"The Coddling of the American Mind."

[Marokai Backbeat]

I thought this was a good read. So much more of it is worth reading than any excerpts I'd be allowed to provide (of which there are loads), so I really encourage reading and thinking about it. The following excerpt is more of the premise behind the essay. It's an interesting angle on the usual "anti-political correctness" stuff.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

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[PJ]

This is an utterly fascinating article, particularly the tidbit about how trigger warnings are actually harmful toward those with PTSD and those with certain fears in that it reinforces said fears by encouraging avoidance of them.

Haidt is also spot on about how taking offense often stifles debate and obstructs critical thinking as a whole. What I find most absurd and perhaps the most legitimately damaging aspect of extremely PC sentiments and trigger warnings is that they're not exactly prevalent or even easy to find outside of college campuses, so the overly offended attitude "coddled" in college will be crushed when someone actually has to address a controversial issue that they may find uncomfortable or offensive.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

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http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122543/trigger-warning-myth

I read this article and found it more than a bit disturbing that the author likened attempts to reduce racism to attempts to institute campus trigger warnings, which made him seem quite disingenuous. After all, anti-racism bears little relation to concerns about trigger warnings, it has been a part of campus politics since the 60s. Sure enough, I discovered that Lukianoff is the head of FIRE, which embraces a very classical liberal conception of "liberty", which has little room for diversity or tolerance.

This is a very intellectually dishonest article written by a man who has no real understanding of psychology or the role of education. It's a polemical piece and should be treated as such.

Note: I'm opposed to mandating trigger warnings, which should be a matter of individual discretion depending on how comfortable a professor might be about playing "armchair psychologist". I'm not opposed to "political correctness" if that means censuring someone's ability to express racist sentiments in the classroom, either through an expression of disapproval or through something more formal.