Kryachkov 2!indd

72
Д. А. Крячков
UNIT II
any range of emotion during and after a trigger. Experiencing a trigger will almost always disrupt 
a student’s learning and may make some students feel unsafe in (the) classroom.”
Are we to assume that every piece of writing that in some way touches on the subject of racism, 
for example, will produce an adverse reaction for any reader who has ever experienced any type 
of racism at any level? Will all writings that describe or depict some form of sexism or perceived 
sexism spark a traumatic memory for those who have ever been slighted by this ism?
So what if literature causes readers to feel emotions? Isn’t that one of its purposes? Even if 
certain writings evoke certain negative emotions, does it necessarily follow that they “will almost 
always disrupt a student’s learning and may make some students feel unsafe in (the) classroom”?
Isn’t it just as likely that emotions spawned by some of these isms will enhance a student’s learning? 
Don’t people sometimes learn how not to behave by pointing to examples, real or fictional, of unac-
ceptable behavior? Abraham Lincoln, according to legend, thought Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle 
Tom’s Cabin” did a great deal to educate people to the horrors of slavery and racism. But even if writings 
that contain “trigger content” don’t necessarily yield positive consequences, do you believe that they 
almost always disrupt a student’s learning or make some students feel unsafe? Are you serious?
How will a student’s learning be disrupted by literature that contains such content? Are stu-
dents really that fragile?
Apparently so, according to some of their fellow students. Recently, student leaders at the Uni-
versity of California, Santa Barbara passed a resolution urging officials to institute mandatory trig-
ger warnings on class syllabuses. Professors who present “content that may trigger the onset of 
symptoms of” post traumatic stress disorder would be required to issue advance alerts and allow 
students to skip those classes.
Yes, skipping classes. That’s the answer. That sure won’t disrupt the students’ learning, now will it?
Like so much of liberalism, this entire trend is insultingly patronizing. It assumes students and 
whomever else such alerts will be given to are incapable of handling stress, potentially unsettling 
information or any adverse circumstances whatever. Isn’t college supposed to help prepare stu-
dents for life, as well as impart academic information? How can you prepare a student for life when 
you shelter him from adversity?
Do some of today’s young liberals want cradle to grave security to encompass emotional security 
now, as well as financial dependence on government? What gives these intermeddling types the 
idea that no one can function in society without their perpetual micromanaging superintendence?
Beyond their apparently low opinion of their fellow human beings, it seems that those behind 
this warning craze are, like their fellow liberals, just too preoccupied with expanding classes of 
victimhood, emphasizing groups in society rather than individuals (another sign of their relatively 
low opinion of human beings) and pitting these various groups against one another.
Why do they want to keep throwing isms in our face? Why do they want to always create new 
ones? It’s obvious that they want to see men and women, blacks and whites, straights and gays, 
etc., in a permanently adversarial state. I don’t think most people want to view the world that way.
Personally, I would appreciate it if these troublemakers would lighten up and accept that most 
of us don’t harbor the hostility they must have themselves and want to project onto us. People 
have enough trouble without officious malcontents trying to forever stir up more.
You all have too much time on your hands. Please get back to your schoolwork and start treat-
ing your fellow students with respect rather than as emotional invalids, for there is a far better 
chance you are maladjusted than they are.
David Limbaugh

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