Trigger warnings aren’t really all that new if you think about it. For decades, newscasters would warn people they were about to air something that might be upsetting.
The term itself, however, is.
Being “triggered” is something that originally was used to describe a PTSD reaction to certain stimuli, such as a veteran having issues with loud noises because they “trigger” his trauma response to when his convoy was hit with IEDs outside of Fallujah.
But it now has spread, and it seems the stupidity has reached a point that I’m ready to start triggering a lot of mo-fos right about that.
It seems The Canterbury Tales are getting a trigger warning and it’s probably the stupidest one yet.
Over the past decade, universities have slapped ‘trigger warnings’ on everything from children’s books to entire fields of law. They have warned archaeology students about bones, theology students about the crucifixion and forensic-science students about dead bodies. In 2022, it was reported that over 1,000 books on university reading lists – including classic works by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare – warned students about everything from racism and sexism to murder and suicide. Now, The Canterbury Tales can be added to this list of shame.
The Mail on Sunday reported at the weekend that the University of Nottingham is warning students that Geoffrey Chaucer’s epic poem contains ‘expressions of Christian faith’. The Canterbury Tales – as anyone with even a passing knowledge of literature knows – follows a group of pilgrims as they entertain each other with stories on their way to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. In other words, the clue to this being an ‘expression of Christian faith’ is right there in the title. Nottingham’s English literature lecturers must think students are stupid.
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Meanwhile, a growing number of psychologists questioned the use of such warnings. Some argued they simply did not work and that victims of assault were far more likely to experience flashbacks as a result of a random colour or smell than reading an academic text. Others went further and argued they ‘might exacerbate negative reactions or promote avoidance behaviours’.
These debates about the efficacy of trigger warnings take at face value that their purpose is to protect traumatised students. They miss the point that their use has long since morphed into something else altogether. Those issuing warnings today are likely to see all students as vulnerable and in need of protection – not so much from descriptions of assault, but mainly from politically dubious content. The warning Nottingham University has attached to The Canterbury Tales perfectly illustrates this trend.
The author goes on to discuss some pretty awful things that show up in The Canterbury Tales such as sexual assault, antisemitism, murder, cannibalism, etc.
Those, however, got no trigger warnings.
Nope, it was simply the discussion of the Christian faith. Now, Christianity was basically the default religion throughout Europe at the time. There were those who practiced other faiths—Judaism, for example, or what I’d imagine were still a fair number of Lithuanian pagans—but not many.
And so what? Islam shows up in numerous places, yet no one seems to want a trigger warning for discussions of a faith that was used to justify 9/11, a trauma many of us actually experienced.
In fact, to suggest such a thing would be called racist.
The truth is that “trigger warnings” are really nothing more than a way to demand to be warned of hearing things students just don’t want to hear. For example, “colonialism” is a trigger warning, despite the fact that pretty much no one at today’s universities has lived under oppressive colonialism. They just don’t like it, so they want warnings in order to know when to bow out and blame it on trauma.
With this one, though, a discussion of the Christian faith isn’t traumatizing to anyone. I’m sorry, I don’t care how atheist or whatever you are, discussing the dominant religion at the time one of the most famous works of literature was written and how it impacted that work is a normal part of academic discussion. It’s not traumatizing. It’s not “triggering.”
They just know that some people are large children who can’t handle talking about things like adults. They either agree with it or it’s evil and should be banished from all discussion.
On Tuesday, I talked about why you can’t take the mob seriously.
Well, this is why I can’t take academia seriously, despite my love of history and literature. It seems that those same people who expect you to get comfortable with being uncomfortable can’t stand being made uncomfortable themselves, even when it’s just incidental because of the subject.
And honestly, I’m ready to curb-stomp this stupidity and put an end to it once and for all.
If you’re in a university, you’re old enough to accept ideas you don’t agree with. You’re old enough to sit down, shut up, and understand that the world is what it is, not what you wish it were, and that includes our history.
You’re also old enough to understand that most people around you are Christians and if you have a problem with that, then learn to embrace “live, laugh, toaster bath” for all of mankind’s benefit.
The gene pool clearly needs some chlorine.
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Honestly, I think the use of trigger warnings sets up students for future failure in their chosen professions, and stunts whatever development of critical thinking might be possible in their precious little minds.
First, with respect to the Canterbury Tales, if you can't handle them then you don't belong in college (or possibly even high school). Same for Dante's Divine Comedy.
Second, PTSD is a real problem, but only for real trauma. When I attended a Catholic college in the '60s, we had a priest living in the residence halls who suffered PTSD (then called shell shock) from his WWII experiences as a bombardier with many sorties over Europe. Every once in a while, jerks returning from a night on the town, and drunk as hell, would slam their bedroom doors at the same time just to get a rise from him. Shameful - yup. But truly one of the few things that merited "trigger warnings" had we known at the time what they were.