03-27-2016, 08:29 PM
i briefly skimmed it, i must admit the whole trigger warning thing strikes me as pretty innocuous. and as for one step away from banning books, what nonsense. we have film classifications, are we one step away from banning films? well, yeah. we do ban films. the really nasty ones. but that is usually due to greater crimes being committed. the thing most people have a problem with, including myself, is the standardising of a phrase, 'trigger warning'. that is, if i am in a classroom about to read Joyce to the little angels, i might like to say, in a more human way, "there are bits in this book that may make you feel uncomfortable, or inspire intense emotions, due to the subject matter. . . [oh dear, that didn't sound human, at all. but you get the point]", and then maybe a discussion about why the author approached the subject etc. i mean, the whole 'trigger warning' thing could be avoided in one lesson [philosophy should be taught in schools, mandatory, for at least a year]. the phrase, 'trigger warning' is a lazy way of dealing with it. yet, on the other hand, it strikes me as a bit pathetic the level of animosity these little ideas receive. like safe spaces! i mean, like it says in the article, these things come from primarily good place, and the arguments against them are an idiosyncratic irritation, at best. fuck it, put a safe space up in your local university. i couldn't give two fucks. and probably nor could rapists and murderers. put trigger warnings on everything, and, like the parental advisory stickers on hip hop albums and smoking causes cancer labels on cigarette packets, young people will inevitably ignore them; and the safe spaces you built will turn into empty spaces to be avoided [or at least, be filled with the kind of people you would want to avoid]. . . and all the best books, read by the best people.