Heard a student say trigger warnings are the same as censorship

I was walking past a philosophy lecture hall last Tuesday and heard a student tell the professor that requiring trigger warnings on syllabi is basically the same as banning books. That got me thinking because she argued that if you warn people away from hard topics, you're just doing the work of censors in a different way. Does anyone else see a difference between preparing someone for tough material and actually shutting down the conversation?

3 comments

3 Comments

park.miles1mo ago

Hang on, is warning someone about tough material really the same as stopping them from reading it? Seems like a false equivalence to me. Ngl, a trigger warning on a syllabus about a graphic war novel doesn't stop you from reading that novel. It just gives you a heads up so you can prepare yourself mentally. Censorship would be the professor pulling that book from the course entirely. That's a big difference. Think about it like a movie rating - they tell you it's rated R for violence, but that's not censorship, it's just information.

nancyjones1mo agoMost Upvoted

Three classics professors I know disagree completely, so what exactly is being warned against?

king.val1mo ago

Censorship is the right word for it." My old lit professor said the same thing about content notes on classic novels.