Cats and Dogs agree: No Trigger Warnings for Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Cats and Dogs agree: No Trigger Warnings for Ovid’s Metamorphoses

On May 3, 2015, we started the ball rolling down the hill on the subject, Columbia Multicultural Advisors: Put Trigger Warning on Ovid’s Metamorphoses:

I think we have the 2015 Phrase of the Year: Trigger Warning.

But now they’ve gone too far….

Not all is well with The Metamorphoses at Columbia University.

In an Op-Ed in The Columbia Spectator, Our identities matter in Core classrooms, four members of the Columbia Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board complain that the study of classic works of Western civilization in general, and The Metamorphoses specifically, are “triggering,” insensitive, and make some students feel “unsafe” ….

The solution? First, a rewrite of the Core curriculum….

Then, Trigger Warnings….

And of course, the mandatory re-education training….

The topic has been percolating around the intertubes since our May 3 post.

We got a special shout out yesterday from Jerry A. Coyne at The New Republic, Life Is “Triggering.” The Best Literature Should Be, Too:

Sadly, the decline in free speech at American universities, and the proliferation of ludicrous “trigger warning” mandates for books and courses, are topics covered largely by the right-wing media, so often I must hold my nose as I examine their sources. But even a right-wing venue can get stuff right, as Legal Insurrection does on the latest bit of nonsense from American campuses: a request from students at Columbia University (a great school, by the way) to put trigger warnings on the work of Roman poet Ovid.

…. one of college’s most important functions is to learn how to hear and deal with challenging ideas. Cocooning oneself in a Big Safe Space for four years gets it exactly backwards. “Safety” has been transformed by colleges from “protection from physical harm” to “protection from disturbing ideas.”

In case you missed it, here are the key words, which I will type out for you slowly:

“even … a … right-wing … venue … can … get … stuff … right, … as … Legal … Insurrection …. does”

I think that’s a compliment? Or at least an insult wrapped in a compliment? Or a compliment wrapped in an insult?

Whatever, it could have been worse.

Which proves that even a left-wing venue can get stuff right, about Legal Insurrection, and Trigger Warnings, once in a while.

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