U. of C. tells incoming freshmen it does not support 'trigger warnings' or 'safe spaces'

This is a much better stance. It is important to be exposed to other viewpoints, even if it just means learning your own viewpoint better that way.

In most PTSD and trauma support groups, trigger warnings are no longer the norm, and are generally frowned upon. Nice to see people are catching up.

As they should not support it. More universities and colleges should follow through.

a reply to: calstorm

The current best practice on PTSD is to talk and talk about it,over and over again, due to the recursive editions of memory, basically every time you recall it you can re-edit, you disarm the pain by diminishing it through repetition.

This can and will work! It can and will work for some (qualifier)

Why? I don't know! NVM (but lets not divert from this thread, anymore)

I remember when they started doing the whole "no keeping score, everybodys a winner, everybody gets a trophy/ribbon to take home"-thing with sports. So, these college men and women must be the result of those "new" rules from back then?

It's not productive to trick kids into believing that every single person on both teams is an excellent athelete. Sure, everyone might have the Potential to be a winner, at Something. That something might not necessarily be baseball or football or soccer/football. School should be a place that helps you discover your natural, hidden talents and allow them to grow and flourish and possibly branch out into several specialties, that you might hone in on one, or maybe just be a Jack of all/many trades.

The way the whole system is set up, from kindergarten on through high school, and now it even seems to be spreading to the universities, we're basically doomed to failure and it's amazing that anything gets done on this planet. They took the universal language of mathematics... the language of creation itself... and they turned it into the most universally hated, most boring, and worst of all... Feared... subject of all

The epic history of mankind, a tantalizing, engrossing story with close calls, love, passion, huge thrilling victories and perilous, mournful, disastrously agonizing defeats, life-changing innovations, huge battles that changed the course of mankind forever... They took our precious, glorious, and at many times painfully regretful but always with an important lesson to be learned that should never be forgotten... They took our history, what precious little we have of it, and they turned it into a mind numbing process of memorizing dates and names, to be used on a terror filled event called a test, only to be mostly discarded from memory afterwards, to make room and energy to put towards the next list of names and dates to be memorized for the next upcoming test...

Any subject can be made to be interesting, or boring. It seems like the only way it can be as boring as it was when i was in school, is if it was done on purpose. Not much blame can be placed on the teachers, because they have too many restrictions and limitations to deal with. I feel bad for them actually.

Good for this school taking a step in the right direction. Life is rough (for 99% of us), so you had better get prepared, properly, because it (life) is just gonna keep coming at you.

originally posted by: 3n19m470
I remember when they started doing the whole "no keeping score, everybodys a winner, everybody gets a trophy/ribbon to take home"-thing with sports. So, these college men and women must be the result of those "new" rules from back then?

Exactly!

a reply to: CatandtheHatchet

Does this count as proof that Obama's Chicago years as an "community organizer" was a failure???

Kudos for an all-too-rare administration pushing back against this nonsense.

But the one thing that kind of disturbs me in this discussion is those who call these creatures "snowflakes" - like they'll melt in the heat of any argument.

Sure, those types exist - but if you've looked into the madly spinning eyes of a True Believer in this nonsense, and seen the violence they do - both physical and metaphysical - to ideas and people they find repulsive - to call them "snowflakes" badly underestimates how dangerous they are to civil society.

Many of these are fascists by any definition of the word - and their tactics are designed to silence - by any means necessary - those who don't share their viewpoints.

These people - if they were truly in power - would happily have you lined up against a wall and shot. In a different time and place, these kids would be running the Killing Fields ...

originally posted by: infolurker
a reply to: CatandtheHatchet

Why are colleges coddling adults as though they were in Kindergarten?

Seriously, If a person cannot stand to hear differing opinions without throwing temper tantrums then they will most probably never be employable (except Government jobs and Academia).

The people who are throwing temper tantrums are perfectly capable of hearing differing opinions.

In truth, they want to exert some kind of power over adults, and they've found a weakness in the system. Because otherwise they have no power and are facing a tough life; they are just another naive undergraduate like millions of others.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss


Awesome video.

originally posted by: CatandtheHatchet
Chicago

University of Chicago class of 2020, get ready for a college experience filled with debate, discussion — and possibly discomfort. As colleges across the country wrestle with balancing academic freedom and open discourse with student health and safety, University of Chicago Dean of Students John Ellison told incoming freshmen in a letter what they should expect on campus. "Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called 'trigger warnings,' we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual 'safe spaces' where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own,"

I personally think this is great news. It has been worrying to see universities, where the sharing and debating of ideas and ideologies should be encouraged, were seemingly being closed down due to the fear of people taking umbrage to opposing views.

I hope more faculties take up the call to allow freedom of the expression of thought on their campuses.

Wow! A collage that has a perception of reality? I applaud them! It does make you wonder if there is something in our air or water that is making society insane. Restrooms anyone?

It's about time.

Grow a thicker skin kids.
You don't get to be the "protected" nitwit you've always been.
You are not a unique snowflake.
This world can and will chew you up and spit you out.

Safe zone.....what SJW dip*&%it thought that crap up?

When you are in the ocean, try telling a shark you are in your safe zone and it can't hurt you. That ought to do it.

a reply to: wdkirk

To add to, and comment on your last sentence...and why would parents intentionally not prepare their children for the real world? Why would you send a child out into reality unprepared to deal with everything? Isn't that the main job of a parent to prepare their children for the world...for work...for rejection and failure?

I would say that they aren't doing their jobs and that maybe, it is a form of child abuse.

This is admirable.. but I'm too pessimistic to be optimistic about it, this is one university out of hundreds.. all the others are on board with this madness. They've already made it into the new normal, it would take an even stronger push than the PC push to reverse this trend.

Or it will be increasingly challenged and we'll enter a new paradigm, but make no mistake about it: this has become the dominant ideological force in society.

originally posted by: snowspirit
It's about time. It made no sense, these young adults are supposed to be ready for the real world.
The real world isn't always nice, and the thought of young adults running, crying to a "safe place" was just ridiculous.
We had to be street tough by the age of 16 before, that was when many people left mommy and daddy to enter the real world (when it was more affordable).

A "safe place" was supposed to be somewhere a female student or member of staff could go if she didn't feel safe in the campus grounds or car park at night. Then an escort would come and go along with her to wherever she wanted to go. Somehow it got warped to being somewhere they wouldn't be criticised in any way whatsoever.

originally posted by: WeAreAWAKE
a reply to: wdkirk

To add to, and comment on your last sentence...and why would parents intentionally not prepare their children for the real world? Why would you send a child out into reality unprepared to deal with everything? Isn't that the main job of a parent to prepare their children for the world...for work...for rejection and failure?

I would say that they aren't doing their jobs and that maybe, it is a form of child abuse.

It's the schools. It used to be the case that on school sports day it would always be the tallest and stockiest kids who would win all the medals. This was decided as being unfair, so everyone got medals for simply attending and participating in a competition. Exam results used to be A,B,C,D or E.
But that was unfair, so everyone got a 1,2 or 3.
Classes were given names like 1A or 5D but that unfair to those who didn't get a 1 or A so that was changed to animal names or city names.

The push back to all this political correctness was bound to happen, there needs to be balance maintained, let people express themselves, I would rather know how the person really feels, than for them to simmer in silence anyways.
Within reason of coarse we can't go back to the direct harassment of co-workers with things that violate peoples basic human rights.

originally posted by: FamCore
a reply to: CatandtheHatchet

If you're going to a secondary education, you should be mature enough to appropriately deal with the world unless you have some sort of disability or emotional issues.

The fact that this made news tells us how sick our society is

I agree, as hopefully most do. I feel like part of this is a symptom of the large number of kids having their so-called problems medicated away (aka diminished mental impact so they don't need to learn how to confront and deal with things that bother them.) It seems the trend is toward thinking smaller and smaller problems lead to depression.

What's always strange to me is I don't know anyone who actually raises their kids to be like this, nor have I come across any kids like this. They obviously exist, but I don't know where these enclaves of terrible parents are who are ruining their children, and society. It's unfortunate that people seem to blame "media" when the problem is, they're just failures as parents.

Honestly I'm really dismayed at this, because it basically represents how easy it is to emotionally manipulate the masses.

"Trigger warnings" aren't for people who get easily offended or who feel uncomfortable debating with someone who has an opposing opinion. Trigger warnings are for people who, for example, were raped, and reading about someone elses rape experience causes an anxiety attack.

But P.C. culture abuses the term and plays the trigger card every time they are faced with something not in line with their exact beliefs. It's not the concept that's the problem; it's the people for whom it was NOT meant for abusing it and tainting it that's the problem.

But per usual, instead of educating themselves and understanding that trigger warnings began out of sympathetic respect for the fact that abuse survivors do experience PTSD, the masses simply give their collective knee-jerk reaction and throw their hands up at the whole thing. You know the phrases: "our country has been wussified by pc culture!", "we've raised a bunch of overly-sensitive (insert female genitalia slang here)!", etc.

Would it kill people to question the narrative, just once?

As glad as I am to hear this-I do remember the days of college protests, many turned violent. I totally believe in free speech but we all deserve to be safe-whatever you wanna call it. At 18, from a tiny town-it was a shock to me-both good and bad and I grew up fast. It shook me up at first then I felt the most free I had ever felt-and it was good. My mind was able to explore those shut off areas because of my upbringing.
I do believe these pampered whiny self-indulgent babies are in for a few very needed experiences. And if they can't handle it-they arn't ready for a real college experience.