So perhaps 2 or 3% of college students might be affected by this.

    Do you have any sources to back this up? It seems to me like combat related PTSD would skew heavily towards college age due to the fact that most people who join the army do so in their late teens, early 20s so they can go to college on the GI bill when they're done.

    Also, isn't 2% to 3% of the population of a college enough people to warrant putting a few lines of text at the top of a syllabus or course catalog description?

    I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that people with combat-related PTSD aren't usually triggered by cissexism and expressions of privilege. Are you just interested in warning that Farewell to Arms has images of war in it?

    Because my perception is that most 'trigger warning' advocates are not talking about warning that books about war may contain war. Maybe everyone on this forum just wants to protect vets and assault victims, but I don't think that's what these pushes are really about.

  • laservisioncatlaservisioncat Registered User regular
    TheZK wrote: »
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Keep in mind approximately 7% of people will experience PTSD in their lifetime, so don't try and minimize this issue by saying that there are a very limited number of students with PTSD.

    Most people go to college when they're young, so that 7% statistic is a bit misleading. Even without complicating factors (which might show that PTSD is more commonly found after 30 than before it), you could assume only a 3rd of that 7% will have PTSD during the first third of their lives. So perhaps 2 or 3% of college students might be affected by this.

    Do you have any sources to back this up? It seems to me like combat related PTSD would skew heavily towards college age due to the fact that most people who join the army do so in their late teens, early 20s so they can go to college on the GI bill when they're done.

    Also, isn't 2% to 3% of the population of a college enough people to warrant putting a few lines of text at the top of a syllabus or course catalog description?

    I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that people with combat-related PTSD aren't usually triggered by cissexism and expressions of privilege. Are you just interested in warning that Farewell to Arms has images of war in it?

    Because my perception is that most 'trigger warning' advocates are not talking about warning that books about war may contain war. Maybe everyone on this forum just wants to protect vets and assault victims, but I don't think that's what these pushes are really about.

    Rape is more common for college-aged students and in colleges in general, though, which is pretty much what these pushes are really about.

    This line of questioning is a distraction. The point is that trying to paint people with PTSD as unicorns we'll never have to care about is not a great thing to do.

  • The Big LevinskyThe Big Levinsky Registered User regular
    TheZK wrote: »
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Keep in mind approximately 7% of people will experience PTSD in their lifetime, so don't try and minimize this issue by saying that there are a very limited number of students with PTSD.

    Most people go to college when they're young, so that 7% statistic is a bit misleading. Even without complicating factors (which might show that PTSD is more commonly found after 30 than before it), you could assume only a 3rd of that 7% will have PTSD during the first third of their lives. So perhaps 2 or 3% of college students might be affected by this.

    Do you have any sources to back this up? It seems to me like combat related PTSD would skew heavily towards college age due to the fact that most people who join the army do so in their late teens, early 20s so they can go to college on the GI bill when they're done.

    Also, isn't 2% to 3% of the population of a college enough people to warrant putting a few lines of text at the top of a syllabus or course catalog description?

    I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that people with combat-related PTSD aren't usually triggered by cissexism and expressions of privilege. Are you just interested in warning that Farewell to Arms has images of war in it?

    Because my perception is that most 'trigger warning' advocates are not talking about warning that books about war may contain war. Maybe everyone on this forum just wants to protect vets and assault victims, but I don't think that's what these pushes are really about.

    I can't speak for everyone but reducing the chance that traumatized people have a nervous breakdown is precisely what I'm talking about.

  • hsuhsu Registered User regular
    edited January 2015
    Rape is more common for college-aged students and in colleges in general, though
    Off topic, but this is a clear example of the media lying for the sake of a good story.
    http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5176
    According to actual data compiled by the federal government in 2014, sexual assault is 1.2 times higher for nonstudents (7.6 per 1000) aged 18-24 than for students (6.2 per 1000).

    hsu on
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  • LanzLanz ...Za?Registered User regular
    Elvenshae wrote: »
    Lanz wrote: »
    I keep hearing this claim that trigger warnings in a syllabus somehow bias students against the content of what they are reading to the point of ignoring other interpretations or themes derived from the content of the works in question.

    This concept baffles me to a ridiculous degree and I am not sure how B follows A here, unless you have just really really fucked up how you are alerting people who may be triggered by whatever the applicable potential anxiety or trauma trigger is.

    Let's take a benign example here.

    Think back to before you ever watched The Sixth Sense.

    Imagine if, before walking into the movie, someone had told you, "OMG the TWIST ENDING is amazing; you'll never see it coming!" Would you have watched the movie in the same way?

    Or, maybe, someone did tell you that the movie had a twist ending. Did you spend your time watching it trying to figure out the twist?

    But are these are particularly analogous examples? I get what is is your saying: Informing someone of an aspect of a film will set them towards anticipating it. But this isn't necessarily something that mars the ability of one to interpret a work (which seems to be the academic concern: a group forewarning such as a trigger warning for sensitive content in the syllabus will deprive students of the capacity to judge and analyze the work independently of outside influence), especially if we're talking about getting into more developed analyses, which would require more than a single watch, which I would think negate the familiarity issue for the most part. but I don't think saying, say, in a film class that Irreversible features graphic rape scenes or that American History X features scenes of graphic violence would bias an interpretation of the work.

    I suppose in regards to just about anything, there are exceptions, such as a work that relies heavily upon the surprise reveal to create a feeling in the viewer, but for the most part when it comes to academic analysis I don't see the harm in giving a trigger warning for content that could disturb audiences sensitive to such content.

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  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    edited January 2015
    Without trigger warnings, what do you think that Student Disability Services is supposed to do? How exactly are they supposed to help with this specific issue?

    Determine the medical needs of the student, using confidential consultations and medical data, then and decide on accommodations that would reasonably balance those needs with course demands. Typically, they then communicate with the professors and teaching assistants directly, or give the student some documentation to ferry along. By far the most common disability arrangement is extra time during tests, for ADHD and (I think) dyslexia. So, for instance, at the start of the semester I get a certain number of notifications from Disability Services that specific students will take their exams separately, somewhere else where they get time and a half; later the completed tests get delivered to me for grading. But other 'typical' accommodations can include the presence during lecture of interpreters/transcribers for deaf students, special arrangements for the blind, and so on and so forth. None of these involve any judgment on behalf of the instructor; it is, so to speak, taken care of by the people who's job it is to figure that stuff out.

    What are Student Disability Services supposed to do? Determine the nature of the student's health problem, and then contact the instructor and tell them what to do about it. Even for students dealing with the same traumatic event, e.g. rape, this may vary wildly. Perhaps this student can't see rape imagery at all, whereas this student is only sensitized to homosexual sexual attacks; this one can write a paper about rape but should be excused from spontaneous timed assignments on the subject. Determining these accommodations is neither the job nor the competence of the teacher.

    Here we come to another element that is inadequate and diversionary about trigger warnings: students who will actually have PTSD flashbacks at the mention of, say, rape, require special accommodations for their case that go far beyond trigger warnings. I TA mostly for political philosophy and ethics classes. Although few readings specifically take rape as their topic, it is entirely standard for the subject of rape to arise spontaneously in discussion or as an example during the course of a lecture. Often this isn't planned. It's just that rape, as a phenomenon, casts light on issues of philosophical importance. Why is rape wrong? Different theories have different answers. If a student in my class cannot have rape discussed in their presence without horrifying consequences, then I need to be informed. Not only can Student Disability Services do what needs to be done, but they have to. And once they are doing it, the role of trigger warnings becomes much less clear.

    Do students malinger? Yes. Everyone does. It doesn't even have to be a matter of bad faith. Often, what accommodations occur on a graded scale and what's reasonable given the circumstances is a judgment call--does this student need time and a half, or do they need double time? Students have tremendous motives to always fudge in their favor, and may do so without even realizing it; psychology teaches us that we can rationalize desired outcomes without knowing that's what we're doing. Again, trying to make the appropriate judgment call is neither the job nor the competence of the teacher.

    Finally, to those that are skeptical about whether trigger warnings have any bad pedagogical effects: the propensity to focus students on certain themes to the exclusion of others has already been brought up, and I certainly think this is a real phenomena--you can teach the same text year to year, and yet substantially change the students' reactions just by changing how you frame it. The 'spoiler' effect has also been brought up, though no one seems to care. Suppose I am teaching a fiction workshop: I assign a reading in which a seemingly innocuous story morphs into a graphic rape. I want to teach the craft elements by which the author misdirects and then shocks. I can't give the same educational experience with a trigger warning--the point is to be shocked (and to think about how that was done, and what it accomplishes). But beyond that, we can go on: suppose I am teaching a poem in which there are repeated rape metaphors. If part of the point is developing their interpretive skills, I cannot trigger warning this poem with its rape themes; that would be, so to speak, just giving them the answer. Or I am teaching an applied ethics class, and I assign a piece of short fiction (or even testimonial) that describes a party from start to finish; one of the things it describes is a sexual encounter. My pedagogical goal is to examine whether that encounter is a rape. I cannot do that by prefacing the story with a rape warning; the point is they're supposed to figure out whether it's a rape, and the goal is for them to come in with unprompted responses and then go on to critically examine them. There are all sorts of reasons that an instructor may be loathe to post trigger warnings.

    Pedagogical discretion should be respected. It is possible to do so while still accommodating students with special needs, by making use of the university resources explicitly dedicated to that task. That seems to be to be by far the best solution.

    MrMister on
  • laservisioncatlaservisioncat Registered User regular
    MrMister wrote: »
    Without trigger warnings, what do you think that Student Disability Services is supposed to do? How exactly are they supposed to help with this specific issue?

    Determine the medical needs of the student, using confidential consultations and medical data, then and decide on accommodations that would reasonably balance those needs with course demands. Typically, they then communicate with the professors and teaching assistants directly, or give the student some documentation to ferry along. By far the most common disability arrangement is extra time during tests, for ADHD and (I think) dyslexia. So, for instance, at the start of the semester I get a certain number of notifications from Disability Services that specific students will take their exams separately, somewhere else where they get time and a half; later the completed tests get delivered to me for grading. But other 'typical' accommodations can include the presence during lecture of interpreters/transcribers for deaf students, special arrangements for the blind, and so on and so forth. None of these involve any judgment on behalf of the instructor; it is, so to speak, taken care of by the people who's job it is to figure that stuff out.

    What are Student Disability Services supposed to do? Determine the nature of the student's health problem, and then contact the instructor and tell them what to do about it. Even for students dealing with the same traumatic event, e.g. rape, this may vary wildly. Perhaps this student can't see rape imagery at all, whereas this student is only sensitized to homosexual sexual attacks; this one can write a paper about rape but should be excused from spontaneous timed assignments on the subject. Determining these accommodations is neither the job nor the competence of the teacher.

    Here we come to another element that is inadequate and diversionary about trigger warnings: students who will actually have PTSD flashbacks at the mention of, say, rape, require special accommodations for their case that go far beyond trigger warnings. I TA mostly for political philosophy and ethics classes. Although few readings specifically take rape as their topic, it is entirely standard for the subject of rape to arise spontaneously in discussion or as an example during the course of a lecture. Often this isn't planned. It's just that rape, as a phenomenon, casts light on issues of philosophical importance. Why is rape wrong? Different theories have different answers. If a student in my class cannot have rape discussed in their presence without horrifying consequences, then I need to be informed. Not only can Student Disability Services do what needs to be done, but they have to. And once they are doing it, the role of trigger warnings becomes much less clear.

    Do students malinger? Yes. Everyone does. It doesn't even have to be a matter of bad faith. Often, what accommodations occur on a graded scale and what's reasonable given the circumstances is a judgment call--does this student need time and a half, or do they need double time? Students have tremendous motives to always fudge in their favor, and may do so without even realizing it; psychology teaches us that we can rationalize desired outcomes without knowing that's what we're doing. Again, trying to make the appropriate judgment call is neither the job nor the competence of the teacher.

    Finally, to those that are skeptical about whether trigger warnings have any bad pedagogical effects: the propensity to focus students on certain themes to the exclusion of others has already been brought up, and I certainly think this is a real phenomena--you can teach the same text year to year, and yet substantially change the students' reactions just by changing how you frame it. The 'spoiler' effect has also been brought up, though no one seems to care. Suppose I am teaching a fiction workshop: I assign a reading in which a seemingly innocuous story morphs into a graphic rape. I want to teach the craft elements by which the author misdirects and then shocks. I can't give the same educational experience with a trigger warning--the point is to be shocked (and to think about how that was done, and what it accomplishes). But beyond that, we can go on: suppose I am teaching a poem in which there are repeated rape metaphors. If part of the point is developing their interpretive skills, I cannot trigger warning this poem with its rape themes; that would be, so to speak, just giving them the answer. Or I am teaching an applied ethics class, and I assign a piece of short fiction (or even testimonial) that describes a party from start to finish; one of the things it describes is a sexual encounter. My pedagogical goal is to examine whether that encounter is a rape. I cannot do that by prefacing the story with a rape warning; the point is they're supposed to figure out whether it's a rape, and the goal is for them to come in with unprompted responses and then go on to critically examine them. There are all sorts of reasons that an instructor may be loathe to post trigger warnings.

    Pedagogical discretion should be respected. It is possible to do so while still accommodating students with special needs, by making use of the university resources explicitly dedicated to that task. That seems to be to be by far the best solution.

    This is... great? I don't disagree with most of what you said about the role of student services. Your system still gets warnings about content to PTSD victims, but it requires them to go to student disabilities services beforehand. How does a message of "Hey, there's going to be talk about rape n stuff, so email me if you have troubles with that (or, if you prefer, check with disability services)." conflict with any of that? We've covered multiple ways to warn people of content in ways that only those who need to be warned will know exactly where the content is.

    I'm glad at your school disability services is an efficient, well oiled bureaucratic machine that never fails, but I don't really see what the harm is in warning students at the beginning of courses about objectionable content and the accommodations that can be made. People with triggers typically know what triggers them: if they just need to be prepared so they aren't shocked then fine, if they need to make arraignments with professors for accommodations than they can do that. The main purpose of trigger warnings would then be to warn people who are taking "The literature of 15th century farmers" that, oh shit, there's a graphic rape scene somewhere in this course. Students with disabilities might not go through such a lengthy process that you have detailed above if they don't know there could be triggers, and it's a waste of resources for a student to have to go through that rigamarole if they aren't taking classes that could trigger them.

    In both our scenarios, the students would find out if a course has triggering content: you seem to want them to have to go through a lot more work to do it, and I don't see the benefit of it. I don't want student disabilities to be replaced with trigger warnings or anything, so what's the issue?

  • JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular

    This is... great? I don't disagree with most of what you said about the role of student services. Your system still gets warnings about content to PTSD victims, but it requires them to go to student disabilities services beforehand. How does a message of "Hey, there's going to be talk about rape n stuff, so email me if you have troubles with that (or, if you prefer, check with disability services)." conflict with any of that? We've covered multiple ways to warn people of content in ways that only those who need to be warned will know exactly where the content is.

    I'm glad at your school disability services is an efficient, well oiled bureaucratic machine that never fails, but I don't really see what the harm is in warning students at the beginning of courses about objectionable content and the accommodations that can be made. People with triggers typically know what triggers them: if they just need to be prepared so they aren't shocked then fine, if they need to make arraignments with professors for accommodations than they can do that. The main purpose of trigger warnings would then be to warn people who are taking "The literature of 15th century farmers" that, oh shit, there's a graphic rape scene somewhere in this course. Students with disabilities might not go through such a lengthy process that you have detailed above if they don't know there could be triggers, and it's a waste of resources for a student to have to go through that rigamarole if they aren't taking classes that could trigger them.

    In both our scenarios, the students would find out if a course has triggering content: you seem to want them to have to go through a lot more work to do it, and I don't see the benefit of it. I don't want student disabilities to be replaced with trigger warnings or anything, so what's the issue?

    That message conflicts with it because you need to cover all your bases (rape n stuff is already broad but doesn't cover everything) and teachers are not equipped to deal with the problem without the assistance of Student Disability Services anyway. The message would become: "Hey, if you have PTSD or something similar where specific content is a problem for you please contact Student Disability Services" which is a good message but not actually a trigger warning and presumably something already included in other material and information provided to the student.

    And you literally just ignored the whole point about the possible bad effects of trigger warnings for education. All the other students also get the trigger warning without needing it.

  • laservisioncatlaservisioncat Registered User regular
    Julius wrote: »

    This is... great? I don't disagree with most of what you said about the role of student services. Your system still gets warnings about content to PTSD victims, but it requires them to go to student disabilities services beforehand. How does a message of "Hey, there's going to be talk about rape n stuff, so email me if you have troubles with that (or, if you prefer, check with disability services)." conflict with any of that? We've covered multiple ways to warn people of content in ways that only those who need to be warned will know exactly where the content is.

    I'm glad at your school disability services is an efficient, well oiled bureaucratic machine that never fails, but I don't really see what the harm is in warning students at the beginning of courses about objectionable content and the accommodations that can be made. People with triggers typically know what triggers them: if they just need to be prepared so they aren't shocked then fine, if they need to make arraignments with professors for accommodations than they can do that. The main purpose of trigger warnings would then be to warn people who are taking "The literature of 15th century farmers" that, oh shit, there's a graphic rape scene somewhere in this course. Students with disabilities might not go through such a lengthy process that you have detailed above if they don't know there could be triggers, and it's a waste of resources for a student to have to go through that rigamarole if they aren't taking classes that could trigger them.

    In both our scenarios, the students would find out if a course has triggering content: you seem to want them to have to go through a lot more work to do it, and I don't see the benefit of it. I don't want student disabilities to be replaced with trigger warnings or anything, so what's the issue?

    That message conflicts with it because you need to cover all your bases (rape n stuff is already broad but doesn't cover everything) and teachers are not equipped to deal with the problem without the assistance of Student Disability Services anyway. The message would become: "Hey, if you have PTSD or something similar where specific content is a problem for you please contact Student Disability Services" which is a good message but not actually a trigger warning and presumably something already included in other material and information provided to the student.

    And you literally just ignored the whole point about the possible bad effects of trigger warnings for education. All the other students also get the trigger warning without needing it.

    There are a few pretty common triggers, and a professor would only need to warn about what's on their syllabus. This doesn't cover really specific and obscure triggers, but I think just covering the most likely ones would be a huge win.

    And I didn't ignore the possible bad effects, because as has been said multiple times in this thread there are incredibly easy ways of mitigating any bad effects. A general statement about the topics you are covering in class wouldn't affect anyone's ability to think about specific books or passages. Saying "If you have PTSD there is a catalog of common triggers found in my course material at the school bookstore" wouldn't cause anyone who didn't need the trigger warnings to receive them. It might influence how the people who need the trigger warnings think about the books, but I'll take that over a panic attack. All of the supposed bad effects are really easy to mitigate with an ounce of forethought. I am really tired of having to repeat myself.

    Student Disability Services, if they're actually competent and able to help you wherever you go to school, are nice but the system only works if people with PTSD think that they will be in a class that could trigger them. Which is why warnings would be helpful.

    No one here is arguing that the best solution is a giant sticker at the front of each book in the syllabus that says "TW: THIS BOOK IS ABOUT SOMEONE COMMITTING SUICIDE".

  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    edited January 2015
    No one here is arguing that the best solution is a giant sticker at the front of each book in the syllabus that says "TW: THIS BOOK IS ABOUT SOMEONE COMMITTING SUICIDE".

    This is a bit flippant, but one of the women quoted in that earlier article blamed her suicide attempt on, along with her professor, the carelessness of the play's publisher--presumably, she was looking for just such a sticker.

    Anyhow, you seem to be proposing that instructors provide a list of common triggers in their course materials to the bookstore, along with including a note in their syllabus pointing students in that direction should they need to check. This system introduces additional administrative work to little benefit. Instructors in this system would be required to, for each course they teach, keep some content listing updated both as the syllabus changes semester to semester and as the officially-given understanding of the 'common enough to list' triggers morphs. But there is no need for this listing to be continuously updated when there aren't actually any PTSD sufferers in the class. Of course, if maintenance of such a list is not required, but rather just something instructors have the option to do, then it would create less administrative work. But that only by becoming even less useful. Why 'even less?' Everyone was already allowing that it's usefulness was never that robust to begin with, given that no database could possibly anticipate the full range of individuals PTSD triggers, and that triggering topics can arise in all sorts of ways in educational settings that are independent of the syllabus material anyway (suicide and rape, e.g., are both huge themes in human history, art, culture, philosophy; if these are our main examples, they can naturally arise in lecture or discussion for almost any humanities or social science class).

    And the point of the exercise is to reach the population of people who simultaneously manage to have serious enough PTSD to have triggers which may lead to horrible attacks, but yet at the same time, despite the severity of their condition, are committed to self-managing it to the extent of declining to seek accommodation from Student Disability Services. So we're putting together an only very marginally useful tool in order to reach a very small population who are making a dubious choice. As ronya might put it, at this point it looks like an instance of the syllogism 'something must be done; this is something; so this must be done.'

    MrMister on
  • JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    Julius wrote: »

    This is... great? I don't disagree with most of what you said about the role of student services. Your system still gets warnings about content to PTSD victims, but it requires them to go to student disabilities services beforehand. How does a message of "Hey, there's going to be talk about rape n stuff, so email me if you have troubles with that (or, if you prefer, check with disability services)." conflict with any of that? We've covered multiple ways to warn people of content in ways that only those who need to be warned will know exactly where the content is.

    I'm glad at your school disability services is an efficient, well oiled bureaucratic machine that never fails, but I don't really see what the harm is in warning students at the beginning of courses about objectionable content and the accommodations that can be made. People with triggers typically know what triggers them: if they just need to be prepared so they aren't shocked then fine, if they need to make arraignments with professors for accommodations than they can do that. The main purpose of trigger warnings would then be to warn people who are taking "The literature of 15th century farmers" that, oh shit, there's a graphic rape scene somewhere in this course. Students with disabilities might not go through such a lengthy process that you have detailed above if they don't know there could be triggers, and it's a waste of resources for a student to have to go through that rigamarole if they aren't taking classes that could trigger them.

    In both our scenarios, the students would find out if a course has triggering content: you seem to want them to have to go through a lot more work to do it, and I don't see the benefit of it. I don't want student disabilities to be replaced with trigger warnings or anything, so what's the issue?

    That message conflicts with it because you need to cover all your bases (rape n stuff is already broad but doesn't cover everything) and teachers are not equipped to deal with the problem without the assistance of Student Disability Services anyway. The message would become: "Hey, if you have PTSD or something similar where specific content is a problem for you please contact Student Disability Services" which is a good message but not actually a trigger warning and presumably something already included in other material and information provided to the student.

    And you literally just ignored the whole point about the possible bad effects of trigger warnings for education. All the other students also get the trigger warning without needing it.

    There are a few pretty common triggers, and a professor would only need to warn about what's on their syllabus. This doesn't cover really specific and obscure triggers, but I think just covering the most likely ones would be a huge win.

    And I didn't ignore the possible bad effects, because as has been said multiple times in this thread there are incredibly easy ways of mitigating any bad effects. A general statement about the topics you are covering in class wouldn't affect anyone's ability to think about specific books or passages. Saying "If you have PTSD there is a catalog of common triggers found in my course material at the school bookstore" wouldn't cause anyone who didn't need the trigger warnings to receive them. It might influence how the people who need the trigger warnings think about the books, but I'll take that over a panic attack. All of the supposed bad effects are really easy to mitigate with an ounce of forethought. I am really tired of having to repeat myself.

    Student Disability Services, if they're actually competent and able to help you wherever you go to school, are nice but the system only works if people with PTSD think that they will be in a class that could trigger them. Which is why warnings would be helpful.

    No one here is arguing that the best solution is a giant sticker at the front of each book in the syllabus that says "TW: THIS BOOK IS ABOUT SOMEONE COMMITTING SUICIDE".

    So what if the people in your class only have the obscure triggers? Tough shit for them I guess? Their problems are less deserving of attention?

    You sort of have to catch all triggers to be fair and non-judgemental and you need experts (like Student Disability Services) to know how to do that. You can't just have a list of topics that might trigger and expect teachers to correctly assess all that are in their work and might come up in their classes. Teachers are not equipped to handle this on their own, and expecting them to can be counter productive. If they try and fail due to their lack of expertise it would be worse than if they just wait to be informed by SDS.

    And as pointed out by MrMister the nature of college and the nature of PTSD pretty much guarantee that students with PTSD encounter something that could trigger them. Presumably that is why we all consider this a problem in the first place. Dyslexic students don't know which classes will require extra time but they know they will require it at some point. (And even if they never do it's better to be safe than sorry.) People with PTSD should go to Student Disability Services regardless of whether they know they will encounter triggers. It's a precaution and gives students a tool for their studies.

  • The Big LevinskyThe Big Levinsky Registered User regular
    I cannot tell you how enraging it is to hear people drawing parallels between dyslexia and PTSD. "If you don't want to talk about the most intimate and horrifying moments of your life with a complete stranger at a college campus so they can tell other complete strangers how damaged you are, then you're making 'dubious' choices. Also since we can't prevent triggers 100% of the time we should do nothing since there's not enough of you to matter." This type of thinking can go straight to hell.

  • JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    I cannot tell you how enraging it is to hear people drawing parallels between dyslexia and PTSD. "If you don't want to talk about the most intimate and horrifying moments of your life with a complete stranger at a college campus so they can tell other complete strangers how damaged you are, then you're making 'dubious' choices. Also since we can't prevent triggers 100% of the time we should do nothing since there's not enough of you to matter." This type of thinking can go straight to hell.

    The comparison to dyslexia is not a matter of seriousness but of appropriateness. If you have a medical issue you should not inform your teacher but the part of the institution that is specifically designated for and equipped to deal with those problems. It is there for a reason. It is there to protect and help both students and faculty and to ensure the academic environment remains intact. And this applies regardless of whether the medical issue is severe or not.

    The university is an institution, not a random collection of friends. It cannot have vague rules or leave serious issues up to the discretion of faculty and students like that.

  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    I cannot tell you how enraging it is to hear people drawing parallels between dyslexia and PTSD. "If you don't want to talk about the most intimate and horrifying moments of your life with a complete stranger at a college campus so they can tell other complete strangers how damaged you are, then you're making 'dubious' choices. Also since we can't prevent triggers 100% of the time we should do nothing since there's not enough of you to matter." This type of thinking can go straight to hell.

    I realize that PTSD makes it difficult for people to seek help. But at the end of the day it's not anybody's job to deduce your medical condition. Just like it's not a cop's job to investigate the rapes that go unreported; all we can do is work to encourage reporting. If you need accomodations for a condition, you have to ask for it. If you can't bring yourself to talk to a counselor (or present a note from another doctor), the system is not going to be able to help you.

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  • Caulk Bite 6Caulk Bite 6 One of the multitude of Dans infesting this place Registered User regular
    edited January 2015
    .

    Caulk Bite 6 on
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  • poshnialloposhniallo Registered User regular
    edited January 2015
    Astaereth wrote: »
    I cannot tell you how enraging it is to hear people drawing parallels between dyslexia and PTSD. "If you don't want to talk about the most intimate and horrifying moments of your life with a complete stranger at a college campus so they can tell other complete strangers how damaged you are, then you're making 'dubious' choices. Also since we can't prevent triggers 100% of the time we should do nothing since there's not enough of you to matter." This type of thinking can go straight to hell.

    I realize that PTSD makes it difficult for people to seek help. But at the end of the day it's not anybody's job to deduce your medical condition. Just like it's not a cop's job to investigate the rapes that go unreported; all we can do is work to encourage reporting. If you need accomodations for a condition, you have to ask for it. If you can't bring yourself to talk to a counselor (or present a note from another doctor), the system is not going to be able to help you.

    We've just been talking about how warnings can help. And they can. When I prepare class materials, I am perfectly capable of guessing a large part of what might be emotionally difficult for students.

    I can't be 100%, hell maybe not even 75%, but by engaging myself I can certainly avoid hurting many students with the material I present. Are ther formal names for the fallacies of 'we can't be perfect so we shouldn't do anything' and 'we can do A, so we must avoid doing B'.

    I've been teaching EFL for 16 years, both in the public and private sectors, at levels running from young children, through university, to nowadays corporate training, mostly for consultants, scientists, and analysts. I have seen a wide variety of educational needs and situations, and it is baffling for me to hear these arguments. When I was managing and training teachers, that kind of attitude would have been a serious issue that I would have addressed in feedback and performance reviews.

    Is it connected to the rather serious problem of many post-graduates not actually wanting to teach much, and receiving little or no training in education rather than their field? My experience of that has been the main reason why I chose the private sector over the public.

    poshniallo on
    I figure I could take a bear.
  • The Big LevinskyThe Big Levinsky Registered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    I cannot tell you how enraging it is to hear people drawing parallels between dyslexia and PTSD. "If you don't want to talk about the most intimate and horrifying moments of your life with a complete stranger at a college campus so they can tell other complete strangers how damaged you are, then you're making 'dubious' choices. Also since we can't prevent triggers 100% of the time we should do nothing since there's not enough of you to matter." This type of thinking can go straight to hell.

    I realize that PTSD makes it difficult for people to seek help. But at the end of the day it's not anybody's job to deduce your medical condition. Just like it's not a cop's job to investigate the rapes that go unreported; all we can do is work to encourage reporting. If you need accomodations for a condition, you have to ask for it. If you can't bring yourself to talk to a counselor (or present a note from another doctor), the system is not going to be able to help you.

    I don't think you realize how difficult PTSD is at all. If you did, you would find the position of forcing trauma victims to talk to strangers about it (even in vague terms) as ridiculous as it is cruel.

    You also don't seem to understand how the police work either, oddly enough.

    No one is asking for a huge, comprehensive analysis of all possible triggers to appear on every piece of media you intend on presenting in a class. Just a sentence or two in the course description. Just enough so that people suffering from PTSD are tipped off that they maybe should look into the books/movies or whatever a little closer before they decide to take a class or not.

    It won't prevent triggers 100% of the time, but effort to implement would be minuscule and it will prevent some incidents.

  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    I cannot tell you how enraging it is to hear people drawing parallels between dyslexia and PTSD. "If you don't want to talk about the most intimate and horrifying moments of your life with a complete stranger at a college campus so they can tell other complete strangers how damaged you are, then you're making 'dubious' choices. Also since we can't prevent triggers 100% of the time we should do nothing since there's not enough of you to matter." This type of thinking can go straight to hell.

    I realize that PTSD makes it difficult for people to seek help. But at the end of the day it's not anybody's job to deduce your medical condition. Just like it's not a cop's job to investigate the rapes that go unreported; all we can do is work to encourage reporting. If you need accomodations for a condition, you have to ask for it. If you can't bring yourself to talk to a counselor (or present a note from another doctor), the system is not going to be able to help you.

    I don't think you realize how difficult PTSD is at all. If you did, you would find the position of forcing trauma victims to talk to strangers about it (even in vague terms) as ridiculous as it is cruel.

    If PTSD is so difficult, surely it would be better for sufferers to have professional help?

    Like, depression as a condition can make it hard for you to leave the house and go do things, including making psychiatric appointments, but that doesn't mean the answer is for psychiatrists to call random home phone numbers in case a depressed person happens to pick up on the other end.

    Like, I sympathize. But the argument that PTSD sufferers need specialized treatment is a compelling one in my opinion. (And as I said earlier in the thread, I'm not opposed to supplementing that with a webpage with generic trigger warnings for classes that PTSD sufferers can check out on their own.)
    You also don't seem to understand how the police work either, oddly enough.

    Please explain to me how the police investigate crimes which have not been reported to them by the victim, assuming (for the sake of the analogy) that nobody else has reported it either.
    No one is asking for a huge, comprehensive analysis of all possible triggers to appear on every piece of media you intend on presenting in a class. Just a sentence or two in the course description. Just enough so that people suffering from PTSD are tipped off that they maybe should look into the books/movies or whatever a little closer before they decide to take a class or not.

    I found the argument that this is not enough compelling. "Warning: this is a philosphy class and rape may or may not be randomly thrown into the conversation by a fellow student"? This could even have the affect of making a student think they were safe when there are other triggers present (anticipated by the professor or not).

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  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    I work at a University in an office that works closely with our SDS, Veteran's Center, and Victim's rights groups. None of the things being argued here really are relevant in the way schools actually work under Title IX or with most Veteran's programming.

    If someone is known to have been raped, or is someone brings up that as a PTSD trigger to ANYONE at the institution it has to be reported immediately (even against the victim's request) to a central office which handles such issues confidentially and works directly with all teachers, housing officials, and student services the student works with to ensure in as confidential a manner as possible that the student is limited to the degree of harm by course content and programming.

    The same thing is true of our Veteran's center, though they have much more in the way of off campus resources through the Federal Government and armed services.

    If a student with PTSD does not report, there is admittedly little that can be done but that said high-risk populations are constantly barraged with content informing them of the services available to them and all students at the institution have to go through a mandatory online course in order to be able to register each semester requiring them to manually acknowledge these rights and to seek assistance in this process.

    As far as trigger warnings go, most professors at our institution follow a faculty senate rule to mark problematic content in they syllabus in a single paragraph warning of possible objectionable content issues that could arise (usually something like "this course may cover topics of rape, murder, graphic violence, and graphic sexuality over the course of the semester." This does not harm academic freedom in the slightest because for those limited courses that actually do cover this content (which, realistically, are extremely few and far between and typically are titled something that would imply this such as "Women and Violence in Media" making such trigger warning usually unnecessary in the first place).

    Not every school is as established or thorough as ours, and admittedly we are one of the largest schools in the country and have one of the most elaborately designed support bureaucracies backing it, but in most cases Title IX should theoretically address rape PTSD issues with programming if the school is following it's requirements.

    According to the data we received this week on the topic, over 100 schools across the country are being investigated for violations of Title IX, so problems definitely exist. But they are not problems that are being ignored by the powers that be so much as by negligent institutions that are getting slapped for messing up.

  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    edited January 2015
    Enc wrote: »
    As far as trigger warnings go, most professors at our institution follow a faculty senate rule to mark problematic content in they syllabus in a single paragraph warning of possible objectionable content issues that could arise (usually something like "this course may cover topics of rape, murder, graphic violence, and graphic sexuality over the course of the semester." This does not harm academic freedom in the slightest because for those limited courses that actually do cover this content (which, realistically, are extremely few and far between and typically are titled something that would imply this such as "Women and Violence in Media" making such trigger warning usually unnecessary in the first place).

    There isn't such a faculty senate resolution where I am (flagship state school) and the syllabuses currently go un-warned. I'm curious about how the one you all use works. Here are a couple example courses--would they get labelled? One is a course in Philosophy and Public Issues which has a unit on the ethics and legal status of prostitution. Another is an early modern philosophy class, in which students read the groundwork--in the groundwork, one of the (many, many) arguments Kant gives is that of suicide, which he argues is morally wrong on the grounds that it involves a lack of respect for one's own humanity. Finally, another is a general ethical theory class, where there may be no specific course reading concerning a specific loaded topic, however, it is common to discuss rape, murder, suicide, incest, torture, abuse, and so on as they relate to the ethical theories under discussion. Which, if any, of these courses would get a syllabus warning? I'm curious about the scope.

    MrMister on
  • TheZKTheZK Registered User regular
    edited January 2015
    Enc wrote: »
    As far as trigger warnings go, most professors at our institution follow a faculty senate rule to mark problematic content in they syllabus in a single paragraph warning of possible objectionable content issues that could arise

    I'd be really interested to know what the scope of "problematic" or "objectionable" content is. Is there any way you could post the rule?


    Also:
    If someone is known to have been raped, or is someone brings up that as a PTSD trigger to ANYONE at the institution it has to be reported immediately (even against the victim's request) to a central office which handles such issues confidentially and works directly with all teachers, housing officials, and student services the student works with to ensure in as confidential a manner as possible that the student is limited to the degree of harm by course content and programming.

    You mean sexual assault mandatory reporting, not general PTSD, though, right?
    over 100 schools across the country are being investigated for violations of Title IX, so problems definitely exist.

    I think this is largely due to disagreement about how schools are handling sexual assault cases, not anything to do with PTSD. And is a whole other minefield.

    TheZK on
  • The Big LevinskyThe Big Levinsky Registered User regular
    Enc wrote: »
    As far as trigger warnings go, most professors at our institution follow a faculty senate rule to mark problematic content in they syllabus in a single paragraph warning of possible objectionable content issues that could arise (usually something like "this course may cover topics of rape, murder, graphic violence, and graphic sexuality over the course of the semester." This does not harm academic freedom in the slightest because for those limited courses that actually do cover this content (which, realistically, are extremely few and far between and typically are titled something that would imply this such as "Women and Violence in Media" making such trigger warning usually unnecessary in the first place).
    This right here is pretty much all I was advocating. It won't catch every scenario, but it helps.
    Astaereth wrote: »
    If PTSD is so difficult, surely it would be better for sufferers to have professional help?
    First off, the hell do you mean by "if"? You think PTSD sufferers are faking it? Second, not wanting to talk to a stranger at a college campus does not preclude them already getting therapy elsewhere. Even if a person has built up enough trust to tell one person, it doesn't mean that they're ready to talk to someone they barely know about it.
    Like, depression as a condition can make it hard for you to leave the house and go do things, including making psychiatric appointments, but that doesn't mean the answer is for psychiatrists to call random home phone numbers in case a depressed person happens to pick up on the other end.
    This really doesn't have much to do with anything. It's an utterly flawed analogy.
    Like, I sympathize. But the argument that PTSD sufferers need specialized treatment is a compelling one in my opinion. (And as I said earlier in the thread, I'm not opposed to supplementing that with a webpage with generic trigger warnings for classes that PTSD sufferers can check out on their own.)
    I think we pretty much agree on this point. I just think that those warning should go on all course descriptions that warrant it.
    Please explain to me how the police investigate crimes which have not been reported to them by the victim, assuming (for the sake of the analogy) that nobody else has reported it either.
    The police don't just sit in their cars waiting for a call. They patrol and proactively look for suspicious activity. Not to mention community programs and what not. So yes, they try and find/prevent crimes that have not been reported. But this is irrelevant as the whole police thing is another bad analogy.
    I found the argument that this is not enough compelling. "Warning: this is a philosphy class and rape may or may not be randomly thrown into the conversation by a fellow student"? This could even have the affect of making a student think they were safe when there are other triggers present (anticipated by the professor or not).
    This argument is pretty nonsensical. You're basically saying that since something is not 100% effective, it's better to do nothing. I'm betting most trauma victims are painfully aware that a triggering event can come out of nowhere. There's no sense in making things worse by refusing to warn people about the things that can be warned about.

  • TheZKTheZK Registered User regular
    edited January 2015
    This right here is pretty much all I was advocating. It won't catch every scenario, but it helps.

    Maybe I'm the only one who's concerned about scope, but do you mean you only want warnings on "rape, murder, graphic violence, and graphic sexuality"? Because that seems reasonable, in most cases, just out of common decency.

    But that's a far more limited scope than gets proposed by OpEds and resolutions in favor of "trigger warnings". Instead we get Oberlin's list of "-isms". We get advocates who want to slap warnings about misogyny on F. Scott Fitzgerald and racism on Twain. We get the warning that Things Fall Apart contains triggers for colonialism.
    First off, the hell do you mean by "if"? You think PTSD sufferers are faking it?

    Speaking only for myself, I think people who claim to be triggered by things like 'expressions of privilege' are faking it for some sort of odd political positioning. It's an insult to people who have suffered (and continue to suffer) from real personal trauma.

    TheZK on
  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    Enc wrote: »
    As far as trigger warnings go, most professors at our institution follow a faculty senate rule to mark problematic content in they syllabus in a single paragraph warning of possible objectionable content issues that could arise (usually something like "this course may cover topics of rape, murder, graphic violence, and graphic sexuality over the course of the semester." This does not harm academic freedom in the slightest because for those limited courses that actually do cover this content (which, realistically, are extremely few and far between and typically are titled something that would imply this such as "Women and Violence in Media" making such trigger warning usually unnecessary in the first place).
    This right here is pretty much all I was advocating. It won't catch every scenario, but it helps.
    Astaereth wrote: »
    If PTSD is so difficult, surely it would be better for sufferers to have professional help?
    First off, the hell do you mean by "if"? You think PTSD sufferers are faking it? Second, not wanting to talk to a stranger at a college campus does not preclude them already getting therapy elsewhere. Even if a person has built up enough trust to tell one person, it doesn't mean that they're ready to talk to someone they barely know about it.

    You said, "Whoah, hey, it's really difficult, therefore don't expect them to get treatment". By "if" I didn't mean "if PTSD sufferers are not faking it", I meant, "By your own argument..."

    And second, if they're getting counseling elsewhere, that counselor can write a note to the campus on the patient's behalf--"Hi, my patient has PTSD, please inform her of any classes that will be discussing rape, war, and spiders, and accommodate her as needed." I already said as much in an earlier post, too.
    Like, depression as a condition can make it hard for you to leave the house and go do things, including making psychiatric appointments, but that doesn't mean the answer is for psychiatrists to call random home phone numbers in case a depressed person happens to pick up on the other end.
    This really doesn't have much to do with anything. It's an utterly flawed analogy.

    Unfortunately, many psychological conditions make it difficult for sufferers to seek treatment. That sucks. But they are not going to get treatment/help until they find a way to seek it. That sucks, but that is how the world works.
    Like, I sympathize. But the argument that PTSD sufferers need specialized treatment is a compelling one in my opinion. (And as I said earlier in the thread, I'm not opposed to supplementing that with a webpage with generic trigger warnings for classes that PTSD sufferers can check out on their own.)
    I think we pretty much agree on this point. I just think that those warning should go on all course descriptions that warrant it.
    Please explain to me how the police investigate crimes which have not been reported to them by the victim, assuming (for the sake of the analogy) that nobody else has reported it either.
    The police don't just sit in their cars waiting for a call. They patrol and proactively look for suspicious activity. Not to mention community programs and what not. So yes, they try and find/prevent crimes that have not been reported. But this is irrelevant as the whole police thing is another bad analogy.

    It certainly is now, even if it wasn't before.
    I found the argument that this is not enough compelling. "Warning: this is a philosphy class and rape may or may not be randomly thrown into the conversation by a fellow student"? This could even have the affect of making a student think they were safe when there are other triggers present (anticipated by the professor or not).
    This argument is pretty nonsensical. You're basically saying that since something is not 100% effective, it's better to do nothing. I'm betting most trauma victims are painfully aware that a triggering event can come out of nowhere. There's no sense in making things worse by refusing to warn people about the things that can be warned about.
    [/quote]

    1) If one solution (general trigger warnings) discourages a better one (tailored accommodations)--as I'm suggesting it might--then the less effective solution may be ill-advised on those grounds--and not, as you say, on the fallacious grounds that the perfect should be the enemy of the good.

    2) I'm not refusing to warn anyone. I'm refusing to warn everyone. But individuals should be free, in my opinion, to seek out detailed, anonymously viewable warnings and/or personalized warnings and accommodations from health services.

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  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    edited January 2015
    I cannot tell you how enraging it is to hear people drawing parallels between dyslexia and PTSD. "If you don't want to talk about the most intimate and horrifying moments of your life with a complete stranger at a college campus so they can tell other complete strangers how damaged you are, then you're making 'dubious' choices. Also since we can't prevent triggers 100% of the time we should do nothing since there's not enough of you to matter." This type of thinking can go straight to hell.

    I was the one who referred to it as a dubious choice, and it is. Any time you seek medical attention or accommodation for an embarrassing condition--and, unfortunately, in our culture mental health conditions are typically embarrassing--it involves disclosing them to 'a complete stranger,' e.g. a doctor or therapist. Although that's often hard to do, not doing it is nonetheless dubious, when one has a condition serious enough to thrust one into panic attacks and/or suicide attempts at the mention of a trigger.
    poshniallo wrote:
    I've been teaching EFL for 16 years, both in the public and private sectors, at levels running from young children, through university, to nowadays corporate training, mostly for consultants, scientists, and analysts. I have seen a wide variety of educational needs and situations, and it is baffling for me to hear these arguments. When I was managing and training teachers, that kind of attitude would have been a serious issue that I would have addressed in feedback and performance reviews.

    Is it connected to the rather serious problem of many post-graduates not actually wanting to teach much, and receiving little or no training in education rather than their field? My experience of that has been the main reason why I chose the private sector over the public.

    You look at some graduate students who just go through the motions with teaching and you see some people who are unbelievably callous--people you would give a negative performance review, if only you could--but I see people who have already undergone anywhere from five to ten or more years of penurious apprenticeship to acquire their subject matter experties, who are under constant pressure in a hyper-competitive research marketplace, and who have surrendered a tremendous degree of control over their lives and exposed themselves to massive insecurity, both social and economic, all in order to gain at least a temporary pass to pursue the ideas that animate them at the highest level of human understanding. The character of their work is very different from that of teachers at earlier stages of education, who it is much more reasonable to expect to be pedagogical experts and overall shepherds of their students well-being.

    MrMister on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    You want evidence that warning people prevents them from being surprised?

    So, one of the linked anecdotes draws a directive causative relationship between no trigger warning -> suicide attempt. That's a radically different claim from arguing that warnings prevent people from being surprised about the things they were warned about.

    I'm still waiting for you to show the harm. You mention "chilling effects" and act as if continuing a decades long practice is rushing to provide a solution that could hurt people but don't actually prove how.

    You're the one proposing the change. If the totality of your argument is that you feel like doing it, with no claims it will help anyone, and no claims that it will not be a net harm, and you hope other people will also feel like doing it, again, with no claims they have any moral responsibility to do so, or will benefit themselves or any other person, then that's great, and I have no problem with that. However, that sort of highly caveated argument is not actually the one being made in the real world, and not even here.

    Again, linked in this very thread, someone said their professor almost killed them by not having a trigger warning.

    I am not proposing change. Content warnings have existed for decades at least but probably centuries. They are nothing new.

    So, you're saying that if I were a hypothetical professor, who was presenting a rape scene in a movie, I would neither alter my syllabus, nor my initial spoken intro, nor would I pick up a new edition of the film with any caveats? If people are going to be changing things, that is a change. That's what the word means.
    And that someone said something stupid doesn't mean the warnings have a "chilling effect."

    The American Association of University Professors certainly believes that they are both potentially harmful and not even the best method to address the problem they are supposed to address.

    http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/31723093/#Comment_31723093

    but, a new quote from said article:
    We think the statement of the American Library Association regarding “labeling and rating systems” applies to trigger warnings. “Prejudicial labels are designed to restrict access, based on a value judgment that the content, language, or theme of the material, or the background or views of the creator(s) of the material, render it inappropriate or offensive for all or certain groups of users….When labeling is an attempt to prejudice attitudes, it is a censor’s tool.”

    I fully subscribe to that statement. It is not against the law for kids to buy M rated video games. In fact, it is unconstitutional to make such a law. However, try walking into Walmart tomorrow as a 12 year old and buying Bioshock. That will not fly. Ditto movies, ditto music. Ditto any content that is labeled "pornographic," even as an adult, is radically restricted in terms of practical access, however great its artistic merit. Prejudicial labels spontaneously generate censorship, whether it be government attempts, or simply gigantic corporations "helpfully" enforcing community norms.

    A professor doesn't have to do any of those things. They might because they want to let their students know what's going on. Just like people, I would in fact wager including professors, have been doing for decades/centuries.

    Your second link is not a study and you specifically said no anecdotes. Regardless, it does nothing to prove your point. Content ratings have been around forever. Free speech has continued to march on and indeed improve.

    There's a difference between one undergrad giving their opinion on an area outside their area of expertise and the oldest and largest library association in the world giving their formal position on matter related to library content, which is largely unchanged in over half a century, and is obviously correct, being as labeling has consistently led to de facto or de jure censorship within the US.
    Finally, your third claim is simply false. The government can indeed make laws along those lines. It's illegal by federal law to sell obscene material to minors. So not only could a law be made, one has.

    You should tell the Supreme Court that: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-sale-violent-video-games-minors-constitutional/story?id=13916518
    But that's neither here nor there. Because labeling the content of items is not a bad thing and you continue to fail to show how it is in any way.

    No, you just choose not to recognize it as harmful.

    Dude, you don't need to break every dingle sentence down in to a new quote. It's terrible.

    Anecdote is still anecdote. You said no anecdotes. Please don't be a hypocrite. Your link does not prove your point. It is illegal to sell obscene material to minors as per 18 U.S.C. § 1470. Your link addresses an attempt by California to broaden that power. And while it was struck down it doesn't change the fact that the power itself does exist. And finally if you would actually show actual harm it would be far more convincing. But I have decades/centuries of history of content warnings existing. You have yet to show what terrible harm they've caused. HBO continues to exist despite showing TV-MA before Game of Thrones.

    Oh, god, stop being a goose. Obscenity is a specific standard above and beyond violent, Mature rating, or pornography. My exact quote was: " It is not against the law for kids to buy M rated video games. In fact, it is unconstitutional to make such a law," which is factually true, because no M rated video game is going to get hit by the obscenity classification. 2 Girls, 1 Cup is obscenity, Halo isn't even especially violent as far as the action genre goes.

    Secondly, there is a difference between 75 years of experts delivering the formal position of a professional organization and one person saying their actions are someone else's fault. That should be so mind blowingly obvious as to make it absurd for me even to have to type it out.

    And lastly, you quote centuries of these existing, and yet pretend the Comics Code Authority never existed, or any number of other censor regimes. Also, the term "chilling effect" was coined by the Supreme Court in it overturning attempted censorship and oppression of people for being Communist or wanting to read Communist materials, so your claim that centuries of content warnings* haven't produced the whisper of censorship is particularly rich. You might want to argue something closer to, "In the last few years, no formal government censorship regime tied to content warnings has survived very long without a sucessful a constitutional challenge," which is more accurate, and conveniently ignores all the private sector censorship that a handful in this thread want to pretend doesn't count.

    * After all, in Lamont v. Postmaster General, it wasn't illegal to have Communist material per se, the government just assisted people in helpfully detaining anything with a 'content warning' unless they specifically requested it.

    Obscenity is as arbitrary as any other standard. You've just decided you're okay with it. The only difference between obscenity and an M rating is what a judge decides. And you're still not providing any proof of "chilling effects." You're saying they're totally there and totally exist yet HBO continues to rake in money. And yes, the Comics Code Authority did exist and was bad. That's not an argument for creators to do away with any and all ratings forever.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited January 2015
    Astaereth wrote: »
    What do you actually want, here? Is the current ratings system sufficient? Does it need to be expanded (from TV/movies/games to books and college syllabi and so on)? Is HBO's version preferred and everybody else should rise to that standard?

    Just curious what your position is.

    That ratings or trigger warnings do not produce chilling effects or quash free speech in themselves. I don't doubt that dumb examples or poor use of them can shown to exist. However I am not particularly unnerved by the fact that humanity can sometimes screw up using a helpful tool.

    Quid on
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