Monday, May 19, 2014

Nerd News: Trigger Warnings, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom

Oh, for Pete's sake.  Read this and this, which also gives us the quote of the day:
"Trigger warnings are presented as a gesture of empathy, but the irony is they lead only to more solipsism, an over-preoccupation with one’s own feelings—much to the detriment of society as a whole. Structuring public life around the most fragile personal sensitivities will only restrict all of our horizons. Engaging with ideas involves risk, and slapping warnings on them only undermines the principle of intellectual exploration. We cannot anticipate every potential trigger—the world, like the Internet, is too large and unwieldy. But even if we could, why would we want to? Bending the world to accommodate our personal frailties does not help us overcome them."
Speaking of triggers, how many warnings do you think this bit of classic Weird Al hilarity would now require? 


Trigger Happy.

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