Academics at Cambridge, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the English-speaking world, are beginning to have second thoughts about attaching “trigger warnings” to every cotton-pickin’ thing–especially to William Shakespeare’s plays (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/10/19/cambridge-university-slammed-over-shakespeare-trigger-warnings.html).
See, the idea is to help students avoid hearing or reading anything that they might possibly find to be at all distressing. Not knowing what traumatic experiences any one of thousands of students might have had way back, while in his/her/xer cradle, and wishing at all costs to spare them any reminders of such unhappy times, they pretty much have to trigger-warning everything.
True, Shakespeare’s plays do feature every kind of mayhem you can think of, great heaping portions of it; but if it’s going to bother you that much, why study Shakespeare at all?
But it’s not just The Bard. Would you believe it? Even law lectures, about crime, are trigger-warninged so that law students don’t ever have to hear about some of the things that criminals actually do.
One might agree, at no cost to his self-respect, that Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, featuring rape, murder, mutilation, and cannibalism, is hardly suitable for a dinner theater program. But we are talking about students who grew up playing Zombie Apocalypse all day and watching ‘Game of Thrones’ all night. They might find Titus Andronicus too tame for them.
But then they get to collidge and run around like chickens with their heads cut off because they’ve been taught that they are precious little snowflakes who will melt upon exposure to even the slightest heat. It’s really quite a transformation. I wonder how they do it.
Higher education: making the whole world dumber by the day.
Lee, you’ve made a huge tactical error. You see, I find the term “trigger warning” to be a trigger and now I am traumatized. I’m going to have to sue you for 2 pounds of Pla-Doh, a coloring book (with a pack of 64 different crayons), some jammies with feet, a cup of hot chocolate and a 3 hour long time out. 🙂
It is to laugh. These people watch that zombie crap which is horribly violent, yet they can’t deal with reality. The schools are coddling them and doing nothing to prepare them for life in the real world. I suspect that there will be major meltdowns in the future of these people and they will lack the skills required to get themselves out of the (emotional) holes the colleges held them dig.
Just proves, once again, we see what we want to see. If we don’t like the premise that 2 + 2 equals 4, then pshaw!, all we have to do is refuse to accept it and say it equals 5 and if you disagree, then you are being cruel and hateful.
Delusion marches on.
When people go looking for offenses they will find them. And the more they find, the more things they will get offended about. It’s a never ending cycle. In the end they waste a whole lot of time and energy, and haven’t achieved anything. Here’s a novel idea, “choose” not to be offended.
This blog post and comments made me think of the “Saw” movies (I think #8 is coming out next). They are gruesome, disturbing, and nightmarish to the nth degree. Young people love them. So how can Shakespeare upset them? I don’t get it. Wait till they get their degree in some useless subject and find out there is no career out there waiting for them. Trying to make the rent while paying the interest on their college loan will become their daily nightmare.
Unfortunately, their mission has been accomplished.