Published in September of 2015 by The Atlantic, “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt describes how the overuse of trigger warnings is ruining students’ education and their ways of thinking, while also addressing steps to counteract this crisis. The authors’ main argument states that students are starting to implement an ideology that erases any mention of words or ideas that could potentially offend them or students around them. Lukianoff and Haidt argue that this proves to be extremely disadvantageous for not only their quality of education, but their future professional life as well. They state this new wave of trigger warnings perpetuates fear, poor personal skills, a lowered quality of education, and
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As a Millennial, I can testify to having overly-cautious and more protective parents than my parents experienced. After speaking to my parents, they also fully agree with this statement, largely in part to increasing media coverage and knowledge as to what is, and is not, beneficial or safe for children. The authors go on to describe how trigger warnings prevent the expansion of new ideas and proper education. I completely agree with this, as students cannot learn with the censored lectures and speeches given on college campuses; students need to hear differing ideas and opinions to expand their knowledge and formulate their own opinions. “The Coddling of the American Mind” also explains how trigger warnings make the problems of over-censoring and hypersensitivity worse by spreading fear and fostering a thinking style that harbors anger and resentment. I definitely understand how this argument is true, as previous discussions of mob mentality and mass hysteria come to mind. In a large conglomerate of people, fear spreads quickly and this, coupled with the overuse of trigger warnings, forces a negative connotation onto many ideas and words. As the article comes to a conclusion, the authors make the point that the overuse of …show more content…
However, the many examples of absurd and rare happenings on campuses due to “offensive” language was overused and ridiculous. Additionally, they overemphasized how trigger warnings damage learning experiences, as almost every point in the nine-page article returned to that
As a Millennial, I can testify to having overly-cautious and more protective parents than my parents experienced. After speaking to my parents, they also fully agree with this statement, largely in part to increasing media coverage and knowledge as to what is, and is not, beneficial or safe for children. The authors go on to describe how trigger warnings prevent the expansion of new ideas and proper education. I completely agree with this, as students cannot learn with the censored lectures and speeches given on college campuses; students need to hear differing ideas and opinions to expand their knowledge and formulate their own opinions. “The Coddling of the American Mind” also explains how trigger warnings make the problems of over-censoring and hypersensitivity worse by spreading fear and fostering a thinking style that harbors anger and resentment. I definitely understand how this argument is true, as previous discussions of mob mentality and mass hysteria come to mind. In a large conglomerate of people, fear spreads quickly and this, coupled with the overuse of trigger warnings, forces a negative connotation onto many ideas and words. As the article comes to a conclusion, the authors make the point that the overuse of …show more content…
However, the many examples of absurd and rare happenings on campuses due to “offensive” language was overused and ridiculous. Additionally, they overemphasized how trigger warnings damage learning experiences, as almost every point in the nine-page article returned to that