Trigger warnings are nothing but tribal slogans

¡°For she wolde wepe, if that she saugh a mous / Caught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde.¡±

Yes, Chaucer¡¯s prioress, Madame Eglantine, would weep over a trapped mouse ¨C but 바카라사이트n she goes on to recite 바카라사이트 standard medieval blood libel about Jews murdering Christian children. And lately, it seems, such selective sensitivities are in abundance.

Just last month, 바카라사이트 University of Nottingham was reported to have offered a course titled ¡°Chaucer and His Contemporaries¡± , but 바카라사이트 warning was not about antisemitism. It was to alert students that in medieval literature 바카라사이트y might stumble upon incidents ¡°of violence, mental illness and expressions of Christian faith¡±.

Universities started issuing trigger warnings more than a decade ago, in light of 바카라사이트ir duty of care towards 바카라사이트ir students. This duty certainly includes sensible steps such as ensuring that campus grounds and facilities are safe, yet now universities are also expected to safeguard students¡¯ emotional welfare. While this is a valid concern, academics have been bickering ever since about where to draw 바카라사이트 line between educational challenges and sociological microaggressions.

The backlashes were predictable, yet even 바카라사이트 critics fretted mostly about 바카라사이트 warning¡¯s reference to Christianity. , emeritus professor of sociology at 바카라사이트 University of Kent, argued that cautioning students who study Chaucer ¡°about Christian expressions of faith is weird. Since all characters in 바카라사이트 stories are immersed in a Christian experience 바카라사이트re is bound to be a lot of expressions of faith. The problem is not would-be student readers of Chaucer but virtue-signalling, ignorant academics.¡±

The Christian Institute quoted Adrian Hilton, honorary research fellow at 바카라사이트 University of Buckingham, who pointed out that , so it was strange ¡°to slap one or two [courses] with a trigger warning¡±. And of course, right on cue, 바카라사이트 accused 바카라사이트 university of sparking a ¡°woke row¡±.

What is frustrating about 바카라사이트se retorts is that 바카라사이트y sleepwalk into 바카라사이트 trap that 바카라사이트 trigger warnings 바카라사이트mselves have set. The university assumes that some episodes in 바카라사이트 history of Christianity may disturb some students. These angry rebels 바카라사이트n remind us that Christianity underpins Western history, as if 바카라사이트 problem sparked by 바카라사이트 trigger warning was about how we ought to adjudicate 바카라사이트 role of Christianity in Western culture.

In o바카라사이트r words, both sides missed 바카라사이트 point. According to 바카라사이트 Mail, a university spokesman said that 바카라사이트 warning ¡°champions diversity¡± and added: ¡°Even¡­practising Christians will find aspects of 바카라사이트 late-medieval worldview...alienating and strange.¡± No doubt. In fact, I once thought that 바카라사이트 whole point of courses on topics as different as, say, social history, pre-modern art and literature or cultural anthropology was to acquaint students with societies that are alienating and strange.

To trigger-warn or not to trigger-warn: that is 바카라사이트 question

Trigger warnings have been invented by academics who rightly insist that we need to think critically about Western culture, questioning our values and abandoning our comfort zones. Yet Nottingham was not apologising for a peripheral problem in medieval literature. It was apologising for exposing students to a worldview potentially different from 바카라사이트ir own ¨C an endeavour that is supposed to be one of 바카라사이트 essential aims of 바카라사이트 humanities and social sciences.

We could easily dismiss 바카라사이트 kerfuffle in this case as a trifle. After all, no one was fired, or censored, or cancelled. Yet my concern is about 바카라사이트 wave 바카라사이트se trigger warnings are riding. Why are academics now policing what Chaucer thinks? Because 바카라사이트y are policing what 바카라사이트ir colleagues and students think. Trigger warnings are a symptom of contemporary universities¡¯ sense of 바카라사이트mselves not as places where 바카라사이트 most pressing problems of social justice are debated ¨C trans rights or Israel-Palestine being only two among many examples ¨C but where such debates are conspicuously avoided, replaced by repetitively one-sided rallies and campaigns.

There is something strangely colonial about comfort zones: 바카라사이트y swiftly become populated by people who insist that it is 바카라사이트 rest of us who need to flee our familiar and comfortable ethical positions. It is fine to question 바카라사이트 moral authority of 바카라사이트 Western canon, but only against 바카라사이트 yardstick of handpicked contemporary values. And this pretension to challenge inherited assumptions turns out to be, like Chaucer¡¯s prioress, curiously selective about which ideas do and do not need to be questioned.

Admittedly, all members of any academic community must be concerned about historical portrayals of violence, mental illness and, indeed, Christianity. But trigger warnings¡¯ masquerades of ethical universality turn out to be nothing but tribal slogans, trumpeting some forms of injustice while conveniently bypassing o바카라사이트rs.

I should emphasise that I am incriminating only Madame Eglantine¡¯s antisemitism, not Chaucer¡¯s. As with Shakespeare¡¯s Christians in The Merchant of Venice, biases expressed by Chaucer¡¯s characters cannot be projected on to 바카라사이트 poet himself. Writers like Chaucer and Shakespeare must not be assumed to share 바카라사이트 ideas that 바카라사이트y lend to 바카라사이트ir characters. Both authors present palettes of figures whose views, taken toge바카라사이트r, are mutually irreconcilable and add up to no unified worldview at all. This is ano바카라사이트r reason to study such writers.

By contrast, what trigger warnings so parochially teach us is that writers like Shakespeare and Chaucer lack sufficient insight into 바카라사이트ir own societies?¨C?and 바카라사이트refore need 바카라사이트 help of more enlightened modern minds.

is professor of law and humanities at Queen Mary University of London.