![]() I very much respect the goal of not treating people as presumptive victims. Your perspective – raising kids – is not the only way to view trigger warnings. I’m a huge fan of your blog and your approach generally, which is why I am sad to see this argument here. I can only imagine US helicopter parents coming after him with pitchforks and torches for making his students read books that could potentially upset them. My son’s German teacher chooses some rather gruesome literature for the class to read because he doesn’t believe that life is all hearts, flowers, and happy endings. Some of the other things in German schools would require warnings in the States like: teachers using red pens to correct work, most of the topics in history and Latin class, and some of the books that my son has read for both his German and English classes. I can imagine Stateside parents trying to find ways to excuse their little Snowflakes from that trip. On the permission slip there was a sentence about talking to your children if you feel they may be upset, but they are still expected to go. Students are required to go on this trip. Here is something that would not fly in the States…Part of the 9th grade history curriculum in the part of Germany where I live is a trip to Dachau. Just when I think it can’t be any crazier in the States, I read articles like this. ![]()  By framing more public spaces, from the Internet to the college classroom, as full of infinite yet ill-defined hazards, trigger warnings encourage us to think of ourselves as more weak and fragile than we really are.Âįight the assumption of fragility. On this blog and in my speeches, I always try to explain that it’s not a million individuals who have suddenly decided to frantically helicopter parent, it’s a society TELLING us that if we DON’T supervise every afternoon at the park, our kids will be snatched, just as surely as if we don’t buy the latest educational toy, or serve exactly the right food, or enroll our kids in the very best program, they’ll end up stunted, illiterate, unloved and unemployable. We are constantly fighting the belief that kids are in danger from everything: “Creeps, kidnapping, germs, grades, flashers, frustration, failure…”And yet, the assumption of fragility pervades our culture, from infrared monitors to watch baby at night - as if SLEEPING is dangerous - to now these warnings on college classes, as if THINKING, or even having a MISERABLE MOMENT is dangerous. How does this have anything to do with Free-Range Kids? Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby say, “TW: suicide, domestic abuse and graphic violence.”  Warnings have been proposed even for books long considered suitable material for high-schoolers: Last month, a Rutgers University sophomore suggested that an alert for F. Professors who present “content that may trigger the onset of symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” would be required to issue advance alerts and allow students to skip those classes…. Last week, student leaders at the University of California, Santa Barbara, passed a resolution urging officials to institute mandatory trigger warnings on class syllabi. Initially, trigger warnings were used in self-help and feminist forums to help readers who might have post traumatic stress disorder to avoid graphic content that might cause painful memories, flashbacks, or panic attacks. Is an amazing article from The New Republic by Jenny Jarvie about a phenom called “trigger warnings” - warnings written on blog posts and, increasingly, everywhere else, that tell folks that the material they’re about to read may “trigger” awful thoughts:
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