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University of Chicago: ‘We Do Not Support So-Called Trigger Warnings’

• jpfed 10y ago
  What I don't get about this is why trigger warnings and safe spaces always seem to get lumped together in discussions like this. It's really hard to actually create a safe space. You have to actively intervene to prevent (or provide redress for) the "wrong" kinds of speech. I can totally see why a university would not think safe spaces were worth it, or even consistent with their goals. But trigger warnings are a really simple common courtesy. There was a popular meme spread around the Fourth of July to be considerate of veterans who may be distressed by the sound of fireworks. If you think this is a consideration worth extending to a veteran, it seems perfectly consistent that you'd want survivors of rape or abuse to know that a discussion of rape or abuse was coming up.
  • trevin 10y ago
    I'd argue that it's equally as impossible to set up trigger warning policies. While some trigger warning like the ones you mentioned are valid, the term has been perverted to include all sorts of things[0] where you could get in trouble for talking in public about insects or needles. It's an impossible task to list out and educate people on everything that might possible trouble or offend. Once you open that door, there is no finite end to a list of triggers. [0] http://privilege101.tumblr.com/triggers.html http://privilege101.tumblr.com/triggers.html
    • jpfed 10y ago
      You don't need a trigger warning policy, necessarily. Just a culture that promotes being aware of common triggers. This notice goes in the opposite direction. >It's an impossible task to list out and educate people on everything that might possible trouble or offend. Once you open that door, there is no finite end to a list of triggers. It's not necessary to exhaust the full list. Analogously: it's impossible to list out and educate people on every form of negative externality, but we still have laws to address the big ones, and that helps.
      • wang_li 10y ago
        What is really needed is the common sense and personal decision to get help with issues which are distressing so that reminders of those issues doesn't cause anxiety, stress, or a break-down.
      • r_smart 10y ago
        >Just a culture that promotes being aware of common triggers. I'd argue we pretty much already have this. Most people are aware of when a delicate topic is delicate and will treat it as such or avoid it, depending on the context. Trigger warnings seem to be a hammer in search of a nail, or more likely to me, something that was perhaps well intentioned at one point that is now just a means of attention seeking.
    • acbabis 10y ago
      Many news outlets will say "Warning, the following story contains graphic imagery," and people don't think this is unreasonable; nor do they expect more specific content warnings in the future. This tells me it's possible to be considerate of common triggers while still drawing the line somewhere
      • mcphage 10y ago
        > This tells me it's possible to be considerate of common triggers while still drawing the line somewhere I agree it is, but right now it's very difficult to have the discussions necessary to draw those lines—supporters of trigger warnings only want to discuss the cases where they're clearly justified (fireworks & veterans) and pretend all uses are similarly valid, and critics of trigger warnings only want to discuss the cases where they're clearly not (slimy things), and pretend that all uses are similarly invalid. Determining where the lines should be drawn will be a long, complicated, painful discussion, but currently there's no way to have that conversation. If your opinion is somewhere in the middle, most internet commentators will lump you into the all-for or all-against group.
        • acbabis 10y ago
          That's a good point. Internet commenters tend to overgeneralize. Fortunately, those people aren't strictly needed for a solution. The only party who needs to listen is the content provider (in my example, the news outlet).
        • stcredzero 10y ago
          I agree it is, but right now it's very difficult to have the discussions necessary to draw those lines When something is 1) subjective or very hard to measure and 2) used as an emotional bludgeon then then people are going to call "shenanigans" and even start to exhibit knee-jerk doubt about such things. Often, this is a tragedy, as the issues may well be both real and difficult to discuss. The quality of such debate and discussion has been hurt by the "Eternal September" nature of online discussion. The internet gives everyone a voice, especially if you have time to waste. Hence, clueless Freshmen and middle-schoolers have disproportionately loud voices online.
    • rsync 10y ago
      "[0] http://privilege101.tumblr.com/triggers.html" http://privilege101.tumblr.com/triggers.html" from the list: - Pregnancy/childbirth - Death or dying - Slimy things It's very difficult not to dismiss this as infantile.
      • mdadm 10y ago
        > It's very difficult not to dismiss this as infantile. Which is, in turn, why many people don't take these things seriously. Of course, perhaps there is a justification for "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" in colleges, but the issue of whether those 1) belong in the classroom as opposed to elsewhere on campus, and 2) should be a feature of colleges at all, is completely derailed by things like this.
        • pyre 10y ago
          At the same time, in a country that values free speech people are allowed to have idiotic opinions. The fact that people are giving those opinions credence because they are "on the Internet" is probably closer to the issue.
      • tedks 10y ago
        Really? You don't think people are capable of being traumatized by pregnancy, death, or insects? Personal injury and insects are among the most common phobias and pregnancy should be fairly obvious as to why it's on that list (I don't want to elaborate because that could be traumatizing). Maybe you should try having more empathy for oppressed groups and individuals rather than writing off anything you can't immediately connect to your own experience as infantile.
        • rsync 10y ago
          "Maybe you should try having more empathy for oppressed groups and individuals rather than writing off anything you can't immediately connect to your own experience as infantile." None of the items I listed involve oppression or special subgroups of people. They are basic components of the human condition. An inability to deal with the basic aspects of being alive is, ipso facto, infantile.
    • bhickey 10y ago
      > While some trigger warning like the ones you mentioned are valid, the term has been perverted to include all sorts of things[0] where you could get in trouble for talking in public about insects or needles. This is going to sound like a bad joke. Fear of needles are more legitimate than might appear at first blush. Those of us with a needle phobia will experience a sudden drop in blood pressure, precipitating unconsciousness. In some cases this leads to death, making it one of the few phobias that can outright kill you. I had the good fortune to undergo desensitization via allergy shots.
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    > What I don't get about this is why trigger warnings and safe spaces always seem to get lumped together in discussions like this. Because they are involve quite similar problems (safe for whom and from what? Warnings for which specific of the billions of potential PTSD triggers?) and are typically advocated for together, by the same people, as linked demands, to serve similar broad purposes. > But trigger warnings are a really simple common courtesy. No, they aren't. They are neither simple, nor are they, in fact, a common courtesy (whether or not you think they should be a common courtesy.) > There was a popular meme spread around the Fourth of July to be considerate of veterans who may be distressed by the sound of fireworks. There were actual several different ones, most of which were variations on combat veterans with signs at their homes asking for consideration and restraint. > If you think this is a consideration worth extending to a veteran, it seems perfectly consistent that you'd want survivors of rape or abuse to know that a discussion of rape or abuse was coming up. (1) Expecting people to, proactively and without knowledge of the particular trauma experienced by or triggers relevant to the audience, provide "trigger warnings" is exactly the reverse of the kind of specific and personal request for consideration at issue in the meme, and (2) Triggering with PTSD is, in fact, quite complicated, but most often (AFAIK) involves sensory stimuli that are associated with the instance(s) of trauma producing the condition, such as sights, sounds, smells, etc. that were present during the trauma. Discussion of the class of event that relates to the trauma may be areas of strong emotional context and political sensitivity to many people (whether or not they are victims of that particular kind of trauma), but nothing I've read of actual PTSD and triggering suggests that they are particular likely to be triggers in the strict sense, even to victims of the trauma under discussion -- even to victims that do have PTSD and do have genuine, identifiable triggers. (3) Proactive trigger warnings not based on the real known specific triggers applicable to a specific audience, if one isn't to give priority to certain type of traumas and certain presumed triggers associated with that trauma as "more deserving", quickly turn everything into a mass of warnings, most of which are irrelevant even to people who have PTSD originating in the type of trauma the warning is focused on.
    • jpfed 10y ago
      I think you're making this way more complicated than it needs to be. The point of extending the courtesy of trigger warnings isn't that you will, with 100% certainty, prevent anyone from entering a state of psychological distress. That's obviously not attainable. But let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. There's really obvious stuff that instructors could warn about, but aren't. After I posted a similar sentiment on Facebook, a TA told me about their professor showing porn (featuring torture) in class. Who could have known that the majority-female class she was showing this to would contain some rape victims that left the classroom in tears?! Totally out of the blue, that. Now, I don't expect anyone to know that aging wood with thin brown flaking paint is evocative of the assault I experienced; that would be ridiculous. But of course descriptions of assaults themselves are going to be evocative. In short, there's really easy low-hanging fruit here, and I hope people aren't so turned off by the unattainable goals of safe spaces and 100% trigger coverage that they don't extend the courtesy of warning for really obvious, foreseeable triggers.
  • mikeash 10y ago
    I can't decide whether or not I'm playing devil's advocate with this question. In any case, please don't take it too seriously, but I think it might be interesting. Why did you not include a trigger warning about the discussion of rape in your comment?
    • zyxley 10y ago
      "Mention of rape" and "discussion of rape in enough detail to cause discomfort" are not the same thing.
      • mikeash 10y ago
        I'm sure we can find someone who is uncomfortable at the mere mention of the word. Not that we should necessarily accommodate such extremes, but how do you decide where to draw the line?
        • qntty 10y ago
          You guess and invite people to correct you if you're wrong? How is anything that requires judgement decided? Eventually there will be an accepted norm but at the beginning there never is.
          • deong 10y ago
            That's a nice solution if everything is more or less working properly. The problem is, "What do you do when they tell you you're wrong about everything?" One of the links in the article was to an article by a law professor talking about the difficulty of teaching rape and sexual assault law. The point being made there was that the entire subject has become off-limits -- literally, a large number of her colleagues had simply elected not to teach it anymore. If your complaint is that, today, students are demanding an abuse of the notion of trigger warnings and safe spaces to effectively prevent exposure to potentially upsetting discussions, and that we are harming the long-term development of students by doing so, then by definition, you believe the corrections you'd get would essentially take the form "bring back all the trigger warnings we had when you started this process".
  • leroy_masochist 10y ago
    With regard to veterans and fireworks, I think that would actually be an example of a "safe space", in that the vets in question are demanding that neighbors not celebrate America's independence within a given radius of their homes. They're not asking for a heads-up before people shoot off roman candles...they're saying, don't do it near my house, period. FWIW, I don't think this is a consideration worth extending to veterans, and I am dismayed by the fact that many vets have embraced the culture of competitive victimhood that has infected much of American popular discourse. With that said I do think that a professor giving a heads-up to students that they're going to discuss uncomfortable topics (e.g., rape) in class is probably the right thing to do, within reason (e.g., if it's going to be the central theme of that day's discussion).
    • parineum 10y ago
      > With that said I do think that a professor giving a heads-up to students that they're going to discuss uncomfortable topics (e.g., rape) in class is probably the right thing to do, within reason (e.g., if it's going to be the central theme of that day's discussion). I'd disagree with that. If it's central to the lecture, it should be essential/relevant to the course. If it's not, there's no reason to bring it up in the first place. The concept of a trigger wasn't created as something to be avoided. Identifying a trigger is the first step in identifying and dealing with the underlying psychological issue. It's similar with safe spaces. They are things that people need post-trauma to help recovery. It's not meant to be a permanent need or something that should be broadened to the world at large. Your therapist creates a safe space for you to discuss your triggers.
    • MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
      > I don't think this is a consideration worth extending to veterans, and I am dismayed by the fact that many vets have embraced the culture of competitive victimhood that has infected much of American popular discourse. That seems a bit callous. Care to elaborate? I don't think they are usually framing these as "demands", and I don't see how asking for this consideration necessarily crosses into "competitive victimhood". Also, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, physical stimuli are the type of "actual" triggers than can cause real panic attacks in those with PTSD, unlike verbal discussions of uncomfortable topics which can cause emotional distress but not true panic attacks.
  • brightball 10y ago
    It's just not an equivalent analogy. Explosions sound and light are somewhat recreating a war time experience. The classroom equivalent for trigger warnings would be telling veterans that a discussion of a war in history class was coming.
    • jpfed 10y ago
      I think you're looking for a depth of equivalence that I wasn't suggesting was there. To further muddy things, you should know that explosions themselves don't produce the responses they do just in veterans. High-bandwidth sounds trigger an autonomic response as soon as they hit the brain stem- long before the cortex has a chance to think "I recognize that as an explosion", the brain stem said "HOLY SHIT SOMETHING IS HAPPENING". This mechanism is observed in rape and abuse survivors as well as veterans.
      • brightball 10y ago
        So in what classroom circumstances would a warning be necessary? I'm all for being courteous, I just have serious concerns about giving college students the impression that the world around them needs to adjust to them rather than vice versa.
        • jrock08 10y ago
          Examples of some obvious things that really shouldn't be too controversial: Showing pictures of a massacre Showing pictures or video from a war Reading a graphic account of a soldier from war Showing pictures of mass graves (esp where body parts are identifiable) Showing pictures or video of a rape (even if a scene from a movie) Showing pictures of the evidence from a rape Reading a graphic account of a rape victim
        • jpfed 10y ago
          I don't think TWs should be required. But explicit descriptions or depictions of assault are pretty low-hanging fruit here. By not making a policy, but encouraging a culture of learning about common triggers, we also encourage a more adaptive approach. If someone is distressed and they let you know, you can decide whether it makes sense to warn about that content in the future.
  • rapsey 10y ago
    > If you think this is a consideration worth extending to a veteran, it seems perfectly consistent that you'd want survivors of rape or abuse to know that a discussion of rape or abuse was coming up. And at what point does it stop? Who decides what is a trigger warning? If someone is afraid of wolves. Must I now stop wearing my wolf shirts? When does it simply turn into censorship and shutting down topics and discussions you don't want to have? If someone has a personal issue, what gives them the right to force their issues on others? Why must everyone adapt to them?
    • sp332 10y ago
      I think you're missing the part where they are victims, and all we're trying to do is minimize the damage. That's a calculated risk that each person is going to have to take for themselves.
      • jtuente 10y ago
        They were victims; they're not actively victims in the moment of a discussion. The damage has already been done. Conversely, you can say that you're helping with the recovery and healing process. But it's important to acknowledge the aspects of the past, present and future as they relate to trauma.
        • deleted 10y ago
          [deleted]
        • sp332 10y ago
          Causing someone a panic attack in the present is not damage that "has already been done".
          • jtuente 10y ago
            They're not experiencing a new incidence of trauma, they're reliving one. A more "physical" corollary would be the "ghost" limb sensation for someone who has lost one. That person doesn't lose their limb every time the sensation comes and goes away -- it was lost before and after the incident. It may be painful sure, but who says that recovery and healing is without pain? One of the leading methods of treating PTSD being studied is having combat veterans relive a similar incident through a controlled environment.
  • serge2k 10y ago
    > But trigger warnings are a really simple common courtesy Indeed. I see "Trigger warning" and I know I don't want to read what an author has to say.
  • Broken_Hippo 10y ago
    > But trigger warnings are really a simple common courtesy. Yes and no. Sure, it is courteous to warn folks of overly graphic material. But at the same time, if folks cannot handle discussing such things in a university setting, they should seek help. Which should be readily available and affordable. It also shouldn't be frowned upon if someone needs to leave the room in such a discussion - and teachers should be open to private requests for trigger warnings when appropriate... With the understanding that the person will or is seeking help as a condition. > If you think this consideration worth extending to a veteran... But I don't. It isn't that I don't feel empathy for the veterans, but I think they should be offered (by the government) a safe place to go so they aren't triggered. This is a yearly event. And I think we (citizens and government) have a responsibility to provide help. The veteran has the responsibility to actually follow through with the help.
  • noddingham 10y ago
    Why do you think it would be hard on a college campus? You simply declare an office in a building to be a "safe space", or a space designated for certain groups and then promote, encourage the use of, and fill it with people that align with <idea>. Additionally, the safe space is placed in a building that is not funded by taxpayers, thus can be managed in basically whatever way the university sees fit (including denying access to the space).
• joesmo 10y ago
  I think this should be a requirement for any university that wants accreditation and certainly all state-run institutions. This is a bold statement not for the Uni. of Chicago, but for every other university that does not have a similar policy in place. Sorry, but you cannot get a proper education with trigger warnings and safe spaces. Therefore, those institutions that do not have the courage to stand up for education should lose their accreditation. Until we start holding institutions and individuals responsible for their actions, however, this will not happen, and holding institutions and individuals responsible for their actions is not something that, at least in the US, we know how to do well or at all.
  • zyxley 10y ago
    > Sorry, but you cannot get a proper education with trigger warnings and safe spaces. How so?
    • mikeash 10y ago
      The article links to another one discussing the difficulty of teaching law in this environment, because many aspects of law are potentially "triggering": http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trouble-teaching-rape-law http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trouble-teaching-rap...
      • zyxley 10y ago
        I don't really see the relevance of the article. It complains a lot about students being oversensitive to bad things, but it has barely anything to do with actual trigger warnings. Trigger warnings aren't about bending to the every whim of everyone you encounter. They're about labeling material ahead of time so that people can make a more informed decision about when and how they expose themselves to it. Nothing about this requires changing educational material; it would just mean putting some notice in the class listings and syllabus about what potentially uncomfortable topics are going to be covered in detail.
        • mikeash 10y ago
• zyxley 10y ago
  The "so called" part of the announcement feels like it's meant to be particularly patronizing. "You rassafrassin youngsters, with your so-called rap music and trigger warnings!"
  • Erik816 10y ago
    It is meant to be a nod to the intellectual bankruptcy of the entire concept of safe spaces and trigger warnings. Taken to their logical conclusion, these policies would lead to a gutting of the entire premise of a liberal education, which is what the University of Chicago has always sought to provide (source: proud alumnus, particularly today). You simply cannot protect people from ideas they disagree with while also fostering vigorous intellectual debate and growth.
    • gregd 10y ago
      There is a difference between safe spaces meant to coddle ignorant privileged white kids from having to hear ideas they've never heard before, and safe spaces as a refuge for marginalized students who need a break from racist, classist, bigoted, body shaming, heteronormative, colonial, hegemonic treatment from others on campus. There is a difference between privileged white kids demanding trigger warnings for topics that call out their privilege and a rape survivor needing a trigger warning so they don't have to watch a rape scene in an assigned movie and have a PTSD flashback and nightmares for 2 nights in a row.
      • Kalium 10y ago
        How do you propose to disambiguate between the two reliably?
      • Erik816 10y ago
        So your identity determines whether you are entitled to safe spaces?
      • nikcheerla 10y ago
        Any pertinent examples of "privileged white kids demanding trigger warnings for topics that call out their privilege?" I've never heard of an incident where conservative kids on campus demanded that a progressive speaker's event be canceled – all of the incidents I've seen in the news have been the other way around. (Of course, the news does tend to have its own narratives it wants to push ...)
• mox1 10y ago
  Am I missing something, or doesn't safe space just = Library / Dorm room ? Maybe add some headphones so you can't hear anything....
  • zyxley 10y ago
    In practice, it basically means "club room where people who don't like the club aren't allowed in".
    • beachstartup 10y ago
      more like "club room where people who aren't liked by the club aren't allowed in"
      • zyxley 10y ago
        Yes, that's usually the complaint that people who don't like safe spaces add. It always seems to me like the people who trumpet that loudest easily fit into the "don't like the club" category, though.
        • kazagistar 10y ago
          That is not a counterargument, it is an ad hominem.
      • plandis 10y ago
        Or just people of a certain race are not allowed as BLM activists would like.
    • mason240 10y ago
      And in practice, "club room" is "classrooms all other spaces on campus."
  • wmil 10y ago
    No. People arguing for "safe spaces" are generally arguing that the entire university should be a "safe space". So it's really about control over shared space and the right to police offensive dialog.
• panglott 10y ago
  They don't want students to have any spaces where they feel safe/accepted? That's weird.
  • spriggan3 10y ago
    > They don't want students to have any spaces where they feel safe/accepted? That's weird. Why would a student need a special space to feel safe/accepted? Doesn't the university already provide students basic safety?
    • sp332 10y ago
      No, students get harassed and raped at a pretty high rate. And suicide is the #2 cause of death among young adults. Physical security and "acceptance" is a big public health issue.
      • djrogers 10y ago
        thays just not true - the rate of rape and sexual assault is lower for college students (at 6.1 per 1,000) than for non-students (7.6 per 1,000). [1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/12/14/campus-rape-uva-crisis-rolling-stone-politics-column/20397277/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/12/14/campus-rape...
        • sp332 10y ago
          The cited study: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsavcaf9513.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsavcaf9513.pdf It points out that students are very unlikely to report rape to the police, but somehow assumes that they will answer questions about it on a survey. It also shows wide variations from one year to another. It's not a bad study, but the data doesn't really inspire confidence. Edit: from page 3 "From 1997 to 2013, females ages 18 to 24 consistently experienced higher rates of rape and sexual assault than females in other age brackets." and from page 4: "However, there was no significant difference in the rates of female students and nonstudents who experienced attempted rape or other sexual assault. This suggests that differences in the rates of completed rape largely accounted for differences in the overall rates of rape and sexual assault between students and nonstudents."
• cpeterso 10y ago
  The University also seeks to eliminate so-called 'spoiler warnings'. 54 percent of students said the climate on campus prevents some people from saying what they believe because they are fearful of looking like assholes.
  • tellah 10y ago
    Where did you find that? I've been trying to find any data from the campus climate surveys, but most links are just about who participated.
    • noddingham 10y ago
      That's not what the quote said, nor the context of it, the parent was trying to equate 'offending others' as 'being an asshole'. The actual quote is "54 percent of students said the climate on campus prevents some people from saying what they believe because they are fearful of offending others."
      • tellah 10y ago
        Oh lol, it was in this article. I had already read a couple sources and was just looking at comments. I thought actual data had been released from the climate survey that the school did this spring.
• Swizec 10y ago
  This is a really hard topic to think about. On the one hand, I worry that we're moving towards a mind-police driven society where we actively discourage people from saying anything that goes against the grain of society. Be it by activist groups, or algorithms optimizing for clicks and user retention. On the other hand, it is important to be courteous to each other and not upset people needlessly. Discussions should give people the option to bud out and not participate, if they feel they cannot do so. On the third hand, maybe we've always lived in a society where we actively discourage participation by anyone who is perceived as upsetting the group and nothing new is happening. Then again, I think people should be actively encouraged to entertain stances and opinions other than their own. Being upset and offended can often be a good thing.
  • AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    On the third hand? Now you've triggered my alien phobia! Seriously, though, reasonable people should behave reasonably, and a lot of the problems go away. But we aren't talking about reasonable people; we're talking about college kids. I remember myself as I was then, and I was a jerk. I was much more concerned with winning (in whatever form) than being reasonable or nice or considerate. So... yeah, the administration probably needs some guidelines rather than relying on the reasonableness of the students. I said "needs some guidelines", but that isn't actually what Chicago is doing here. They're stating that they follow some values, and that you shouldn't go there if you can't go along with those values. This is a better approach, because values are actually a better guide than rules (somebody can always find a set of circumstances that the rules don't cover, especially if they want to).
    • jackcosgrove 10y ago
      Good point about values being better than rules. Values are also a much more inexpensive way to observe norms than rules, in addition to being more effective.
• basseq 10y ago
  This is tough. With the aspirations of "civility and mutual respect" along with "rigorous debate, discussion, and even disagreement", I would hope any truly egregious edge cases disappear. In the middle, I think people have the right to remove themselves from discussions—civil or otherwise—that they don't want to listen to or engage. But that right doesn't limit others' ability to have those selfsame discussions in public or private venues, nor require others to give you advance warning about it. And finally, U. Chicago has the right to set degree requirements. If you are unable or unwilling to meet those requirements (e.g., not participating in discussions), then you have no place at that institution. After all, the "real world" won't hold your hand. So... Trigger Warnings ("A trigger warning is advance notice about subject material that may be difficult for certain students to read, hear or see.") U. Chicago says they "don't support" them. I think actively discouraging them in every case seems extreme, but the institution simply can't be required to provide trigger warnings in every case for every individual. In other words, a lack of trigger warning doesn't mean you won't be triggered. Safe Spaces ("A safe space is a place they can go to avoid those subjects or heal after confronting them.") U. Chicago doesn't condone the creation of safe spaces. Similarly, I think this stance is extreme. Safe spaces may be necessary for individuals. But U. Chicago is under no obligation to provide them for you or excuse you from other discussions as a result. In other words, U. Chicago isn't a place for people who don't want to discuss issues that make them uncomfortable. Which, on its face, seems reasonable to me.
  • judah 10y ago
    Universities ought to return to what they once were: free and open exchange of ideas. Viewed in this light, the University of Chicago's rejection of political correctness is actually a softening of extremism: allowing for, rather than actively silencing, diverse political discourse. This is in stark contrast to neighbor Chicago school DePaul, who last month blocked[0] Jewish conservative minority voice Ben Shapiro from speaking. The extreme position here is blocking and preventing free speech and ideas through safe spaces and trigger warnings. Dismantling these, as the U of C has done, is worth celebrating. I hope they are the first of many. [0]: http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7923 http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7923
    • 10y ago
• jordigh 10y ago
  One thing that bugs me is that people think trigger warnings are to make sure people don't get offended. Being triggered is not the same thing as being offended. Being triggered is about having a fucking panic attack, hyperventilating, feeling like you're having a heart attack and you're about to die. Panic/anxiety attacks are not a silly little thing. They were portrayed somewhat accurately in Netflix's recent Jessica Jones (she even uses a common grounding tactic to prevent them, like street names from childhood), and in Love and Mercy, that biopic of the Beach Boys' frontman. Having had close experiences with people who have panic attacks and see them getting triggered by being reminded of certain incidents, I can tell you that panic attacks are not fun, and those suffering from them are not faking, nor are they being whiners. With time, it's possible to get over your triggers, but it's a long healing process. During healing, trigger warnings are the same courtesy as signs saying that people with heart conditions or expectant mothers shouldn't get on certain carnival rides. But people now on the internet say stupid shit like "triggered much?" for what was once called "u mad bro?" And whether exaggerated or not, it seems that this kind of "triggering" is what UofC seems to be speaking out against. That's not what a trigger warning is for.
  • peruvian 10y ago
    It goes both ways. People constantly say they're triggered when they're just offended or inconvenienced. If everyone followed your definition, we'd never had problems.
    • jordigh 10y ago
      > People constantly say they're triggered when they're just offended or inconvenienced. Do they? I only seem to see the latter online when people are being facetious about it. Do you see examples of people saying they were triggered and shouldn't have been and they are not referencing panic attacks?
      • ebola1717 10y ago
        Furthermore, we clearly have the ability to separate the cases where someone is saying "triggered" to mean offended or inconvenienced from meaning a panic/anxiety attack.
• dang 10y ago
  "Please don't use uppercase for emphasis." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • jordigh 10y ago
    Fixed, but I really did want to yell.
    • dang 10y ago
      Understood, and thanks. Since it's no longer relevant I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12361418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12361418 and marked it off-topic.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• swagv 10y ago
  Education, at its best, is dangerous. There's no way around that.
• cmdrfred 10y ago
  What I find rather interesting, is that throughout human history we never had a need for trigger warnings until now. We've had slavery, 2 world wars, famine, countless horrors inflicted on a countless number of people. Nobody asks for it. Then I look to the third world there we have things like female genital mutilation, are the women who had that horror put upon them concerned with trigger warnings? Nope. Not as far as I can tell. Why here, why now? Are modern first world citizens mentally weaker somehow? I posit that it these types of policies may do more harm than good long term.
  • qntty 10y ago
    Well the US has had obscenity laws in place until recently. It's just that the people who decided what was "upsetting" were politicians rather than students and had the power to get rid of it completely.
    • cmdrfred 10y ago
      In practice those laws rarely if ever were applied to college classroom or similar event. Speech within a private facility by individuals has always been protected.
      • qntty 10y ago
        Well yeah, but if a book can never get published because of obscenity laws, it will never be discussed in a classroom. The law doesn't even need to be actually enforced very often to have an effect. The fact that authors know that their books might be labeled as obscene will make them censor themselves.
    • slavik81 10y ago
      The United States still has obscenity laws. For example, Alabama's Anti-Obscenity Enforcement Act [1]. It was challenged, but the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Obscenity_Enforcement_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Obscenity_Enforcement_Act
  • 10y ago
• mathattack 10y ago
  This seems like a good way to define what makes the school different. If you like this, go there. If you don't like it, you can go somewhere that does have trigger warnings and safe spaces.
• pklausler 10y ago
  Bad move, Chicago. If the kids don't learn how to use trigger warnings and safe spaces at school, how will they know how to use all of the trigger warnings and safe spaces in the real modern world after they graduate?
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • ebola1717 10y ago
    Speech in real life is way more limited than in college. You can say things you'd be fired for, be a total asshole, say racist things, and get a slap on the wrist in college.
    • pklausler 10y ago
      There is a world outside the workplace.
      • vertex-four 10y ago
        And, weirdly enough, you can also generally choose who you interact with outside the workplace. If you don't want to hang out with people who refuse to stop smoking weed around you when asked? Fine. If you don't want to hang out with people who refuse to stop talking about rape around you? Also fine! Just want to be told when there's likely to be something uncomfortable coming up? Yup, you have a right to hang out with people who respect you enough to do that.
  • bbctol 10y ago
    Yeah, schools try to emulate the real world as much as possible. That's why they also don't have professors, classes, or dormitories.
    • ebola1717 10y ago
      That's why the University of Chicago doesn't provide a private police force, and spend its own money to provide a bubble of affluence. You have to face the real harsh poverty and violence of the South Side, just like you would if you actually lived there!
• superuser2 10y ago
  It's important to acknowledge that the term "safe space" means different things to different people. To the Yale protestors (who were widely supported at UChicago) the entirety of university housing at Yale was meant to be a "safe space," so it was incumbent on the university to fire professors who voiced unwelcome opinions in that space. To many of the people who are angry about this letter, "safe space" means a support-group-like room in a specific place at a specific time, which doesn't interfere with the rest of the university's operations. I suspect it is the former which Dean Ellison meant to attack. I find it hard to believe that he's trying to shut down, for example, group therapy programs for LGBTQ youth offered by the psychology arm of the university's student health system. But I do appreciate him sending the message, "we're not going to fire professors because you don't like what they said."
  • panglott 10y ago
    Absolutely. But what he actually said was "we don't condone 'safe spaces'".
    • ThrustVectoring 10y ago
      The charitable way of interpreting that is "The university as an organization will not lend their institutional support for enforcing 'safe spaces'. If you want one, make it and enforce it yourself"
      • erikpukinskis 10y ago
        Is that really what "we don't condone" means?
      • jdp23 10y ago
        That's not what "condone" means. And, with trigger warnings he explicitly said they don't support them - so it's reasonable to assume that if he meant "support' here that's what he would have said.
  • secabeen 10y ago
    I think you are right. Here is the page from the Chicago LGBTQ student group on how they implement and create safe spaces for students: https://lgbtq.uchicago.edu/page/safe-space https://lgbtq.uchicago.edu/page/safe-space
• PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  I'm not clear why people on both sides of the debate seem to be interpreting "trigger warnings" as "no triggers allowed." It's meant to be exactly what it sounds like, a advance warning of upcoming content, so that vulnerable people can take appropriate action. That doesn't mean that such content should be forbidden, or that sexual assault victims should get credit for a course that they didn't attend; just that they can prepare themselves mentally, and decide in advance if that credit is worth the pain and discomfort it may cause. I've had to help a friend having a sobbing panic attack because someone made a stupid rape joke and triggered her PTSD. It's not a laughing matter. But it's not an excuse for censorship, either.
  • wyager 10y ago
    The emotionally healthy approach is to try and deal with stress disorders, not to shield everyone from every possible stressor.
• seibelj 10y ago
  Some 18 year olds fight in wars and die. Other 18 year olds cry and throw tantrums when someone says a word that they don't like hearing. The world we live in!
  • nkrisc 10y ago
    Trust me, that isn't limited by any means to 18 year olds.
  • comex 10y ago
    As it happens, veterans as a group have a high incidence of PTSD, which is what trigger warnings are supposed to be about.
    • teacup50 10y ago
      Of course, their triggers tend to be things like loud noises, not ideas they disagree with or words they find scary.
    • 6nf 10y ago
      I'm not aware of any veterans with PTSD ever asking for trigger warnings though.
      • nkrisc 10y ago
        That doesn't mean they can't benefit from it.
• PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  There seems to be whole lot of slippery-slope happening in this thread. Asking people to respect trigger warnings for the most common types of PTSD (generally, rape/sexual abuse) does not lead inevitably to banning everything that anyone has every been uncomfortable with. This is about reasonable accommodation. Consider the example of disability laws: you're required to install a wheelchair ramp/lift if an employee needs it; you're not required to let a quadraplegic person be a lifeguard.
  • qntty 10y ago
    If we coddle people in wheelchairs, they'll never learn to wheel themselves up stairs. In the real world, there are stairs everywhere and they need to get used to that. I sprained my ankle one time in college and I crutched my way up the stairs just like everyone else. Why can't they do the same?
    • ythl 10y ago
      Except mental handicaps are not as well understood as physical handicaps. Trying to accommodate every single mental handicap in society is futile and expensive.
      • maxerickson 10y ago
        There's nothing wrong with trying. There just needs to be recognition that resources are finite.
      • qntty 10y ago
        "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
      • PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        > Except mental handicaps are not as well understood as physical handicaps. The obvious conclusion there is that we need to work with doctors and patients to understand their needs better, not "this is weird, so no point in trying." > Trying to accommodate every single mental handicap in society is futile and expensive. This is exactly the slippery-slope argument I was talking about. Reasonable accommodations.
• stephenitis 10y ago
  Safe spaces and banned trigger words creates the tendency for people to silo themselves in a echo chamber of their own ideas. This manifests itself later on in our population in the form of filtering friends and news who dissent against their opinion. The rise of these recent techniques of protest are more a failure of our high schools and universities to provide sufficient visibility and importance to debate and discussion.
  • zamalek 10y ago
    > silo themselves in a echo chamber of their own ideas An immutable mind is a weak mind. If you have to silence your opponent in order to win, you really haven't done research. Both of these are at odds with the concept of an institute of learning.
  • r_smart 10y ago
    If I were to guess, I'd say the problem starts much sooner than high school. I think the coddling begins right away, and continues until college, where it suddenly stops. I think this is at the heart of the problem, and we're just reaping the results of a parenting style adopted ~25 years ago.
• rdtsc 10y ago
  I remember someone a while back posted a lecture page from CMU. They support Trigger Warnings. And a few papers there had them. It was a database course, I can only imagine "master/slave" terminology. So I was wondering, how are Trigger Warning supposed to work? Can the student refuse to do the required reading and claim full credit because might be triggered, seems like it would open loophole. That was just CS stuff. What about history, that's full of prejudiced offensive language and terminology. Can students avoid doing required work by claiming they'd be triggered? Is there anyone undertaking an effort to sanitize records to "fix" the triggers. For example take some classic distributed system papers and search and replace master/slave with leader/follower? I can understand wanting to have safe spaces. But I don't quite follow how trigger warnings resolve themselves in the context of classroom learning. Any recent grads have any experience with how this is handled? EDIT: I think it was a link like this (even perhaps this exact course, just for last year). http://15721.courses.cs.cmu.edu/spring2016/schedule.html http://15721.courses.cs.cmu.edu/spring2016/schedule.html --- Concurrency Control III — Optimistic /!\ ... /!\ : Trigger warning: The material presented in this lecture uses explicit language and discusses certain situations in database management systems that may be triggering to some students. --- Are students allowed to pass without learning and being tested on Optimistic Concurrency Control in databases? If not, what is the purpose of the warning, just to have them mentally prepare for it?
  • ohitsdom 10y ago
    See, my understanding of trigger warnings is more to prepare and forewarn students of difficult discussions. Like- "we're going to be talking about rape and its psychological effects tomorrow." Not- "WARNING- this textbook uses the word 'violate' when discussing DBs." The first example seems like an obvious common courtesy, the second seems pointless. I say pointless because some words are used in everyday life in normal ways that may be "triggering", but that's entirely different from an in-depth discussion of a sensitive topic that's triggering. But that's obviously just my opinion, I'm sure many disagree and that's why this is such a hot button issue right now.
  • vertex-four 10y ago
    Allowing people to ensure that they're in a mental state to handle a topic before they handle it is reasonably important. Mind, in the case of master/slave, the term "trigger warning" is likely misused and a simple statement of "these used to be the standard terms for discussing this, now many people use leader/follower" is reasonable. Explaining historical context to things that may be upsetting can never be a bad thing, IMHO.
• gragas 10y ago
  I'm not sure why that video clip was included in this article. I expected the girl in the video to make a clear argument for or against trigger warnings and safe spaces, or at the very least provide a overview of the situation and how trigger warnings have affected her. In the end, it just seems to be an almost completely unrelated video about a common traumatic event. I don't, in any way, mean to downplay the atrocities of rape and the unfortunate case of the girl in the video. But it is ultimately an appeal to pity and does not really present an argument. Triggering was hardly mentioned.
• scotty79 10y ago
  When an irrational reaction to common stimuli stopped being a concern of only the person afflicted and their doctor?
• danso 10y ago
  I'm teaching a journalism class this fall in which I've made David Simon's "Homicide" a required book. It's a terrific book overall, but I chose it because of its examination of the system as a whole. But as you can imagine, a book that involves following the Baltimore homicide department around unavoidably gets pretty grisly, even with Simon's treatment of it (that is, in the way The Wire is quite possibly one of the most boring shows ever about police work, while being also the best show on TV ever). There's lots of details about murders and rapes (the central event involves the rape and murder of a child). That said, it is a journalism class, and students who actually become journalists should expect to report on such traumas on a fairly regular basis. So I don't feel that concerned about using the book for journalism class. I'll probably warn students not to read the chapter about autopsies while eating. If I were in another liberal arts/humanities departments, I might take pause (but I have no idea what it's like to be an instructor in any other departments, so don't take my opinion as having any insight to other departments or their proclivities)
• ebola1717 10y ago
  This statement by the University is willfully ignorant. The University provides an officially sanctioned LGBTQ Safe Space (https://lgbtq.uchicago.edu/page/safe-space https://lgbtq.uchicago.edu/page/safe-space). Clearly the University isn't ensuring that people who think gay people are evil are also represented in those safe spaces. Furthermore, some ideas are clearly off limits. The University is not going to allow and promote legitimate arguments about whether the Holocaust was justified, or whether we should return to slavery and colonialism. The point of contention is and always has been which spaces, why, and for what reasons. The University is clearly not ignorant of the nuances of this debate, and if it wanted to commit itself to rigorous debate, it could do so while respecting that there is a valid rigorous debate to be had about this policy.
  • seibelj 10y ago
    If someone denies the holocaust and promotes slavery, don't they have the right to express their views? It's a very slippery slope when you let someone (you? me?) decide what speech is too dangerous to hear. Shouting fire in a crowded theater is dangerous, but letting some whacko spout about why slavery is good is entirely different.
    • ebola1717 10y ago
      Again, that's counterfactual. Currently, if a professor tried to seriously discuss such views, they would be promptly let go. The point of contention is not whether "safe spaces" should exist - they exist in spades already, and the University supports them. The debate is what form they should take.
  • jotux 10y ago
    >Furthermore, some ideas are clearly off limits. The University is not going to allow and promote legitimate arguments about whether the Holocaust was justified, or whether we should return to slavery and colonialism. Why are certain topics off limits? If someone wants to give a talk about why they believe the Holocaust is justified they should be free to do so, just as I am free to ignore it or go argue he's wrong.
• kaonashi 10y ago
  Old man yells at cloud.
• mankash666 10y ago
  How did universities evolve from spaces meant to evoke controversial and provocative thought (like the birth of the free speech movement at UC Berkeley) to the "safe spaces" of today? If a university is meant to enrich you, one worthy lesson is the ability to "agree to disagree in a cordial fashion". If you disagree or feel threatened by a line of thought, make your voice heard. Receding into a safe space won't prepare you for the real world.
  • weberc2 10y ago
    I'm guessing it started in the 90s when progressive social scientists edged out political dissenters from their departments, and began pushing their political orthodoxy as "science" to an already left-leaning campus who ate it up (confirmation bias and whatnot).
  • dlandis 10y ago
    I think young adults oftentimes mature at a later age nowadays. A 17 year old nowadays may really need safe spaces and may be very traumatized from being confronted by provocative ideas, just as a child would be. It's not really fair to put the burden on the child to simply not be affected; it is the responsibility of the parents and university to teach them how to handle emotions and disagree without shutting down. (I'm not refuting anything you said btw. )
  • icelancer 10y ago
    Because the "free speech" advocates never were. They were counter-culturists who got their way and want to protect what is theirs. They were always authoritarians.
• sergiotapia 10y ago
  Safe spaces used to mean "say anything you want, face no judgement." Now it means, "don't say anything that might offend someone."
• aethertron 10y ago
  Are there any proposed metadata schemes for including trigger-warning-like info in, say, web pages?
• jackcosgrove 10y ago
  There's a subtle point that's getting overshadowed by the lightning rod discussions about trigger warnings and safe spaces. The U of C is explicitly stating in this letter that if you don't agree with their values, don't come to the school. This seems uncontroversial to me, but I think it's worth affirming that self-segregation is a valid social strategy. I know segregation is a loaded word, but that's because historically it was caught up in the exercise of power differentials. Robert Putnam concluded (http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/ http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/...) that diverse societies actually see a decline in civic life because there is more friction and distrust between individuals with different values. So there is such a thing as too much diversity, and diversity must be balanced with cohesion. Moreover, diversity seen as social mixing is self-defeating since after enough social mixing everyone is the same and there is no more diversity. There is a happy medium whereby people can be tolerant and different at the same time. Indeed, tolerance and difference need each other to exist. Segregation is abused when there is an exercise of a power differential, whether between individuals or groups. So I'll strike the balance by saying, "You have the right to segregate yourself from others and hold exclusionary values as long as you do not use force to impose those values on others." If you disagree with this statement, I'd ask you to examine how many ways you segregate yourself from others. Do you befriend anyone? Do you date anyone? Do you work with or hire anyone? Everyone engages in this behavior because we are social animals and shared values are necessary for society. In the long term perhaps human society will become universally shared, at which point many of these controversies will be moot. However that is not the case now so we should allow communities of like-minded individuals to form and share values that differ from the values of others. Indeed we should always allow this, because there will always be minorities no matter how homogeneous the dominant culture is.
  • splouk 10y ago
    Well put.
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • ikeyany 10y ago
• qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  As someone who has difficulty listening to many subjects (I am extremely prone to depression) I still think this is a good move: If you have difficulty with a topic, pretending it doesn't exist won't help you.
• aeturnum 10y ago
  I have never understood the discomfort around trigger warnings. Society has used them forever in areas that are considered sensitive. When the news warns you they're going to show graphic footage or that a story involves sex - those are trigger warnings. It's simply displaying common minimum level of empathy for the experiences of others. Safe spaces are more complicated and (inherently) restrictive and so I understand the discomfort around those too. You can allow controversial / awful groups to exist (Nazis, KKK, etc) and provide trigger warnings for their events. Indeed, I would think that having 'opposition' groups and hosts provide their own sets of trigger warnings would be a fantastic introduction to outsiders.
• brantg 10y ago
  U Chicago's letter is essentially a single, all-encompassing trigger warning to the incoming freshmen.
• louprado 10y ago
  My concern with all the attention given to college based safe spaces, trigger warnings, rape culture, social justice, weed culture, athletic program scandals, etc. is that practical minded children from working poor families will just assume college is an alcohol-fueled summer camp for rich kids and jocks that doesn't teach real world skills. That's what I thought at 16 after seeing Animal House and having never visited a college campus. Fortunately someone insisted engineering is a practical degree that I should consider. But had that person not influenced me, I would have just went to Apex Tech which gives you a box of tools and a "diploma" in 6 weeks.
• davidf18 10y ago
  At a time when many prestigious private schools had Jewish quotas for students and faculty, the U of C did not. There should never be bans of free speech consistent with that of the First Amendment (i.e, you can't shout "Fire" in a movie theater). I hope that there is a law passed that universities that block free speech as many have, are not allowed to receive federal funds in the form government grants for faculty, and financial aid for students.
  • x1798DE 10y ago
    > There should never be bans of free speech consistent with that of the First Amendment (i.e, you can't shout "Fire" in a movie theater). Freedom of speech and the First Amendment are two different things (and I'll note that there is no limiting clause in the first amendment), and I think it would be helpful if people realized this. Freedom of speech is a broader principle that is (IMO) a good idea independent of any legal enshrinement of the law.
    • davidf18 10y ago
      I'm not certain, but I think there was a Supreme Court ruling that said you can't shout, "Fire" in a movie theater as an action of free speech or the First Amendment. At any rate, people pay good tuition money to get an education and part of an education is the free exchange of ideas.
      • x1798DE 10y ago
        Yes, the Supreme court has given many "passes" to the government to regulate your free speech, but what I was saying is that it's important to separate the concept of "free speech" from the legal institutions that attempt to prevent their restriction (by the government). There are many situations where it is legally allowed for someone to curtail your freedom of speech, and that is independent of whether or not it is a good idea for that person to exercise their right to do so.
  • r_smart 10y ago
    Shouting Fire in a theater is a nonsense example used in a horrible ruling on the first amendment. [0] [0]: https://popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/ https://popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackne...
• chias 10y ago
  > "When you read something that makes you angry, stop for a moment and answer two questions: who wants you to be angry, and why?" Something my father once told me, that has served me well over the years. There's a lot of money (read: clicks) to be made by manufacturing outrage, and there's far too much to be angry about in this world to be inventing any more of it. Maybe this is something you should be angry about, maybe it isn't. But unless you like being mad you owe it to yourself to think about those questions before making a decision. For this thing in particular, it doesn't make any sense without context. I'm not at the University of Chicago, and nor is anybody I know. Are "sjw pc trigger-warningers" a problem there? Or is the university being ridiculous? We can argue back and forth forever whether "safe spaces" are good or not depending on your definition -- which definition is the one that is relevant at the University of Chicago? This letter may make perfect sense in the context of current issues going on at the university. Or it may be a load of bull. But, at least from where I'm sitting, I have no context. And whoever uploaded this didn't provide any. What was their purpose? Who knows. Definitely not enough justification for me to worsen my mood about it.
• jamesash 10y ago
  Post WWII, an entire generation of soldiers who had seen some of the most horrific scenes of war entered university on the GI Bill and made it through their education without trigger warnings. The students at the U of C will be fine.
• michaelbuddy 10y ago
  Brilliant move on the part of the University. This is actual intelligent PR during the current pathetic climate of what is making headlines at Universities nowadays. People want to go to a university to grow. Growth is not retreat. Strength is not capitulation. Employees want to know that a graduate has a mental resilience along with the skillsets learned.
• Waterluvian 10y ago
  We just need a large enough group to make a fuss over blockages of discourse being a trigger for them. And that they need safe spaces where they can openly communicate without fear imposed on them of possibly triggering someone else.
• deleted 10y ago
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