uhhhhhhhh,

it uses the most wild examples just to prove the point that campuses are using trigger warnings to effectively “ban” free speech which is honestly the most short-sighted view of this debate on why people are asking for trigger warnings in the first place. but it also conveniently ignores how effectively instituting things like content/trigger warnings or even entering conversations willingly when things like microagressions (though I really have never quite liked this term since it minimizes the impact of things like daily racism, sexism, etc.) happen may actually be producing a whole lot of good from the point of view of the student. I think content warnings when implemented correctly can actually give both the student and professors the power of choice on how, when, and even why they may choose or choose not to engage with certain topics. 

I hate the idea that content/trigger warnings = banning. that’s not what they’re about! they’re used as a way to give people the heads up on certain discussions, so that they aren’t blindsided when, you know, for example, the super white literary canon taught at a majority of institutions will always fail to adequately address the needs and experiences of students of color and may in fact make them feel isolated or targeted in discussions especially around race. I can’t help but feel like every article written like this one is written by someone who just simply doesn’t experience these things because, guess what, academia was made for and by white men in power. academia is a product of colonization. 

also, if I see another think piece like this written with the belief that emotional reasoning is invalid and the “logic of rational thought” should be accepted above all other forms of reasoning, I will seriously throw something. neither classrooms nor the so-called “real world” function like a socratic dialogue where everyone uses witty fucking logic to have reasonable conversations where nothing is loaded and nobody is targeted or subject to violence. you’re going to be extremely emotionally stunted if you never consider how emotional reasoning is a huge part of the human psyche. you’re telling people not to be outraged. you’re telling people that if they want to talk about things like racism that they need to adhere to respectability politics. you are naming the terms on which people engage in discussions, where they can’t talk about their emotional responses to things that make them the targets in academic spaces. this is what it means to “ban” someone’s critical thinking, because critical thinking necessarily always involves the component of thinking emotionally and empathetically about something. especially when the topics that are so emotionally charged in the first place such as rape and racism are absolutely irrational in the first place. 

like, what is the alternative?? letting people suffer in a classroom? letting their emotional and mental health become even more seriously damaged and then chalking their problems up to “just grow a thicker skin, kid” or “why don’t you just come up with a more critical, logical comeback if something bothers you?” nevermind the entirety of emotional labor that some students have to produce for the delight of their peers like the classroom is some fucking stage show for cis white male pleasure.

let’s throw the word “normal” around some more. normal normal normal. let’s treat neuroatypical people more like they’re abnormal and need to be normalized in college so that they’re ready for post-grad life. please stop pathologizing people and then turning around and telling people that they’re pathologizing themselves. 

the only interesting part of this article was the proposition that colleges start teaching behavioral cognitive therapy to incoming students, but for all the wrong reasons. I agree that this kind of therapy works very well for a lot of people, myself included. I would be extremely wary of any attempts to implement it, however, as a way to solve for all the problems of students or to somehow normalize their thinking patterns.