Don't censor tragedy

The student government at the University of California, Santa Barbara calls for a system where professors announce when potentially traumatic content will be discussed in class.
The system would use “trigger warnings” to alert students when the class was going to read, view or discuss potentially upsetting material.
The goal is to shield students who have post-traumatic stress from events such as sexual assault or military campaigns.
The students could then miss class, if necessary, without losing points.
This system amounts to censorship,and it should not be implemented.
War veterans or victims of rape have gone through terrible experiences. To deal with such trauma and be forced to relive it afterward would be terrible. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
However, acting as if the tragedies never happened, and never do, is diminishing their gravity.
Accepting what happened is an essential part of the healing process. If you can never talk about your experiences, how are you ever going to get past them?
If a student is still recovering from trauma and does not feel ready to read or discuss graphic media, exceptions can obviously be made.
But to standardize slapping labels on things that might be offensive would instill a chilling effect on the media presented to students.
Moreover, there is great value in that which disgusts us.
The truth is, the world can be a terrible place.
Violence occurs for seemingly no reason. People can commit horrible acts at any time. Some of our greatest works of literature and art depict these tragedies in an attempt to grapple with them.
Part of what makes them great is bringing these issues to light.
Should we not read Mark Twain because it conveys the racism of the time it was written? Is it better to pretend that rape doesn’t happen than talk about “The Kite Runner”?
Does skipping the gory scenes in “Saving Private Ryan” make war less costly?
We need to talk about things that make us uncomfortable. If we are coddled and insulated from the bad parts of the world, we aren’t getting an accurate representation, and it can skew our thinking.
We need to see the unadulterated truth. Only by accepting and understanding the bad can we work to remove it.
Sometimes you’ll be uncomfortable with the world.
But that’s OK. It doesn’t mean it’s all bad, and it doesn’t mean you can’t make it better.

sckroll@indiana.edu