my opinions on the topic are pretty lukewarm: mostly, i think it is hilarious how tumblr-speak is now becoming part of a collegiate curriculum conversation, and can't wait to start seeing hashtags replace the dewy decimal system. generally, however, the human suffering of giving literature something akin to parental warnings seems lesser than the suffering of someone with a history of sexual abuse and war violence unknowingly cracking the spine of cormac mccarthy's the road. if trigger warnings are the wave of the future, i think free speech will probably live.
of course the debate bubbles around this concept of 'how-far is too far' when it comes to protecting trauma victims at the cost of treating 'feelings of discomfort' as legitimate problems to guard against in the academic sphere. will reading huckleberry finn really ignite PTSD symptoms in a minority individual who has experienced the ugliness of racism? while the answer probably depends on what exactly we mean by "ugliness," the question i haven't seen raised that seems to sit at the root of the debate is this:
what, as a society, do we want to create as the standard of being "college educated?"
if college students ought not risk the potential PTSD triggers in modern literature, or if college students ought not be mollycoddled with warnings of inflammatory subject matter, what SHOULD college students expect as appropriate psychological risk and protection, developmentally speaking?
in a social system, being "college educated" is a complicated trait. impersonally speaking, it is a broad certification that tends to classify individuals as more-worthy-than-their-less-educated-counterparts of various economic rewards. it can display a broad variety of things: the ability to either independently afford a college education, willingness to gamble on a college debt-scenario, or an extraordinary scenario where college is made affordable to an individual with special circumstances. it implies one possesses either the inherent ability, salt-of-the-earth hard work, or some combination of the two to continue structured learning beyond the legal requirement. further it suggests one places value on the institution of structured education.
but realistically, knowing merely that someone is college educated tells you very little about them. nationally speaking, it simply places you in a sector of roughly 1/3 of the total population. further a BS from stanford's engineering program isn't the same as a university of phoenix online BA in english, and while a degree may lump you into pleasant statistical categories about income and personal success, they are in no way guarantees you share the experiences of your statistically likely counterparts (PS the odds of being mark zuckerberg or bill gates aren't very good).
cries of the "dumbing down" of higher education reveal that many people believe trigger warnings to exist as a means to reduce the status of a college education in the social hierarchy, which seems like a poor argument in consideration of what it means to have a college education (independently speaking: not very much). this likely doesn't come as a shock to the millennial generation: the best educated group with noticeably few economic returns in terms of employment and earning power. as expectations for what a degree merits quickly begin to decrease, while expectations for what a lack of degree merits are dismal yet optimistic, we sit in an interesting place in terms of what being "college educated" means on the social level.
as a college education becomes less a method to guarantee financial security, and more a developmental life phase, the value of a college degree shifts inevitably. if college nowadays is less of a cog in a socioeconomic class system (which certainly doesn't imply it is NOT such a thing, but merely that it is less so than in the twentieth century), and more of a safe space to build a foundation to adulthood thinking, how will this shape what we consider to be higher education in our world?
making the space of emerging adulthood safer and more comfortable leaves everyone in the familiar pull of generational conflict. the expectations of the young, bred by their potentially coddled upbringings will likely lead to a safer more comfortable future (if history has any truth to it). yet the experienced will know that the realities of life often make us feel unsafe and uncomfortable and we stress the need to toughen up and teach the young some of life's hard realities. we hear the familiar conversation: life is hard... shouldn't we make it easier? but what then will happen to resilience?
do we make college a safer space? what, then, will be the point of college? it's a conversation limited not just to trigger warnings, but to partying, and hook up culture, and almost everything college touches. as college is the "first step" into adulthood for many of the modern era, it seems we are still struggling with just how authentic adulthood should look and feel to bright eyed eighteen-year-olds. real life doesn't come with trigger warnings yet, nor does it come with safety-guaranteed vodka or regret-proof condoms. will it eventually? should it?
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