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[alway]

So, ContraPoints did a new video, this time regarding the meaning of freedom, safe spaces and trigger warnings.

Personally I think the big problem with safe spaces and trigger warnings at college, is that college is meant to prepare you for dealing with the real world. And in the real world, those things don't exist. Sure, some people come from modern colleges into the realm of private enterprise and want to try and force them to have all the trigger warning / safe space bullshit, but. that. is. bullshit. Private business is a competitive enterprise, by definition. By wrapping students in cotton wool, you fail to prepare them for the real world. And notice that the college students who have the least cotton-wool padding support end up going the furthest in  society.

And trigger warnings will always be bullshit, as long as there's an "approved list" of things you're "allowed" to be upset about. And if something not on the list causes you emotional discomfort, then "fuck you" basically. That attitude shows there's another layer of agenda here. In actuality there are countless things that could upset someone. But "trigger warnings" are only "allowed" to be applied to a small subset of people's things that upset them. I've met quite a few "safe space" types who enjoy being bullies about anything that's not in the "trigger warning approved list". They're not nice people.

Playing devil's advocate but imagine if someone had a bad experience with a same-sex assault and said they were "triggered" by seeing two guys kissing, and can you please not do that in front of me because i'm "triggered" by that and want a "safe space" where I don't have to see it.  Would the "safe space" people respect that? Probably not. They'd probably verbally attack that person and shove gay imagery in their face. The thing is this has almost nothing to do with respecting people's right to not encounter things that upset them, and everything to do with campus advocates expanding a political sphere which pushes the whole (approved) victim's advocacy machinery. And it's very little about actual victims, but about pushing the cultural power of "allies". i.e. usually white, often male, usually cis, college professors and students, who "ally" with all those things despite being none of them.

e.g. I had one friend of a friend who's all "safe spacy" pull "ageist" shit on me, because to them age wasn't a protected category. So they felt it was perfectly fine to bully me about being older than them. This person was full SJW but decided it's ok to be rude and demeaning about things that aren't in the "official SJW black list". I also had a college professors for a postmodernism class I needed to take, and that guy was super-SJW but then he was ridiculing and insulting the subcultures that different people in the class belonged to such as goths, punks, and one girl who was into sports, he demeaned that, too. If someone is up the front taking the piss out of the group identity / lifestyle of a large number of my friends then those are punching words, but mr cis-white middle class college professor thought it was totally ok to take the piss out of working class subcultures because they're not in his precious LGBT/women/non-white "protected" classes. This guy was like the walking stereotype. e.g. would happily abuse christians sitting right in the class, but if you said the same about muslims (who aren't in the class) he'd probably go all holier-than-thou on yer ass.

So. fuck. those. people. Being nice and respectful should be a "whitelist" situation, where you look at each person as an individual and try to accomodate their feelings. It should not be a "blacklist" situation where you can say anything abusive to anyone you want, but just check you're not accidentaly saying it about something on "the list".

Yeah, so you clearly don't understand what a trigger warning or a trigger is. A trigger isn't something that upsets you or makes you mad, it's something that results in setting off someone's PTSD. To take a stereotypical example, imagine a Vietnam vet who comes back with PTSD, having watched his best friend's brains get blown out in the middle of the jungle, and having to take shelter behind his corpse in terror that he would be next as the sound of gunfire echoed all around. That's not a guy you want to spring a surprise realistic war documentary on! Not only would you be ruining his day, but in all likelihood it would be hella disruptive to any sorta class you were trying to teach with it. And keep in mind, this isn't just some isolated thing; 8% of the US population is thought to have PTSD. Statistically, that's about 2 in every classroom.

And quit pretending it's some form of censorship; cause it's not. It's just a pre-warning about a potential trigger; says so right in the name. "What follows is a common trigger; leave if you must." Likewise if a student asks to be made aware of a certain stimulus being brought up so they can avoid it. No different than the epilepsy warnings on games or TV shows. It's not about "being nice" any more than avoiding breathing in the face of someone with a known peanut allergy after you've eaten a PB&J sandwich is "being nice." It's about avoiding setting off a medical condition unnecessarily. But hey, I'm sure you know best, and setting off someone's peanut butter allergy for laughs is definitely what they need to be prepared for the real world.

[Reelya]

I gave an example where the person would exactly have PTSD.

[Strife26]

You've had a very different experience looking at the safe spaces and trigger warnings than is reflected in my world, at least.

[Lord Shonus]

Sadly, one of the truths that has not changed in this country (or, at least not changed for the better - it may be getting worse) is that the cult of machismo considers reaching out for help to be the ultimate weakness. Now as much as ever, a Real Man is not supposed to feel, and especially not to feel, emotions other than anger. This not only prevents many young men from seeking help, but accelerates deterioration of their self-image from mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, or severe stress.

[Frumple]

And in the real world, those things don't exist.

Yeah, ree, hate to break it to you, but they actually exist. It's called company policy and behavior standards, for example, and it gets your ass kicked out the building if you start spouting shit the management doesn't like. The real world does, in fact, have many, many areas where your speech is limited de facto or de jure. You can call them whatever the blazes you want, but it boils down to the same thing.

Amusingly enough, if you want to continue that line of concept torture, you could easily say colleges indulging in safe space related stuff actually are preparing people for the real world, where sometimes you have to keep your mouth shut on any number of subjects when in a specific area, or keep out :V

[Neonivek]

Honestly if you unironically say you're "triggered" by anything short of actual violence and/or gore, and you haven't been diagnosed with for-realsies PTSD, you're as bad a person as, I don't know... Someone claiming they have cancer just for the patronage.

Part of being an adult is facing situations that make you uncomfortable. Deal with it. And yes, college students are adults.

Well that isn't EXACTLY it... it isn't that you are a bad person.

Yet it is being used in the same way as "I am offended"... Yes, being offended can mean the person you are talking to is being highly offensive and either needs to stop or easing up. It isn't, however, the only criteria. (Though usually distilling the problem to just being offended, is usually what someone doing something wrong will say... In fact defending your behavior under the basis that the person is just offended defense, is far more common then the "I am offended, thus this is wrong" offense)

Just because you are triggered, it doesn't mean the person or thing that triggered you is in the wrong.

Which is where the problem lies.

 

A trigger isn't something that upsets you or makes you mad, it's something that results in setting off someone's PTSD

That isn't how it is used at all anymore.

[alway]

A trigger isn't something that upsets you or makes you mad, it's something that results in setting off someone's PTSD

That isn't how it is used at all anymore.

Only among people who are intentionally misrepresenting it so they can claim to be oppressed by the evil libruls.
Edit: Oh right, SJdubs was the term we're supposed to use for evil libruls these days, silly me and my 90s terminology.

[Neonivek]

A trigger isn't something that upsets you or makes you mad, it's something that results in setting off someone's PTSD

That isn't how it is used at all anymore.

Only among people who are intentionally misrepresenting it so they can claim to be oppressed by the evil libruls.

I dunno... How many people have eye stab PTSD?

How many people have rat eating PTSD?

[alway]

A trigger isn't something that upsets you or makes you mad, it's something that results in setting off someone's PTSD

That isn't how it is used at all anymore.

Only among people who are intentionally misrepresenting it so they can claim to be oppressed by the evil libruls.

I dunno... How many people have eye stab PTSD?

Probably anyone affected by graphic violence.

[Neonivek]

Probably anyone affected by graphic violence.

So vague unattributable triggers that basically amount to things that would upset someone.

Now you know why no one uses it your way anymore. Since denotative is inferior to functional. Which is why the connotation has overtaken the denotation.

[Descan]

i had a whole thing written out but i realized that i don't actually care to try and respond to hypothetical situations that don't actually happen and anecdotes that amount to "hey some people are hypocritical assholes."

sufficed to say, none of that is an argument against how safe spaces or content warnings are used in actual practice in the real world, they're just arguments against a strawman.

like the video actually said (did you even watch it???) a safe space is literally just a place where you can go and you know someone's not gonna yell a slur at you, or try and throw a punch, or spit at you, or anything else you might be worried about.

and content warnings in practice aren't a "blacklist of topics you CANNOT SPEAK ABOUT" it's just a preamble before potentially upsetting content to warn about said content. Like, people talk about censorship, but *what censorship?* The content being warned about is still talked about, it's still posted. It just has a bit of a warning beforehand, same as "you might want to sit down for this," can be followed by the person saying "I'm not in a good position to hear bad news right now," which would be the equivalent of a student with a trigger for that leaving the classroom. Unless you have an audience of one person who goes "no I can't deal with that right now," at no point are you prevented from talking about or posting your content. You're not being censored whatsoever.

as for "if it's not approved of it gets ignored," pretty much any time someone asks for a content warning, most people are courteous enough not to grill them for exact info on *how* this thing triggers them, or to tell them "you can't be triggered by that, get out of here!" they'll just say "oh whoops sorry, is that better?" (if the content in question can be edited)

as for the gay thing, there's an actual debate in places regarding that, whether "gay" should be a content warning or not. It's not a clear-cut yes or no to, people actually involved (and not just condemning it from outside with no understanding) are arguing about whether "gay content" should be warned about. I don't believe it's necessarily because "people might have been abused by a gay person!" but it's still a debate ongoing.

[Neonivek]

sufficed to say, none of that is an argument against how safe spaces or content warnings are used in actual practice in the real world, they're just arguements against a strawman.

It is a weird horrid mishmash at the moment. OUTSIDE select groups, who are the minority... Safe spaces are specific to, well, safe spaces... and Trigger Warnings are usually given out of politeness.

Which is kind of the weird thing honestly the Overzealous Safe Space Triggering community seems so far in the minority they don't really need to be thought about.

It feels like people who make slash fics about internet celebrities. They gain FAR more attention by outraged fans and them flouting it then it is genuinely popular or well known. There are FAR more people who dislike this group, then this group genuinely garters attention.

[MrRoboto75]

Probably anyone affected by graphic violence.

So vague unattributable triggers that basically amount to things that would upset someone.

Now you know why no one uses it your way anymore. Since denotative is inferior to functional. Which is why the connotation has overtaken the denotation.

You already had a word for it.  "Being upset" or "Being offended".

No need to steal words from some guy who freaks at anything on the road in front of him, because it reminds him of bloody landmines when he fought in Vietnam.  But 'being offended' or 'upset' isn't enough for some people to exaggerate their minor inconveniences.

[Neonivek]

Indeed but such the nature of the English language. It likes to pull from a lot of sources. Including clinical and scientific.

[Reelya]

i had a whole thing written out but i realized that i don't actually care to try and respond to hypothetical situations that don't actually happen and anecdotes that amount to "hey some people are hypocritical assholes."

I think my one was a realistic situation that does actually happen. e.g. someone who was sexually assaulted as a child by the same sex definitely happens, and they could easily have PTSD triggered by seeing same-sex depictions. I'd put money on this being a real thing.

But if they then asked for content warnings for same-sex depictions, how would people respond to that? They know how people would probably respond (labeling them homophobic, getting verbal abuse, social exclusion), so they don't actually ask for the protection they should probably be entitled to.