to think trigger warnings are pointless?

[AgnestaVipers]

I have just come across this meta-analysis of the research on the effectiveness of trigger warnings.

twitter.com/paytonjjones/status/1563950340944560128?t=wiSabn0PLlY2d2NEo2TSDQ&s=19

TL;DR: they don't work.

I have been astonished lately that trigger warnings are put on things like books on English Literature degree courses.

Has anyone ever found them useful?

I was forced as a very vulnerable teenager to read a book about incest

So, to be clear - how were you forced to read it? I am genuinely interested to understand that for various reasons. If there was a TW, you are saying you could have chosen not to read the book?

There have been multiple posts on this thread stating that trigger warnings are useless and don't work despite posters describing how the have worked for them.

Yes, because people have their own perspective.
You might find them helpful; other people say they click or read on anyway, or ignore them.

77% so far are saying YANBU.

People's pain and trauma are not denied by differences of opinion on a topic. And, because I am not the boss of everything, I am not going to decree that TWs should be banned.

I actually find them really handy, I prefer content warning over trigger warning though. I don't know whether it actually has any effect on my anxiety levels but I like the control that a content warning allows.

It was the book assigned to me as my A Level English Literature set text, as part of the Comparative Literature part of the course (reading and comparing this novel with King Lear).

I had no idea it was about incest and a father raping his daughters until half way through reading the book (the fact the dad raped them is a plot twist that is revealed later in the book, so the book jacket is careful to not give any indication of this to avoid being a spoiler).

By the time I got the the part of the book where the spoiler is revealed I'd already done too much work to be able to change to a different book, since we were reading and analysing it chapter by chapter. If I'd known from the start I would have had time to change books.

Also, a teacher using TW indicates that that teacher is aware of issues like PTSD and will be sympathetic towards students saying "I can't read this book because it's triggering." As a very mentally unwell and abused teenager, do you think I would have had the confidence to approach a teacher to demand to read a different book from everyone else? No - but a teacher using and discussing trigger warnings would have reassured me that I was allowed to, and would have implicitly given me permission to request a new book.

Well, now I understand the context. The being forced bit was because it was on the A level syllabus, and you didn't feel confident enough to ask the teacher if you could change it. Yes, that would have been very troubling for you, yet I think ironically your teachers would have quickly let you switch if they had known the distress it would cause you. I'm guessing it's The Wasp Factory, which is a really messed up book. I struggled with it myself, despite having no related issues. (I realised I've just 'spoiled' the book now for any passing prospective readers.)

I am trying not to be flippant and offering my condolences at you being forced to study King Lear, too. (I hate that play.)

77% so far are saying YANBU.

Statistically it's unlikely the majority of MNers have experienced the kind of major trauma this thread is discussing.

Plus, MN tends to skew pretty right wing and there's a lot of real anger and vitriol towards anything perceived as "woke" or "snowflakey" right now.

There is a recent influx of posters - and I am not accusing the OP since I don't think she's one of them at all, but sometimes you get a large group of posters who all post identical political threads at the same time. Recently there were about half a dozen threads started within a short space of time promoting the idea that disabled people are benefits cheats and pondering if the Tories should cut disability benefits, which definitely felt like orchestrated propaganda, or someone testing the waters.

A recent thread about trigger warnings was full of very similarly worded rants about "woke liberals censoring books" but actual book banning (which is usually done by conservatives/right wingers) on books discussing LGBT issues or racism are either completely ignored or applauded. I looked for and couldn't find a single thread about the major news story about Maus being banned, but there were at least two threads about a very minor news story about a uni letting students opt out of reading books about sexual abuse. There are posts saying it's fine to ban books about gay kids because those books are "dangerous" and "grooming", but that letting teenagers opt out of reading books about rape is "fascist censorship."

There's a very very clear political bias at play here (not in this thread, but in general on MN) and trauma survivors are basically being exploited as pawns in the so-called culture wars.

The are saying that they don't work, not that they don't work for them. If they help some people they're doing their job.

Why do you care so much anyway? Why can't you just ignore them?

I appreciate that, and sorry for being harsh earlier.

(Though weirdly I quite like King Lear.)

Why do you care so much anyway? Why can't you just ignore them?

That's a fair question.

First, let me reiterate that I do know that real and profoundly disabling trauma exists, often in the form of sexual abuse or violence. That - and the need for proper psychiatric/therapeutic care - is not up for debate in this thread.

Why am I interested? Firstly, again, I was intrigued by the study described in the OP. It was not what I expected to hear.

I care because I perceive our society to be pathologising everything. Medicating everything. And that young people (whose welfare I care about) perceive themselves to be far more fragile than they really are. And for people to go through life perceiving themselves as fragile is a dangerous and unsustainable situation. This comes from years of experience in interacting with young people (in personal and professional ways), as well as the simple observation of the wider culture.

I think there's a blame culture, and that young people increasingly look to some sort of authority figure to help them manage their difficult feelings. This is borne out in university contexts, where academics are accused of hurting their students if their work is criticised. To the point where medical students may not have been robustly examined, for fear that the profs get accused of something. So that system is producing second rate doctors, or (more widely) second rate critical thinkers.

It intersects with the 'woke' issue because at the heart of that is the critical social justice movement, which reduces everyone down to oppressed/oppressor, and in order to avoid being 'oppressor' people need to find themselves an aspect of victimhood. Straight white men are the most reviled. Middle class straight white girls or women are second in line.

Going through life thinking in terms of grievances and micro-aggressions is reducing our culture's robustness. It is highly divisive. It is churning out people who are medically damaged or reliant on antidepressants. It's a culture full of people hopelessly reliant on the opinion of others. It is profoundly unhealthy. Which is surely borne out in the staggeringly depressing stats around young people's mental health.

So I would argue that we should not be coddling young people. I think, given the challenges ahead, we need stronger people. And I am interested in how that can be encouraged.

@JemimaPuddlegoose
I appreciate that, and sorry for being harsh earlier.

(Though weirdly I quite like King Lear.)

Apology accepted. I hope my explanation for why I care about this (above) also reassures you I am not trolling.

As for King Lear - nothing will convince me! 😁

Here it is again verbatim quote:
(By @JemimaPuddlegoose
"Oh and insisting on putting the word trauma in quotes is beyond the pale cunty."

And it seems that @NotBaffled is quite baffled
not by the use of this offensive language but
by my reaction to it. It's "goading & provocative".
Calling someone else "c...y" is perfectly ok
on the other hand, as it was expressed in advancing
the righteous cause.

That'll teach me.
What baffles me at this point is the fact that
@NotBaffled is so concerned I have NO personality
to speak of.
I can only apologise for this malfunction.
Unreservedly.