Trigger warnings and what to do about them

This week's readings on trigger warnings have been strange for me. This is in part because I don't know entirely how to engage with blogs in an academic setting, but it's also because I find the whole conversation somewhat perplexing. Many of the authors spoke of trigger warnings as though they were impairing or impeding the sharing of knowledge. Many, too, used such fallacies as "the slippery slope argument" to make their points, or spoke in ways that were patronizing or condescending to their counterparts. Much of the conversation, from what we read, seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the basic concept of trigger warnings. If we consider the ways that trigger warnings have been used and intended to be used, it is clear that their roots are in the protection of individuals from re-experiencing past trauma, which should be of dire importance to feminists. Rather than restricting content, as these bloggers argue, trigger warnings thus serve as a means by which people can keep themselves safe. This is of particular importance when it comes to policing who can and can not be a feminist, as the blogger The Factual Feminist does. In insisting that feminists are not fragile, she erases the reality of ongoing trauma, and subsequent fragility, experienced by many feminists, and discounts their contributions to feminism. This seems to me like one more instance of a long history of privileged women attempting to dictate what feminists, and thus feminism, look like, thereby negating the experiences and contributions of more marginalized women. Moreover, this discounts the experiences of trauma and pain in a way which is potentially very harmful, in order to make feminism more palatable, which is in no way okay.

However, this is not to say that the trigger warning argument is one which is straightforward, but rather, that the complexities of trigger warnings are not what many of the anti-trigger warning bloggers make them out to be. Triggers are in themselves tenuous and complex, and are not always as easily identifiable as their warnings make them out to be. Moreover, the experiential nature of triggers renders them necessarily subjective, and so the vast diversity of trauma and triggers becomes blurred and flattened by category of trigger warnings. In abolishing trigger warnings we cause people unnecessary and avoidable harm, while perpetuating myths about "good" feminists, and on a larger scale, "good" bodies. However, in including trigger warnings, we risk catering to what Halberstam calls, "sad feelings," or worse, excusing privileged people from engaging in meaningful political discourse because it makes them uncomfortable. In either case, those who are ignored or erased are those most in need of care. Thus, we can see how the argument of neoliberalism plays out in the controversy surrounding trigger warnings, in that triggers become individualized and responsiblized in such a way that obscures the institutional factors of harm. We should enable people to avoid harm whenever possible, and trigger warnings and the awareness they incite can certainly help. However, this is not enough. Perhaps instead of arguing about whether we ought to remove or rely on trigger warnings, we should instead focus on continuing to utilize them in conjuncture with larger critical discourse, and consideration as to the institutional causes of trauma.