Political Ocean's 11

[smjjames]

I haven't seen much of that, Alanis. Hypocrisy, maybe.

 

Who's Alanis? Gfted1?

 

Nice French name there.

[Amentep]

I think its a reference to Alanis Morrisette's song "Ironic".

 

You know other than the trauma psychologists who I mentioned and their data/fear that trigger warnings might be counter-productive to healing, I don't really understand the issue with trigger warnings such that people have such a strong knee-jerk reaction to them. 

[smjjames]

SJWs going to ridiculous lengths with the trigger warnings may have something to do with that Amentep.

[Malcador]

I think its a reference to Alanis Morrisette's song "Ironic".

 

You know other than the trauma psychologists who I mentioned and their data/fear that trigger warnings might be counter-productive to healing, I don't really understand the issue with trigger warnings such that people have such a strong knee-jerk reaction to them.

Me neither. A lot of the time it's just mocking people for not being hard (I suspect empty can phenomenon applies in these cases). But is just the usual outrage over people doing stuff you don't like. Keeps the Daily Mail in business, after all.

 

Does remind me of a conversation at work where they were mocking Bronies, but I asked them how does their obsession with men running around a field, sweating and grabbing each other differ. Funny as GD had some hair up his ass over this, doesn't he always say life is better if people kept their noses out of others' business ?

[Pidesco]

A part of the modern moral standard is a lot about pulling yourself by your bootstraps, being your own person, in control of yourself, and having the power to control your body and everything around it. It's an illusion that is very nice and romantic, partly stepped in the good ol' protestant/puritan work ethic and sexist notions of manhood but it has not a lot of basis in reality. For many people  this belief is essential not only to their worldview but also to their sense of personal worth. Trigger warnings challenge that mindset and so are seen by many as a personal and societal attack.

[213374U]

You know other than the trauma psychologists who I mentioned and their data/fear that trigger warnings might be counter-productive to healing, I don't really understand the issue with trigger warnings such that people have such a strong knee-jerk reaction to them.

 

Yeah. Something along the lines of trigger warnings "encouraging a culture of avoidance", right?

 

While I understand where they're coming from, I'm not sure I'd agree -- it's one thing to encourage facing one's traumas as a form of therapy, and other just encouraging that people randomly happen upon stuff that, as TN suggests, may actually result in a setback in their therapy progress.

 

To me that sounds more like a psychiatrist's social commentary rather than a professional opinion because it doesn't address whether a) such "triggers" exist and b) if "trigger warnings" can actually prevent PTSD episodes. Let alone the larger issue of where to draw the line, of course... The assumption is that if "triggers" exist, and trigger warnings work as advertised, their application runs contrary to the approach of trauma centered cognitive therapy.

 

Heh. I wish I had some psychiatrist acquaintances to pick their brains about this, but all of my friends are more hard sciences people and am not about to shell out 80 bucks for a session with my shrink just to have a casual chat.

[Guard Dog]

@Malc: I just enjoy pointing out absurdity and that particular instance pegs the absurd-o-meter. Shakespere (or someone) wrote Titus Andonicus around 1600. So people have been warching or reading it over four hundred years. Now a Cambrige professor needs to warn the poor little dears and edit parts out so they won't feel bad? Absurd city. I don't really care one way or another to tell the truth other than conversational value. And since we got five forum pages out of it I'd say it had some. It wasn't even Shakespere's best play. King Lear & Henry V have that distinction. My copy of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare is safe from being edited so I'm good. But when it comes to mocking people who can't even read a four hundred year old work of fiction without needing therapy, guilty as charged. 

 

@Pidesco: How is that illusory? Sure you can't (and shouldn't try) to control everything around you but you DO have full control over how you deal with it. 

[213374U]

@Pidesco: How is that illusory? Sure you can't (and shouldn't try) to control everything around you but you DO have full control over how you deal with it. 

 

And that's kind of the crux. For example, as a former Marine, you're probably aware that it's largely impossible to predict how a particular individual is going to react to the stress of actual combat, regardless of training. Don't you think everyone would react in the exact same calm, collected fashion if it was something that's under one's control?

[Guard Dog]

 

@Pidesco: How is that illusory? Sure you can't (and shouldn't try) to control everything around you but you DO have full control over how you deal with it. 

 

And that's kind of the crux. For example, as a former Marine, you're probably aware that it's largely impossible to predict how a particular individual is going to react to the stress of actual combat, regardless of training. Don't you think everyone would react in the exact same calm, collected fashion if it was something that's under one's control?

 

 

Not a great example because they go to great lengths to teach people how to deal with that. But I do get your point. I can't tell someone how to feel about something.

[Pidesco]

@Malc: I just enjoy pointing out absurdity and that particular instance pegs the absurd-o-meter. Shakespere (or someone) wrote Titus Andonicus around 1600. So people have been warching or reading it over four hundred years. Now a Cambrige professor needs to warn the poor little dears and edit parts out so they won't feel bad? Absurd city. I don't really care one way or another to tell the truth other than conversational value. And since we got five forum pages out of it I'd say it had some. It wasn't even Shakespere's best play. King Lear & Henry V have that distinction. My copy of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare is safe from being edited so I'm good. But when it comes to mocking people who can't even read a four hundred year old work of fiction without needing therapy, guilty as charged. 

 

@Pidesco: How is that illusory? Sure you can't (and shouldn't try) to control everything around you but you DO have full control over how you deal with it. 

 

No you don't. That's the point. There are plenty of situations where a person's body, brain included, can and will be uncontrollable. It can be anxiety attacks, a chemical imbalance in the brain, arousal due to sexual stimulus, the fight or flight response, Tourette's or a bunch of other things I can't recall right now. Trigger warnings help towards managing some of these.

 

For instance, if someone is a Vietnam vet who suffers from severe PTSD, that person should be aware of anything that might unexpectedly trigger the disorder, like descriptions of the war in a book.

[Amentep]

[Yeah. Something along the lines of trigger warnings "encouraging a culture of avoidance", right?

 

The psychologists I read (and its been a long time but I think at least one was a trauma specialist) believed avoidance led to depression and helplessness.

 

I think at their best or most charitable, the Trigger Warning isn't intended to encourage avoidance, but approaching the material on terms of managed expectations.

 

And that's where I'm a bit torn - not being an expert I can see why the experts would think avoidance is a problem and that trigger warnings could lead to avoidance (albeit in college classes, you can only avoid so far before your grades suffer), but I'm also not sure avoidance is the intent (even if its the outcome - which perhaps points to a need to work on the issue rather than scrap it, perhaps).

 

@Malc: I just enjoy pointing out absurdity and that particular instance pegs the absurd-o-meter. Shakespere (or someone) wrote Titus Andonicus around 1600. So people have been warching or reading it over four hundred years. Now a Cambrige professor needs to warn the poor little dears and edit parts out so they won't feel bad? Absurd city. I don't really care one way or another to tell the truth other than conversational value. And since we got five forum pages out of it I'd say it had some. It wasn't even Shakespere's best play. King Lear & Henry V have that distinction. My copy of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare is safe from being edited so I'm good. But when it comes to mocking people who can't even read a four hundred year old work of fiction without needing therapy, guilty as charged.

 

Titus may not be his best but it is his goriest (even if Lavinia's rape and mutilation is off stage).

 

That said, I think what you say may be the crux of the issue on this debate - I think - that it'd be fair to say that the intention of trigger warnings isn't that to protect people from experiencing a trauma that would send them to therapy, but to protect people from reliving an already extant trauma that they are still coming to grips with (with therapy or not). 

 

Or to put another way, its not the case of a sheltered man or woman being incensed at encountering a fictional rape and mutilation, but someone with PTSD who may relive their own rape by reading of a fictional one that is intended to be protected.

[Guard Dog]

 

@Malc: I just enjoy pointing out absurdity and that particular instance pegs the absurd-o-meter. Shakespere (or someone) wrote Titus Andonicus around 1600. So people have been warching or reading it over four hundred years. Now a Cambrige professor needs to warn the poor little dears and edit parts out so they won't feel bad? Absurd city. I don't really care one way or another to tell the truth other than conversational value. And since we got five forum pages out of it I'd say it had some. It wasn't even Shakespere's best play. King Lear & Henry V have that distinction. My copy of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare is safe from being edited so I'm good. But when it comes to mocking people who can't even read a four hundred year old work of fiction without needing therapy, guilty as charged. 

 

@Pidesco: How is that illusory? Sure you can't (and shouldn't try) to control everything around you but you DO have full control over how you deal with it. 

 

No you don't. That's the point. There are plenty of situations where a person's body, brain included, can and will be uncontrollable. It can be anxiety attacks, a chemical imbalance in the brain, arousal due to sexual stimulus, the fight or flight response, Tourette's or a bunch of other things I can't recall right now. Trigger warnings help towards managing some of these.

 

For instance, if someone is a Vietnam vet who suffers from severe PTSD, that person should be aware of anything that might unexpectedly trigger the disorder, like descriptions of the war in a book.

 

 

OK, back to the Shakespeare example. I'm assuming an English Lit student at Cambridge University know about William Shakespeare and his work long before reading Titus Andronicus. Nothing contained in that play is far beyond any other work of his. They really should not need to be warned. A Vietnam vet reading Fields of Fire knows what kind of book he's reading. It should not come as a surprise to find depictions of war in a novel about war.

 

If you order a cup of coffee you don't get to be mad it wasn't tea. Does the cup really need a trigger warning "This is coffee not tea" ?

[Malcador]

@Malc: I just enjoy pointing out absurdity and that particular instance pegs the absurd-o-meter. Shakespere (or someone) wrote Titus Andonicus around 1600. So people have been warching or reading it over four hundred years. Now a Cambrige professor needs to warn the poor little dears and edit parts out so they won't feel bad? Absurd city. I don't really care one way or another to tell the truth other than conversational value. And since we got five forum pages out of it I'd say it had some. It wasn't even Shakespere's best play. King Lear & Henry V have that distinction. My copy of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare is safe from being edited so I'm good. But when it comes to mocking people who can't even read a four hundred year old work of fiction without needing therapy, guilty as charged.

 

@Pidesco: How is that illusory? Sure you can't (and shouldn't try) to control everything around you but you DO have full control over how you deal with it.

So you're bothered by people doing absurd stuff that doesn't affect you enough to mock them, for some reason. But yeah you're totally indifferent.

 

Didn't think they were editing the play and it was just the warning for three lectures. Never did look up to see how the course works to see what that matters.

[injurai]

A part of the modern moral standard is a lot about pulling yourself by your bootstraps, being your own person, in control of yourself, and having the power to control your body and everything around it. It's an illusion that is very nice and romantic, partly stepped in the good ol' protestant/puritan work ethic and sexist notions of manhood but it has not a lot of basis in reality. For many people  this belief is essential not only to their worldview but also to their sense of personal worth. Trigger warnings challenge that mindset and so are seen by many as a personal and societal attack.

 

I feel like this could be referring to either conservatives or the a certain type of exposed nerve liberal as well... but which.

[Guard Dog]

 

@Malc: I just enjoy pointing out absurdity and that particular instance pegs the absurd-o-meter. Shakespere (or someone) wrote Titus Andonicus around 1600. So people have been warching or reading it over four hundred years. Now a Cambrige professor needs to warn the poor little dears and edit parts out so they won't feel bad? Absurd city. I don't really care one way or another to tell the truth other than conversational value. And since we got five forum pages out of it I'd say it had some. It wasn't even Shakespere's best play. King Lear & Henry V have that distinction. My copy of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare is safe from being edited so I'm good. But when it comes to mocking people who can't even read a four hundred year old work of fiction without needing therapy, guilty as charged.

 

@Pidesco: How is that illusory? Sure you can't (and shouldn't try) to control everything around you but you DO have full control over how you deal with it.

So you're bothered by people doing absurd stuff that doesn't affect you enough to mock them, for some reason. But yeah you're totally indifferent.

 

Didn't think they were editing the play and it was just the warning for three lectures. Never did look up to see how the course works to see what that matters.

 

 

I'm interested in it for conversational value. Like I said, we got five pages (and still counting) on entertaining discussion out of that post. 

[Malcador]

Entertaining discussion? Heh, ok.

[Guard Dog]

It has been keeping YOU coming back!   

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

A Vietnam vet reading Fields of Fire knows what kind of book he's reading.

How? Popular as Fields of Fire and Shakespeare may be, people aren't born with a knowledge of the works before reaing them or getting spoiled. Assuming someone didn't spoil them on the plot, they would still be going in relatively blind reading it for the first time and could very well get their PTSD TRIGGERED by something they weren't expecting. I think the SJWs are stupid and there is a limit to warnings that can be communicated, but we shouldn't let a fringe group of tumblrites determine policy towards mental illness because being contrarian will TRIGGER liberal sjw betacucks.

[Malcador]

It has been keeping YOU coming back!

Doesn't mean it is entertaining, it passes the time but not quite warranting that term.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Malcador

[Gfted1]

 

A Vietnam vet reading Fields of Fire knows what kind of book he's reading.

How? Popular as Fields of Fire and Shakespeare may be, people aren't born with a knowledge of the works before reaing them or getting spoiled. Assuming someone didn't spoil them on the plot, they would still be going in relatively blind reading it for the first time and could very well get their PTSD TRIGGERED by something they weren't expecting. I think the SJWs are stupid and there is a limit to warnings that can be communicated, but we shouldn't let a fringe group of tumblrites determine policy towards mental illness because being contrarian will TRIGGER liberal sjw betacucks.

 

 

Psst, its called a prologue. Assuming they don't need help for that part too.

 

I also just felt like typing "betacucks" because it gives me the lol's.

[Malcador]

 

 

A Vietnam vet reading Fields of Fire knows what kind of book he's reading.

How? Popular as Fields of Fire and Shakespeare may be, people aren't born with a knowledge of the works before reaing them or getting spoiled. Assuming someone didn't spoil them on the plot, they would still be going in relatively blind reading it for the first time and could very well get their PTSD TRIGGERED by something they weren't expecting. I think the SJWs are stupid and there is a limit to warnings that can be communicated, but we shouldn't let a fringe group of tumblrites determine policy towards mental illness because being contrarian will TRIGGER liberal sjw betacucks.

 

 

Psst, its called a prologue. Assuming they don't need help for that part too.

 

I also just felt like typing "betacucks" because it gives me the lol's.

 

Do they have prologues now ? I don't recall my Shakespeare plays having one that covered what material would be shown in the play. In any event you're advocating something that achieves the same as the trigger warning.

[Gfted1]

Youre going to have to do some problem solving on your own to figure out my post.

[Malcador]

Youre going to have to do some problem solving on your own to figure out my post.

Well, you're suggesting the prologue as the solution, but seems to be any kind of forewarning is ridiculous to you.

[Gfted1]

Keep trying....and Ill even give you a hint. GD is talking about books....and what do books have......?

 

Dont click this spoiler until you have it....

 

 

A prologue is used to give readers extra information that advances the plot. It is included in the front matter and for a good reason! Authors use them for various purposes, including: Giving background information about the story.

 

 

And no, I didn't even make that up.

[Malcador]

Well thing is, not all books have prologues (some don't even have anything worth an epilogue - look at Stephenson). Don't really recall if all the copies of the plays I read have them, been too long. So the trigger warnings are just a highlight of the prologue's material, I fail to see the issue.