Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Free speech is last century. Today’s students want the ‘right to be comfortable’

spectator.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 65 posts

Re: Free speech is last century. Today’s students want the ‘right to be comfortable’

#21

Post by A_COMPUTER »

gpcz wrote: post #11
chrismcb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the good arguments FOR "trigger warnings?"

My understanding based on reading the Geek Feminism Wiki [1] is that the author misrepresented trigger warnings as a signal that something might be offensive when rather they are actually meant to give people a warning that content may re-open deep psychological wounds (such as a PTSD flashback from abuse, urges to self-harm, etc). [1] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Trigger_warning

"Trigger warning" and "safe space" are two terms that have sensible, specific definitions, but in practice are very frequently used in an informal, overly expansive way that renders them ridiculous.

Re: Free speech is last century. Today’s students want the ‘right to be comfortable’

#22

Post by kryps »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #13
chrismcb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the good arguments FOR "trigger warnings?"

> What are the good arguments FOR "trigger warnings?" If you've ever seen a rape survivor having a PTSD-induced breakdown, you consider it polite to avoid causing that when practical.

So we won't have a public debate about war anymore because it might cause a PTSD-induced breakdown in veterans?

Re: Free speech is last century. Today’s students want the ‘right to be comfortable’

#23

Post by gpcz »

kryps wrote: post #22
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are the good arguments FOR "trigger warnings?" If you've ever seen a rape survivor having a PTSD-induced breakdown, you consider it polite to avoid causing that when practical.

So we won't have a public debate about war anymore because it might cause a PTSD-induced breakdown in veterans?

We'd still have the debate, but if we know in advance that we're going to show or describe the horrors of war in graphic detail, we'd warn the veterans in the audience beforehand. Trigger warnings aren't censorship, they're common courtesy.

Re: Free speech is last century. Today’s students want the ‘right to be comfortable’

#24

Post by tzs »

gpcz wrote: post #11
chrismcb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the good arguments FOR "trigger warnings?"

My understanding based on reading the Geek Feminism Wiki [1] is that the author misrepresented trigger warnings as a signal that something might be offensive when rather they are actually meant to give people a warning that content may re-open deep psychological wounds (such as a PTSD flashback from abuse, urges to self-harm, etc). [1] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Trigger_warning

The intention may be good, but in practice trigger warnings probably do more harm than good to the very people they are meant to help. See the long discussion at the end of this article [1] with an expert on treating trauma survivors for details. An interesting quote from him:

   The media should actually – quite the contrary…
   Instead of encouraging a culture of avoidance,
   they should be encouraging exposure.

   Most trauma survivors avoid situations that remind
   them of the experience. Avoidance means helplessness
   and helplessness means depression. That’s not good.

   Exposure to trauma reminders provides an opportunity
   to gain control over them. This is the essence of the
   treatment that we are using to help trauma survivors.
   It involves encouraging the patient not to avoid
   reminders of trauma, but in fact to make a point of
   exposing themselves to reminders of trauma so that
   they can develop a tolerance.

   I liken it to a vaccination. You get a small dose of
   the virus so that the body can develop immunity towards
   it. Psychologically it’s the same phenomenon.
Here's another article that discusses five studies relevant to trigger warnings [2]. A couple interesting quotes:

   Trigger warnings are designed to help survivors avoid
   reminders of their trauma, thereby preventing emotional
   discomfort. Yet avoidance reinforces PTSD.
and

   Many women who have experienced sexual assault reject the
   label victim in favor of survivor. But although the latter
   term connotes empowering agency, having trauma become central
   to one’s identity bodes poorly for one’s mental health.
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/11106670/Trigger-wa...

[2] http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/hazards-...

Re: Free speech is last century. Today’s students want the ‘right to be comfortable’

#25

Post by thenmar »

yzzxy wrote: post #4

I think this is an important discussion to be had. The question of whether ideas like "trigger warnings" should be implemented in academia have good arguments on both sides. On a few of these issues I'm not sure where I stand yet and I'm very interested in hearing intelligent discourse from both sides over the next few years. However, I don't think this is a particularly good article on the topic. It's riddled with c…

Agreed. Just read the first paragraph.

But their student brains have been replaced by brains bereft of critical faculties and programmed to conform. To the untrained eye, they seem like your average book-devouring, ideas-discussing, H&M-adorned youth, but anyone who’s spent more than five minutes in their company will know that these students are far more interested in shutting debate down than opening it up.

This base-shoring piece ironically panders to people who've already made up their mind and are uninterested in engaging in any kind of meaningful discussion. You can't possibly write something like that and expect to convince anyone that you're arguing in good faith.

Re: Free speech is last century. Today’s students want the ‘right to be comfortable’

#28

Post by omegaham »

I don't like the tone of his writing, but he's got some excellent points.

I think that one of the greatest strengths of the university system is the idea that "offensive" ideas can be debated. An enormous amount of knowledge has been gotten from heresy, and I would argue that universities have been so central in the spread of knowledge precisely because they encourage (or at least tolerate) people who go against the grain.

This has disappeared, and I think that it leads to bad ideas winning.

One of the reasons why the US has such a strong protection toward speech, especially political and ideological speech, is that the Founding Fathers and their successors recognized the unpalatability of conflicting ideas and gave them the strongest possible protection. They recognized that such protection would give assholes the ability to say horrible, offensive things, and they believed that such a side effect was far better than the alternative - stifling free expression and allowing bad ideas to win because their proponents were better represented, better connected, or just flat-out more willing to suppress the other side's viewpoints.

The fact that these students are completely ignorant of this history is amusing because our modern academic tradition was based entirely off of this belief in a "marketplace of ideas."

Ben Franklin said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

I'd love to see what those exact same students would say if the prevailing attitude changed and a massive wave of right-wing ideology took over campus politics. I'm sure that they'd be crying about how their self-evident right to self-expression was being horribly violated. Poor things.

Re: Free speech is last century. Today’s students want the ‘right to be comfortable’

#29

Post by gpcz »

tzs wrote: post #24
gpcz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding based on reading the Geek Feminism Wiki [1] is that the author misrepresented trigger warnings as a signal that something might be offensive when rather they are actually meant to give people a warning that content may re-open deep psychological wounds (such as a PTSD flashback from abuse, urges to self-harm, etc). [1] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Trigger_warning

The intention may be good, but in practice trigger warnings probably do more harm than good to the very people they are meant to help. See the long discussion at the end of this article [1] with an expert on treating trauma survivors for details. An interesting quote from him: The media should actually – quite the contrary… Instead of encouraging a culture of avoidance, they should be encouraging exposure. Most traum…

Assuming that exposure is indeed the best way to treat PTSD, there is still the ethical matter of patient consent to consider. In the second linked article, the patient is exposed to the triggering content with full consent in a controlled clinical environment, but the recommendation in the first article is completely uncontrolled and could lead to adverse reactions away from a completely safe place. While I agree with Basoglu's assertion that there are too many possible triggers to warn everyone of everything, there are some common ones that we can warn about.

Re: Free speech is last century. Today’s students want the ‘right to be comfortable’

#30

Post by angersock »

xnull2guest wrote: post #17
chrismcb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the good arguments FOR "trigger warnings?"

We impose limitations on Free Speech for libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, hate speech, incitement, fighting words, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, non-disclosure agreements, right to privacy, right to be forgotten, public security, public order, public nuisance, and campaign finance reform. (This incomplete list scraped from Wikipedia). The means by which we decide these e…

What is done and what is right are not identical sets. Most of those ways that we restrict free speech, for example, don't actually hurt anyone. The "fire in a crowded theater" is usually taken out of historical context, where it was being used for authoritarian purposes.
Post reply on HN