They offer these patronizing and insipid warnings under the theory that liberal women are such weak sisters, such wilting daffodils, that they must be protected from any news stories that might offend them or give them the vapors.
Fer chrissakes, even the Victorians thought that women were made of sterner stuff!
The same writer, in a comment appended to his own post, thinks that this image of the shooter's car is so "graphic" that it deserves a trigger warning of its own. Look at it. I dare you. How close did you come to fainting?
It seems that Kos writers have been engaging in this nonsense for months now.
Why are liberals choosing this election year to personify every foolish red stater stereotype of what liberals are really like?
First, you had the Mayor of New York telling people what size soda they can drink, thereby putting a smug told-ya-so smile on the face of every conservative who thinks that liberals demand a "nanny state."
Then we saw many liberals applaud the removal of Brandon Eich from Mozilla, simply because he had supported Proposition 8 -- a measure approved by the majority of Californians. No, I did not vote for that nonsense. Nevertheless, I'm still outraged by the dictum that the majority of Californians may now be removed from their jobs solely on that basis. There's a difference between gay liberation and gay McCarthyism. Or maybe we should say "gay Stalinism"?
More recently, we had the sad case of an 80 year old rich fool who spewed some bigotries in the privacy of his living room. He was secretly recorded, the recording was publicized, and now the public demands his head, or at least the sale of his sports team.
Sorry, but a man's home is his castle. Yes, a woman's home is her castle too. Hope I didn't trigger anything by repeating that still-useful cliche.
(Trigger warning: The writer is about to opine that some things trump political correctness.) I have a right to say anything I like -- however foolish, wrongheaded, or even downright evil -- in the privacy of my home without fear of being recorded.
You think Donald Sterling is bad? My late grandmother said a lot of terribly bigoted things, and she got worse with age. (Trigger warning: Accurate quotation of a racist insult uttered decades ago.) She even trained her miniature poodle to "bark at the niggers" on TV, a sight which remains the most ludicrous image stored in my memory.
(Sorry, but I never use asterisks to hide profanities, even the really bad ones. If you're a delicate daisy who requires that level of puerility, you should switch to another blog.)
Of course, my grandmother was also the type of person who thought that she could see Nikita Kruschev in TV news footage of Vietnam protests, egging on the hippies: "See? The guy with the bald head and the shoe! Right there in the corner!" (Actual quote, sweartagod.)
So we simply stopped visiting her. Her loss. She was lonely, but she brought it on herself.
That said: If anyone had recorded her inane private tirades and then played those recordings in public, I would have (trigger warning: violent imagery) walloped the miscreant. Private sins are just that: Private. Frankly, I feel a little guilty quoting her in this post, even though she died many years ago.
Do the (trigger warning: judgmental language) dimwits who write for Kos understand that they are turning themselves into laughingstocks? That they are making the Democratic brand seem asinine and silly? That they are actually helping the conservatives? Are they so caught up in their own world that they can't see what kind of impression they are making on everyone outside that world?
These self-destructive liberals should (trigger warning: Simply awful language) vigorously fuck themselves in the ass with rusty barbed wire coated with red ants and some sort of Mexican hot sauce with lots of capsaicin in it.
Here's my question for the Kossacks: What about those of us who find the phrase "trigger warning" to be infuriating? In deference to our dainty sensibilities, shouldn't that phrase have a warning of its own? "Trigger warning: Use of the term 'Trigger warning.'"
11 comments:
Why does this really bother you. Why should you care what they do on their blog. I think this particular warning is redundant by stating the obvious. By why do you feel so passionately about it. The biggest problem with conservatives today is their total lack of empathy for others not like themselves. Conservative have abandoned reason and persuasiveness for rants and buzzwords and dog whistles.it sometimes appear conservatives will choice the "latest scandal" rather than focus on substantial policy differences. I hear too many people who identify as conservatives but can not identify with conservatives. Seriously, you are offended by an attempt to provide a warning that may prevent substantial pain to another human being who has experienced truly traumatic events in their life. You could argue that we are enabling people or over using what could be a useful technique to avoid surprising people who have been exposed to trauma but instead you choose to rant like an insensitive person. I could use ASSterixs but I choice not to go there. Sorry if this is not more elegant it is early where I am.
Anonymous, please don't insult Asterix the Gaul. He is no mere punctuation.
Joseph, did the dog bark at "niggers" in reality, as well as the cathode-ray version?
As for trigger warnings, I believe the original intention was to do with Post-Traumatic Stress, which is characterised by violent uncontrollable flashbacks to that time his sergeant had his leg blown off by a mine or whatever. Obviously it's a bizarre level of self-importance that leads privileged white college girls to use it to mean "something here may disagree with you".
And shooter-chappy wasn't anything to do with the Men's Rights Movement. He was tangentially involved in the MRM's mortal foes, the Pick-Up-Artists. He at one point in his online career fantasised about releasing a disease that would wipe out all men and leave him as the planet's alpha male. That sort of thing isn't de rigeur in the MRM, but the PUAs are all about the pussy.
Stephen, that dog barked only because its owner said the word "bark." Dogs, being sensible creatures, are colorblind, in every sense of the word.
Seriously, it's kind of a sad family memory. That woman was often very kind to me. And she was an amazing cook -- could have been a top-flight chef. I just don't think she ever understood how alienating her behavior had become.
@ Anonymous
I'm a big guy. I'm also disabled from PTSD and have had real life triggers leave me crying and shaking. I also think that this "trigger warning" nonsense is totally ludicrous.
"Are they so caught up in their own world that they can't see what kind of impression they are making on everyone outside that world?"
Answer; yes
Precisely, CBarr. I once was on the scene of a horrific car accident, before the authorities showed up. That sight was as bad as you can possibly imagine. But I sure as hell don't need a "trigger warning" before clicking on an image of a crashed car.
News articles have headings. Movies have trailers and reviews. Academic courses have reputations, titles and syllabuses. Television news is what it is. If you can't handle it then don't place yourself in that situation. If you can't tell what's coming then you're an imbecile.
I think the "trigger warning" began as a warning to rape victims that details of assault were going to be discussed. I myself do prefer a warning when a show or an article contains graphic bloody images.
It all started out as well meant, as many measures do. It's being misused these days, not only for show, but also as a "club" to cudgel those who are not part of the country club of "enlightened progressives." As Anonymous' post amply illustrates by bashing Conservatives to show how different from them Our Tribe is.
Anonymous, I have a very good idea why the showy warning from the smug and patronizing Daily Kos set Joseph off. I was only disappointed he did not go far enough and remind them of how their OWN postings during the 2008 Democratic primary warranted multiple daily trigger warnings. There are PLENTY of us still scarred from what those toxic brats spewed about Hillary and Hillary supporters on an hourly basis.
In discussions about words, I once used them as Joseph still does, in their full form, without resorting to feints such as n!gger or cvnt. I got flayed alive recently, in a discussion ABOUT the n word by fellow and sister *writers* because I replied to the discussion of the use of the word without addressing how painfully the very word itself HURT my grown ass male sophisticated poet friend to hear. I managed to apologize and bow out instead of offering to sew his hand to his forehead. There were literal threats from overzealous defenders of his sensitivity to find and maim me.
Context doesn't matter anymore. It's "progressive" absolutism. Someone should warn Sarah Silverman to tone down her material because in this current overwrought climate her life and/or livelihood could be in danger.
Of course when I bring up how much it bothers me to hear the use of bitch or douche or other feminine terms as tools of derision? The same PC crowd basically tells me to go sew my hand on my forehead.
Joseph and I don't agree on every last detail but his reaction to the affectation of concern from Daily Kos is completely understandable and on trend. Or rather, trend-setting, and let's hope the correction of the overly showy "sensitivity" becomes on trend.
Why are liberals choosing this election year
First mistake: Kos has never been a liberal. He's a neocon who has chosen the Democratic Party as the preferred instrument to further the neocon agenda, since the neocons so thoroughly poisoned the Republican brand that even they couldn't be Republicans anymore.
First, you had the Mayor of New York telling people what size soda they can drink
Second mistake: by no stretch of the imagination was Bloomberg a liberal. Nobody who endorses stop-and-frisk, corrals, pepper-sprays, and assaults peaceful unarmed protestors, sends covert operatives into other jurisdictions, or proclaims that nobody with an income of less than a million a year has any right to be in Manhattan is a "liberal". Hell's bells, Joseph, he the first time he was elected mayor, he ran as a Republican. He's a plutocrat with an occasionally paternalistic streak, who thinks his serfs are too stupid to fend for themselves (and given that they elected him three times, he might have a point).
As for Eich, I wasn't aware that any actual gay rights organizations had called for him to leave. If they had, one wonders why they didn't call for the President of the United States (who was also opposed to gay marriage at the time Prop 8 was on the ballot) to resign as well. After all, thoughtcrime is thoughtcrime, isn't it?
Donald Sterling? Frankly I'd never heard of him until this incident. I don't follow pro sports, and I really don't care about the business of teams and leagues as a result. I also really don't care what some 80 year-old bigot thinks (no matter how much money he has), as long as he doesn't try to impose his benighted attitudes on anyone else.
Liberals actually believe in all that Western Enlightenment guff about freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and government's accountability to the governed. They're extinct in the public sphere. It's all about whipping up the base and raising money now. God forbid that anyone discuss issues. The whole "trigger word" kerfuffle (like all the other kerfuffles des jours) is just the latest wrinkle in shutting down discourse. If you can't have reasoned discussion about ugly, horrible problems then you damned sure can't do anything to fix them - and that's just the way the PTB want it.
Kos has a reputation for being a net savvy arm of the Obama campaign. Could it be that Kos is actually enticing women to read the article in much the same way that Edward Bernays enticed women to smoke?
Forget about trigger warnings, because, well, the concept is stupid. But the important thing about the article is the discussion of the origin of hate. The author suggests that men's rights groups, whatever those are, are the origin of the lunatic's hate of women. I think a discussion of the origin of hate is an important topic and there is a simple explanation. People hate because it makes them feel good. It has nothing to do with outside agencies convincing them to hate.
Rodger was a paranoid schizophrenic who was misdiagnosed as Asperger. THAT, not the MRA nonsense, was at the root of his behavior. Going to the MRA online groups, groups that express open hatred for women, was a way for him to reinforce his already twisted beliefs.
He hated everybody, not just the "pretty blond women," because he believed they were conspiring against him in his pursuit of what he thought was "happiness."
A generation or so ago, he would have been institutionalized. He obviously should have been. He was completely hopeless.
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