Trigger warnings - what are they really for?

[mahagonny]

I do believe, however, that much of the word usage is merely fashion. Words spread like viruses, after all. A telling  example is the suggestion of using Black instead of African-American.  Not too long ago, the idea was reversed. And a new name will surely emerge or be re-reversed.

Well sure, that's how language works. It doesn't change something being problematic or not now that it had a different meaning before or may in the future. We should call people what they want to be called, not lecture them on how they used to want to be called something else.

I'm not lecturing people on what they should be called. People can call themselves whatever they like. I'm lecturing people that sometimes new words mean the same thing as old words -- such as trigger warning and content note.

Sometimes words have the same denotative meaning, but vastly different connotative meanings. The term 'trigger warning' has picked up a dismissive connotation because so many people have dismissed the perfectly valid concern that some content deserves a note of some sort, and so now that same concern is looking for a new label. Linguists call it the euphemism treadmill: words pick up connotations, and people who want to refer to the same concept without that connotation must find a new word to express it.

This is why terms for racial groups change so much: Whatever term is in current use, racists are going to taint it, and so the group must find themselves a new word that doesn't carry the taint. It's not fickleness and it's not fashion. It is not because these people "can't make up their mind" or whatever criticism is lobbed at them whenever they ask to be called by a new name. This treadmill is how language works because it is how bigotry works; and it makes me desperately sad to see words for useful concepts get poisoned by people who don't want to engage with those concepts in good faith.

If we ever run out of racism, linguistics will fall on hard times.

ETA: The current climate says any term used by white people has racism in it, so the expiration date is fast approaching.

I'm seeing news reports of racially-motivated brawling at school sporting events. Haven't seen any such thing in years. Even the horrific murder of Kelly Proctor by the McGuane brothers (2005) was widely accepted as just a horrible grudge match. But today, parents are fighting about race. So why shouldn't kids? As the song says 'You've Got To Be Carefully Taught.'
Thanks, liberals.

[marshwiggle]

Sometimes words have the same denotative meaning, but vastly different connotative meanings. The term 'trigger warning' has picked up a dismissive connotation because so many people have dismissed the perfectly valid concern that some content deserves a note of some sort, and so now that same concern is looking for a new label. Linguists call it the euphemism treadmill: words pick up connotations, and people who want to refer to the same concept without that connotation must find a new word to express it.

This is often because there is some fundamental reality behind the words that is inescapable. For instance, "crippled" to "handicapped" to "disabled" and so on. The fact is that a person who has some condition which makes them unable to do what the vast majority of people are able to do is at a disadvantage in certain situations.  Changing the language to try to obscure that fact will only work for so long until that reality rears its ugly head. In situations where the term is irrelevant, it doesn't need to get used at all. So, if my friend "Bob" is an awesome guitarist, his being in a wheelchair is irrelevant. However, if I'm rounding up friends to help me move, it is. Someone who has heard me talk about Bob may ask if he's going to help with the move if they don't know about the wheelchair. At that point, referring to that fact makes sense regardless of what language is used, and it has to make the same point.

[Puget]

No, the objection against the term "trigger warning" is that it is a metaphor founded on gun violence. The thought is that in some cases it may even produce the kind of trauma that such warnings are meant to forestall. The objection is not to do with the phrase losing denotative force.

Now, I don't agree with trigger warnings or content warnings, whatever you call them. Nevertheless that is the now current widespread objection to the term "trigger warning."

If you actually read the students' explanation about why they prefer "content note" it has nothing to do with gun violence, and in fact I've never heard anyone object to "trigger warning" on that ground-- not saying no one has, but "trigger" obviously isn't a term just for guns. Rather, it has to do with many of the problems I and others have noted in this thread-- that you shouldn't tell people what they're going to feel, and imply they can't cope. "Content note" is more neutral, just providing information.

Whatever we call them, I think we've more or less agreed here there is a reasonable balance between letting students know what sort of material will be covered in a class so they can decide whether to take it, but then not brining it up continuously in class (with the possible exemption of a heads-up before showing something particularly graphic).

[Hegemony]

If you actually read the students' explanation about why they prefer "content note" it has nothing to do with gun violence, and in fact I've never heard anyone object to "trigger warning" on that ground-- not saying no one has, but "trigger" obviously isn't a term just for guns. Rather, it has to do with many of the problems I and others have noted in this thread-- that you shouldn't tell people what they're going to feel, and imply they can't cope. "Content note" is more neutral, just providing information.

What I was going by was the long, long discussion of this in several groups I belong to. In those groups, the association with guns is the factor that prompted them to change terminology. Your mileage may vary.

[Caracal]

This is why terms for racial groups change so much: Whatever term is in current use, racists are going to taint it, and so the group must find themselves a new word that doesn't carry the taint. It's not fickleness and it's not fashion. It is not because these people "can't make up their mind" or whatever criticism is lobbed at them whenever they ask to be called by a new name. This treadmill is how language works because it is how bigotry works; and it makes me desperately sad to see words for useful concepts get poisoned by people who don't want to engage with those concepts in good faith.

That's sometimes true, but it is often more complicated than that. Black was considered to be at least mildly offensive until the later 1960s. The use of black as an acceptable term came out of ideas of racial self assertiveness connected to slogans like "Black Power" or "Black is Beautiful."

African-American has a very complicated story. For a period in the early 19th century, many free blacks described themselves as African. That's why you have the African Methodist Episcopal Church. This was connected to interest in African emigration movements among some free prominent free black leaders. By the 1830s, the colonization movement lost ground, and Black Abolitionists like David Walker and Frederick Douglass argued that blacks were fully citizens of the United States and should stay and fight for freedom and equality and the term fell out of use. African-American came about in the wake of an interest in pan africanism among some Civil Rights figures.

Negro didn't really become offensive because racists coopted it. It was more the other way around. When people stop using a term to describe themselves, it becomes rude to continue to use it. That often seems to increase as the  people who would innocently use an obsolete term die. I doubt anybody was ever particularly offended that my grandmother said "negro," because she was old and grew up in a period where it was the polite term. If I said it, I would almost certainly be trying to provoke.

I don't actually think there's anything offensive about the description "Hebrew." At one point it was the polite term used to refer to Jewish people and you had Hebrew Benevolent Associations. But if someone starts talking about hebrews, my guard is going to go up, because its just not a self descriptor anymore and I'm going to wonder about the motivations of anyone who uses it.

[Hibush]

No, the objection against the term "trigger warning" is that it is a metaphor founded on gun violence. The thought is that in some cases it may even produce the kind of trauma that such warnings are meant to forestall. The objection is not to do with the phrase losing denotative force.

Now, I don't agree with trigger warnings or content warnings, whatever you call them. Nevertheless that is the now current widespread objection to the term "trigger warning."

If you actually read the students' explanation about why they prefer "content note" it has nothing to do with gun violence, and in fact I've never heard anyone object to "trigger warning" on that ground-- not saying no one has, but "trigger" obviously isn't a term just for guns. Rather, it has to do with many of the problems I and others have noted in this thread-- that you shouldn't tell people what they're going to feel, and imply they can't cope. "Content note" is more neutral, just providing information.

Whatever we call them, I think we've more or less agreed here there is a reasonable balance between letting students know what sort of material will be covered in a class so they can decide whether to take it, but then not bringing it up continuously in class (with the possible exemption of a heads-up before showing something particularly graphic).

I like the "content note" terminology for being neutral and with minimal additional connotation. I always felt the "Trigger warning" implied that some students' psyches were on a hair trigger, and the mere mention of a particular topic would trigger a mental trauma that would incapacitate them.   I don't think it is useful to think of the class that way or to treat them as if they can't cope with learning difficult material.

[marshwiggle]

I like the "content note" terminology for being neutral and with minimal additional connotation. I always felt the "Trigger warning" implied that some students' psyches were on a hair trigger, and the mere mention of a particular topic would trigger a mental trauma that would incapacitate them.   I don't think it is useful to think of the class that way or to treat them as if they can't cope with learning difficult material.

Unfortunately, we live in a society, (and much of academia accepts the idea), where this is precisely the reason that certain ideas and viewpoints should not be allowed to be expressed- because they will cause too much "harm" to certain people.

[downer]

I don't know what society you people are living in, but the one I'm in isn't much like that. It is true that I've seen some people talk about microagressions and the like, but I've seen no sign that that stuff is taken seriously by deans or chairs.

It seems to me that both sides of the debate are guilty of some oversensitivity and hyperbole. 

[mahagonny]

I don't know what society you people are living in, but the one I'm in isn't much like that. It is true that I've seen some people talk about microagressions and the like, but I've seen no sign that that stuff is taken seriously by deans or chairs.

It seems to me that both sides of the debate are guilty of some oversensitivity and hyperbole.

With few exceptions, they (provosts and chancellors too) take seriously which way the political wind is blowing and little else. There are some winds from a new direction recently, for example, Larry Elder causing Gaviner Newsom to outspend him 10-1 to beat back the recall effort (normally a guy who's on record promoting no illegal minimum wage would never have gotten out of his basement with a political campaign), Greg Gutfeld is now #1 of late night TV, oh-so-genteel anti anti-racist John McWhorter now gets to write regularly in the decidedly woke NYT (to their credit), for example. Time will tell.
At our school the provost issued a pro-CRT cliche filled rant months ago but has yet to require 'training.' Time will tell.

I like the "content note" terminology for being neutral and with minimal additional connotation. I always felt the "Trigger warning" implied that some students' psyches were on a hair trigger, and the mere mention of a particular topic would trigger a mental trauma that would incapacitate them.   I don't think it is useful to think of the class that way or to treat them as if they can't cope with learning difficult material.

Unfortunately, we live in a society, (and much of academia accepts the idea), where this is precisely the reason that certain ideas and viewpoints should not be allowed to be expressed- because they will cause too much "harm" to certain people.

^ plus one. Although academia is more speech intolerant than the lay public, more interested in sorting people into racial or other categories and then authoritatively meting out different judgements to each, and much more responsible for the mess we're in.

[Caracal]

I don't know what society you people are living in, but the one I'm in isn't much like that. It is true that I've seen some people talk about microagressions and the like, but I've seen no sign that that stuff is taken seriously by deans or chairs.

It seems to me that both sides of the debate are guilty of some oversensitivity and hyperbole.

That's usually how this stuff goes. Some weird thing happens at Wesleyan and people pretend its some massive national issue where nobody can teach anything anymore. Nobody at my institution, student, faculty or admin has ever even uttered the words "trigger warnings," and I continue to teach about various upsetting things without the slightest complaint.

[mahagonny]

We are in different times now. It's easier than ever to lose your job, and for crazier reasons than ever before.

[Caracal]

We are in different times now. It's easier than ever to lose your job, and for crazier reasons than ever before.

If this were a student paper, I'd write on it. "Evidence? This is a big assertion." I probably would not be particularly impressed with the student's reasoning skills if the evidence they provided was 20 news stories from the last 2 years about weird different incidents, many with complicating factors or missing information.

[marshwiggle]

I don't know what society you people are living in, but the one I'm in isn't much like that. It is true that I've seen some people talk about microagressions and the like, but I've seen no sign that that stuff is taken seriously by deans or chairs.

It seems to me that both sides of the debate are guilty of some oversensitivity and hyperbole.

That's usually how this stuff goes. Some weird thing happens at Wesleyan and people pretend its some massive national issue where nobody can teach anything anymore. Nobody at my institution, student, faculty or admin has ever even uttered the words "trigger warnings," and I continue to teach about various upsetting things without the slightest complaint.

Pre-covid, there were lots of stories from all over the places of speakers and/or events being *cancelled or having to be moved off campus due to protests, with the protests based on the "harm" that someone giving a presentation would produce.

It's not as part of a class, but given that those are voluntary events, the idea that being on the same campus where ideas are expressed that some don't like is too traumatic for people to handle is pretty much the essence of what "trigger warnings" are about.

(*Or protestors shouting down speakers, pulling fire alarms, etc.to prevent people even having the chance to hear ideas they don't like.)

[mahagonny]

We are in different times now. It's easier than ever to lose your job, and for crazier reasons than ever before.

If this were a student paper, I'd write on it. "Evidence? This is a big assertion." I probably would not be particularly impressed with the student's reasoning skills if the evidence they provided was 20 news stories from the last 2 years about weird different incidents, many with complicating factors or missing information.

In that case I'll just wait for the all the research coming from higher education social science fields (something like 95% of these folks self-identify as liberal) showing how their amplification of racial and other identity issues (read: grievances) has contributed to America's culture war, doxxing, and other destructive trends. They'd love for us to know much more about the 'good trouble' they're getting us into, and its negative effects on the health of the nation, wouldn't they?

[Diogenes]

In that case I'll just wait for the all the research coming from higher education social science fields (something like 95% of these folks self-identify as liberal) showing how their amplification of racial and other identity issues (read: grievances) has contributed to America's culture war, doxxing, and other destructive trends. They'd love for us to know much more about the 'good trouble' they're getting us into, and its negative effects on the health of the nation, wouldn't they?

If I recall correctly, doxxing got popular in the 90's not by liberals with grievances, but by anti-choice radicals for the purpose of murdering Planned Parenthood employees. You should probably also follow up on the bigger modern examples like Gamergate- a bunch of alt right incels doxxing for the purpose of rape and murder of feminists that slighted them in youtube videos.

And with the Culture War, y'all are the ones with the cheesy political hot-take books that co-opted it and made it the brand that it is today.

Live by the whataboutism, die by the whataboutism.