Liberals vs. the PC left

[Aksannyi]

With all due respect to the vulnerable, no they should not be needlessly subject to repeated trauma, but living in a free society means dealing with those with whom we don't agree and confronting topics and subjects we don't want to. It is a victim's unfortunate burden to learn how to navigate and function in the world post-trauma. It is not the responsibility of the world to step on eggshells for them.

Trigger warnings have come to represent how bend-over-backwards we've become about making sure that no one is offended, everyone is safe, etc.

It's a laudable goal, but the fact is that it's not attainable insofar as there is no option where no one gets offended. Conflict of ideas is a natural and normal part of human social interaction. People have to get used to dealing with opinions they disagree with, confronting ideas that offend their sensibilities, etc.

Insofar as protecting people's vulnerabilities will conflict with the right to freedom of speech, I will choose freedom of speech every single time.

In the context of the internet I think that someone who experienced sexual assault has the onus on themselves not to go into forums/topics/sites and read about sexual assault. It's not the responsibility of journalists, other posters, etc. what not to make sure there's three levels of masking to protect their sensibilities.

For the most part, I would agree with this, and honestly, I would say that noises and or words that trigger someone are generally not used frequently enough for there to be major episodes, though I'm sure that's a "YMMV" type of thing. I'd hope that people who have serious triggers are at least getting some level of help with managing that.

All that being said, I don't necessarily believe that everyone who claims to have triggers actually has them. I do truly believe that, like the abortion example given a few posts ago, "trigger" became synonymous with "really pissed me off" and I disagree with a person's perceived right to harm or assault someone or destroy their belongings under the guise of being triggered, legitimate or not - unless they had absolutely zero control of their own actions, which is probably difficult to determine anyway.

It's not about schools not having safe spaces, it's about when the safe space comes into conflict with the ability of a campus to have legitimate debates and discourse on sensitive subjects.

I agree with this, and so far, I have not experienced this neither in the K-12 classrooms nor in the collegiate environment, and if I were to see that, it would bother me, too. My college experience has been that which I am able to express opinions, even if they are "wrong" according to the professor or another student.

And what would you do, theoretically, if you had a particular student whose legitimately held beliefs, which is is able and willing to defend in class articulately, are innately offensive and oppressive?

Say you have a super conservative Muslim student who cites can cite to passages of the Koran to support his religious beliefs that women in the classroom are an affront to God because their heads are uncovered? Or a crazy Christian student who, politely but firmly, states that that you have no authority over him because the Letters of Timothy state that women cannot exercise authority over men?

Should they be allowed to express these opinions? Arguably silencing them is denying them a safe space where they are being shamed for their religious beliefs.

This is a difficult one, but I will stress that he is entitled to have and express those beliefs, but that we will not be enacting his or any other oppressive and or potentially offensive ideology in my classroom (or the school in general). If it is that much of a problem such that the particular Muslim student felt unable to continue with my class or any other class in the school, then we'd have to work with parents, guidance counselors, and the administration.

If he is able to continue in my classroom then he will be allowed to express his beliefs the same as anyone else, but he will have to understand that he may have to defend and/or listen to rebuttals to his position. Students will be reminded to be respectful in any and all responses. Although I'm sure my females (and probably I) will be offended, it is my hope that they all gain an understanding of diversity and how sometimes, we have to agree to disagree on some things such as deeply held fundamental beliefs.

Do I think it will happen that way? No, and I think discussions can and will become very heated. In that case, it will be my job to step in and steer the conversation elsewhere and try to get the classroom back to rights. I don't expect it to be easy at all, and that's something I may actually bring up with one of my professors this week as a "what would you do?" scenario, because it sounds like a challenge.

What if a student presented a reasoned argument, with academically cited sources, arguing that his use of gay colloquially was about disarming the lingering negative connotations of the word in order to "reclaim" and "disarm" the word in the same that black youth use "nigga" or Asian youth use "ricer"?

I'm reminded of Randal in Clerks 2 with the "porch monkey" thing, where he claimed to be taking it back but was not able to effectively do so because he was white. In that sense, I'd say that you can't just randomly decide to take words back.

I suppose it would depend on how the argument was presented, but because the change and reclamation of speech is not an overnight process, I would probably not allow him to continue to use it in my classroom until I noted significant change on that front throughout the community. (Sidenote, it'd be nice to see "gay" go back to being "happy," but I can't really be one of the ones to reclaim it as I'm not a member of the gay community). Although I am familiar with the fact that "queer" has been taken back by the LGBTQA community.

Of course, but the big question mark with this is where the limits are drawn. My position is that you should always adopt a solution that permits discourse to continue. You can excuse the students who will have problems or issues participating, but you err if you every take away from the class in favor of a minority of the students.

I would not refrain from covering difficult topics for the discomfort of one or two students in a classroom. I would find alternative assignments for them to do while we covered those topics. If the topics are just "uncomfortable" like I said earlier, then I would probably ask them to participate. I know that some things aren't going to be easy to talk about, but I'm not going to give people a pass because "talking about sexuality with my 35+ y/o teacher is weird." I am going to have to put the onus on them to come to me if they're not comfortable with something that's coming up (and I will give them warning a few days in advance that it's coming so they have the chance to come to me if they need to).

I don't think anyone has a problem with stopping something when directly asked by another person for legitimate reasons.

I think the problem is when we start modifying normal course of behavior because we are afraid of some unindentified unknown person potentially being offended.

I think I already responded to this last night? My eyes were drooping pretty hard at that point, but I was really enjoying this thread (and a few other things across the web) and I was stupidly resisting sleep. But I definitely agree that everyone tiptoeing around so as not to potentially offend someone is ridiculous, because you just can't know if what you're saying/doing is going to offend one of the ... how ever many billion people are on this planet.

[tyven]

The mods on BG is from the PC left crowd. I've got a ton of infractions just for stating that blacks have lower IQ then whites, and suggesting that transgender people have a mental disorder.

This looks like a Tyven post from 2010. god bless you

[Meresgi]

No. But that said, if I have a student who will be legitimately triggered by something in the lesson that day, or who has expressed an extreme amount of discomfort with a particular topic, I'm not going to force that down their throats. There is a difference between slight discomfort and extreme discomfort. Some topics are going to be uncomfortable, like sex, sexuality, abortion, rape, etc.

If for whatever reason the topic for the lesson involves such subjects, you are a teacher and your job is to teach plain and simple. If they have issues with it they can ask to be excused or just leave and tell you later why. If you are a rational person you'll understand why they left, if they have something backing it up and not just saying "oh that triggers something in me". Way too easy for people to just pretend they have to leave because of some unseen psyche issue.

One thing I don't get about these types of arguments is that it seems people have transformed "I can say anything I want without being arrested or shut down by the government" to "I can say anything I want and there can be no consequences from anyone." Not talking about Charlie Hebdo, but like the newspaper article mentioned in the beginning of the piece in the OP. You can say whatever you want... but your boss isn't allowed to fire you if it hurts the paper? You can say whatever you want.... but the professor who is teaching and created the class isn't allowed to teach the way they want, they have to cater towards your views?

I agree with this, it's all about context but while I believe 100% in free speech I also believe 100% that if you say shit that offends someone to their face, you can expect to get punched in the face in return. Either metaphorically or legit fist + face.

[zoobernut]

Isn't this very similar to the duality between the "Family Values" Staunchly social conservative right and the Laissez-faire style of the people who will do anything for smaller government and less regulation?

[wipers]

Free speech only works if people have the right to express a viewpoint the majority disagrees with. For much of history, this has facilitated progress. Right now it's facilitating obstinate prejudice. So we have people we wouldn't expect to see forsake free speech turning on it.

It's no coincidence that in America at least this coincides with the shift in political power over the last ten years. In the early 2000's, the dissent that had to be quelled was anti-war talk and such. It was "unpatriotic" to talk about how the war was a mistake because it meant we were not supporting the troops. Now with Obama in the White House and with gay marriage on a slow but seemingly inevitable march to nationwide legality, you have a bunch of people who want to cement this new progress in tolerance by making sure that the remaining opponents can't even express their dissent

Internet activists treat civil rights like privileges to be granted to those whom we want to associate with. Real civil rights organizations like the ACLU know that rights have to be protected irrespective of who wants to assert them. That's why the ACLU has done things like represent the KKK. Because how we treat our enemies when we have power sets the precedent for how we are treated when we are the powerless. And we will struggle with this until this new generation of the political left comes to understand how civil rights work in the real world.

I disagree with 99.9% of youtube comments/posters freedom of speech must still exist.

Dissent is the America way though. If I start agreeing with you guys on here something is terribly wrong.