I think one of the fundamental problems with this thread's discussion, when it does occur, is that a lot of people are making a simple error.
The OP article discusses the appearance of two movements taking place in high-education environments: the introduction of trigger-warnings on lectures and the removal of microaggressions from facility premises.
The error is that the article conflates the two to be the same thing. It may be true that both measures may come a similar source, but in practice they are two separate things.
The introduction of trigger-warnings is something that lecturers would have to do about content that is highly disturbing, such as displaying or in-depth discussion of violence, rape, etc. The goal is to provide warning for people who are particularly sensitive about such subjects and would be triggered by it to have traumatic recollection.
A consequence of such measure would be these students may need to skip that lecture and need assistance in form of material for them to study.
Note that this measure
at no point requires that the student may skip learning about the material altogether, or make changes to the curriculum for the sake of these students, or these students to be otherwise not held to the same standard as other students on the same course.
This is a minimal measure that I expressed support for. I would like to note that universities can provide measures (skipping class and giving material to make up for it) that are effectively the same for other reasons, such as if the person who are crippled and could not attend the lecture. It would not burden most lecturers at all.
The second, wholly separate thing, is the removal of microaggressions. I am not in favor of this because there is no universal guideline (to my knowledge, the article certainly does not mention one) that specifies to high detail what exactly constitutes a microaggression in everyday life.
Some people may have also got the idea that if the first is introduced, the second would be a necessary consequence. This is not true. The first is a measure that university staff are to undertake and right now, it is attempted to be done voluntary by them. The second seems to be student councils organizing such things.
Another thing, is that the article throws quotes around and after digging into some of the source material, it conflates arguments made by an organized student council to implement certain measures with
student making complaints. There are always students complaining on any course in any university "Why do I have to learn, can't we skip learning that?" about any aspect of a subject. Women, even those who are not particularly sensitive to the subject, are not often eager to learn about rape and rape laws, for example. That does not mean that some people are seriously suggesting not to teach it, especially if it was noted in the curriculum.
But they are asking for it to happen not just in settings where it would be reasonable and appropriate but above and beyond that. They seek to do so in places of education (where I and others have plainly explained why this would be a bad idea)
Except that there are three university educators on this very thread (plus Simon who is a teacher IRRC) who dispute this and tell that trigger-warnigns places close to zero burden on them.
In fact, giving trigger-warnings is to the university's benefit: it places responsibility solely on the student. The lecturer has given his warnings, all obligations are on the student. If they can't handle it, they have been warned. If they need to take it in on their own, they can ask for material from the lecturer (something they already are supposed to do for any student). If the student decides they don't want to learn it, the university is under no obligation to pass the student any more than any other student who failed to learn the material for any other reason.
as well as in constant day to day human behavior (which is plain ludicrous).
If you are talking about trigger warnings, you are talking bullshit. Trigger warnings are specifically tied to university lectures. They are also tied to certain subject (rape, corpses, violence, etc.), not just to anything.
If you are talking about removing microaggerssions, I do not support that in general for the reason I mentioned in the beginning of my post.
They fail to understand that at the end of the day ultimately suffering and horrible suffering are things that happen to people on a daily basis.
This is an idiotic statement, especially regarding the people whom trigger-warnings are meant for.
Do you know who understands the true depth of this? People who have been raped. People who have seen their relatives die in horrible diseases before their eyes (Alyrium students). You do not get counseling and psychological treatment just for being queasy or being sensitive.
Because, get this, these people
already know they can't censor reality because reality exists to regardless of consent. The real world exists for them and they have to interact with it anyway. In fact, they may experience painful reminders every day because they cannot control the world. Especially if everyday things can be those reminders.
But a lecture hall is not a regular place, especially if its a public facility. Lectures are held to certain standards and in the last half-century, those standards does in fact include restrictions on presentation that extend to things like words used. This is most evident in the case of racist slurs and terms but also other language. Academics are known to have their own terminology.
That is why trigger-warnings are reasonable. Adding a small change to those standards to accommodate a relevant minority in a way that actually streamlines the education is not that amazing or difficult to ask. Remember, warning of potentially disturbing content is something that most media already does: age ratings on TV, on DVD boxes, online, etc.
It just strikes me as odd, since someone taking the course should already know that Renaissance art often depicted gruesome subject matter. It's like someone being surprised that a history course covering the Civil War would feature photos of mangled corpses at Antietam.
Nobody is saying that people don't make mistakes. And if they do, nobody (at least, I don't think so) is saying that the student isn't responsible for their mistake. The goal with trigger-warnings and such is to make it the student's mistake, not the university's.
