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[Content note: hypothetical spiders]

I complain a lot about the social justice movement. Or for a change, I sometimes complain that the media is too friendly to the social justice movement. So when the media starts challenging the movement, with articles like Trigger Warnings: New Wave Of Political Correctness and Weve Gone Too Far With Trigger Warnings and Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Children Squirm and Americas College Kids Are A Bunch Of Mollycoddled Babies, I really ought to be happy things are finally going my way.

Instead Im a little disturbed. Lets fnord that last article:

This doesnt look good. Also, Jezebel and Baffler are against trigger warnings, as are a group of professors who teach gender, sexuality, and critical race studies (the last of which deals twice as much damage as regular race studies). Reversed stupidity is not intelligence, but sometimes its a helpful clue about where to look.

I like trigger warnings. I like them because theyre not censorship, theyre the opposite of censorship. Censorship says Read what we tell you. The opposite of censorship is Read whatever you want. The philosophy of censorship is We know what is best for you to read. The philosophy opposite censorship is You are an adult and can make your own decisions about what to read.

And part of letting people make their own decisions is giving them relevant information and trusting them to know what to do with them. Uninformed choices are worse choices. Trigger warnings are an attempt to provide you with the information to make good free choices of reading material.

And my role model here, as in so many other places, is Commissioner Lal: Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.

Trigger warnings fight those who would like to be our masters in another way as well. They are one of our strongest weapons against the proponents of censorship. The proponents say We cant let you air that opinion, it might offend people. Trigger warnings say I am explaining to you exactly how this might offend you, so if you continuing listening to me you have volunteered to hear whatever I have to say, on your own head be it, and let no one else purport to protect you from yourself.

I agree that bad people could use trigger warnings to avoid ever reading anything that challenges their prejudices. This is a problem with providing people informed choices. Sometimes they misuse them.

But I could also imagine good people using trigger warnings to increase their ability to read things that challenge their views. Suppose you are a transgender person who becomes really uncomfortable when you hear people insult transgender people. Gradually you learn that a lot of people outside the social justice community do this a lot, so you stop reading anything outside the social justice community, forget about genuinely rightist sources like National Review or American Conservative. Now suppose sources start trigger warning their content. Most right-wing arguments dont insult transgender people, so all of a sudden you have a way to steer clear of the ones that do and read all of the others free from fear.

Actually, fear is the wrong word, it buys into the stereotyping of triggered people as coddled or cowards or something. Maybe some people feel fear. Others would just be free from exasperation, anger, distracting dismay, the cognitive load of having to hear people insult you and not being able to respond and having to exert effort to continue to read. I feel like this might be my response to the existence of more trigger warnings (at least if anyone ever warned for my triggers, which they wont).

And I guess I admit that the people who use trigger warnings for epistemic evil will probably outnumber those who use them for epistemic virtue. But then the question is: do we, as a civilization, grant ourselves the right to force people to be virtuous without their consent? There are a lot of good arguments that we should, but that doesnt matter, because its not a going question. In every other area of life, weve already decided that we dont. Like, it would be a spectacularly good idea to make a rule that every fifth link to Paul Krugmans blog has to redirect people to Tyler Cowens blog, and vice versa, so people dont get a chance to only read the opinions they agree with. Or that every Republican has to watch one Daily Show a month, and every Democrat has to listen to one Fox News segment. But if were not going to do that, it hardly seems fair to put the whole burden of epistemic virtue on the easily triggered.

II.

The strongest argument against trigger warnings that I have heard is that they allow us to politicize ever more things. Colleges run by people on the left can slap big yellow stickers on books that promote conservative ideas, saying THIS BOOK IS RACIST AND CLASSIST, and then act outraged if anyone requests a trigger warning that sounds conservative like a veteran who wants one on books that vilify or mock soldiers, or a religious person who wants one on blasphemy. Then everyone has to have a big fight, the fight makes everyone worse off than either possible resolution, and it ends with somebody feeling persecuted and upset. In other words, its an intellectual gang sign saying Look! We can demonstrate our mastery of this area by only allowing our symbols; your kind are second-class citizens!

On the other hand, this is terribly easy to fix. Put trigger warnings on books, but put them on the bullshytte page. You know, the one near the front where they have the ISBN number and the city where the publishers head office is and something about the Library of Congress youve never read through even though its been in literally every book youve ever seen. Put it there, on a small non-colorful sticker. Call it a content note or something, so no one gets the satisfaction of hearing their pet word trigger warning. Put a generally agreed list of things no sense letting every single college have its own acrimonious debate about it. The few people who actually get easily triggered will with some exertion avoid the universal human urge to flip past the bullshytte page and spend a few seconds checking if their trigger is in there. No one else will even notice.

Or if its about a syllabus, put it on the last page of the syllabus, in size 8 font, after the list of recommended reading for the class. As a former student and former teacher, I know no one reads the syllabus. You have to be really devoted to avoiding your trigger. Which is exactly the sort of person who should be able to have a trigger warning while everyone else goes ahead with their lives in a non-political way.

Im sure there are some more implementation details, but its nothing a little bit of good faith cant take care of. If good faith is used and some people still object because its not EXACTLY what they want, then Ill tell them to go fly a kite, but not before.

I know a lot of people worry about slippery slopes; give the culture warriors an inch and theyll take a mile. I think this is a very backwards way of looking at things. Like, the anti-gay people talked about a slippery slope and fought desperately hard against gay marriage, even though it was pretty hard to find anything actually objectionable about it other than that it might be on a slippery slope to worse things. That desperate fight didnt delay gay marriage more than a few years, and it didnt prevent whatever gay marriage was on a slippery slope to. What it did do was totally discredit conservatives in this area. Now any time anyone makes a family values argument, even a good family values argument, people can say that family values is code for homophobia, and bring up that family values conservatives really have held abhorrent positions in the past so why should we trust them now? It gave liberals huge momentum, and if there is a slippery slope then all that opposing gay marriage did was destroy the credibility of anybody who could have stopped us going down it.

Opposing a good idea on slippery slope grounds is a moral failure and a strategic failure, and Id hate for opponents of the social justice movement to make that mistake with trigger warnings.

III.

But this is all tangential to what really bothered me, which is Pacific Standards The Problems With Trigger Warnings According To The Research.

You know, I love science as much as anyone, maybe more, but I have grown to dread the phrase according to the research.

They say that Confronting triggers, not avoiding them, is the best way to overcome PTSD. They point out that exposure therapy is the best treatment for trauma survivors, including rape victims. And that this involves reliving the trauma and exposing yourself to traumatic stimuli, exactly what trigger warnings are intended to prevent. All this is true. But I feel like they are missing a very important point.

YOU DO NOT GIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY TO PEOPLE WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT.

Psychotherapists treat arachnophobia with exposure therapy, too. They expose people first to cute, little spiders behind a glass cage. Then bigger spiders. Then they take them out of the cage. Finally, in a carefully controlled environment with their very supportive therapist standing by, they make people experience their worst fear, like having a big tarantula crawl all over them. It usually works pretty well.

Finding an arachnophobic person, and throwing a bucket full of tarantulas at them while shouting IM HELPING! IM HELPING! works less well.

And this seems to be the arachnophobes equivalent of the PTSD advice in the Pacific Standard. There are two problems with its approach. The first is that it avoids the carefully controlled, anxiety-minimizing setup of psychotherapy.

The second is that YOU DO NOT GIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY TO PEOPLE WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT.

If a person with post-traumatic stress disorder or some other trigger-related problem doesnt want psychotherapy, then even as a trained psychiatrist I am forbidden to override that decision unless they become an immediate danger to themselves or others.

And if they do want psychotherapy, then very likely they want to do it on their own terms. I try to read things that challenge my biases and may even insult or trigger me, but I do it when I feel like it and not a moment before. When I am feeling adventurous and want to become stronger in some way, I will set myself some strenuous self-improvement task, whether it be going on a long run or reading material I know will be unpleasant. But at the end of a really long and exasperating day when Im at my wits end and just want to relax, I dont want you chasing me with a sword and making me run for my life, and I dont want you forcing traumatic material at me.

The angry article above with all the talk of spoiled brats annoys me as an amateur politics blogger, but this Pacific Standard article pushes my buttons as a (somewhat) non-amateur psychiatrist. This is not your job to meddle. If you are very concerned about helping people with PTSD, please express that concern by donating to PTSD USA or one of the other organizations that will help those with the condition get proper, well-controlled therapy. Please do not try to increase the background level of triggers in the hopes that one of them will fortuitously collide with a PTSD sufferer in a therapeutic way.

If, like me, you think the social justice movement has a really serious kindness and respect problem, then you know that its really hard to bring this up without getting accused of unkindness and disrespect yourself. I dont know how to best respond to this problem. But Im pretty sure that the very minimum one can do is not to actually be unkind and disrespectful. And I worry that some of these arguments against trigger warnings are failing to clear even this very low bar.

Read more here:
The Wonderful Thing About Triggers | Slate Star Codex

World Day Against Cyber Censorship is an online event held each year on the 12th of March to rally support for a single, unrestricted Internet that is accessible to all and to draw attention to the ways that governments around the world are deterring and censoring free speech online.[1] The day was first observed on 12 March 2008 at the request of Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International. A letter written by Jean-Franois Julliard, Secretary-General of Reporters Without Borders, and Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International, was sent to the Chief Executive Officers of Google, Yahoo!, Inc., and Microsoft Corporation to request observation of the day.[2] The annual event is symbolized by a logo created by Reporters Without Borders consisting of a computer mouse breaking free from a chain.[3]

On World Day Against Cyber Censorship Reporters Without Borders awards an annual Netizen Prize that recognizes an Internet user, blogger, cyber-dissident, or group who has made a notable contribution to the defense of online freedom of expression.[4][5] Starting in 2010 the prize has been:

In conjunction with World Day Against Cyber Censorship, Reporters Without Borders updates its Enemies of the Internet and Countries under surveillance lists.[10][11]

In 2006, Reporters without Borders (Reporters sans frontires, RSF), a Paris-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press, started publishing a list of "Enemies of the Internet".[12] The organization classifies a country as an enemy of the internet because "all of these countries mark themselves out not just for their capacity to censor news and information online but also for their almost systematic repression of Internet users."[13] In 2007 a second list of countries "Under Surveillance" (originally "Under Watch") was added.[14]

When the "Enemies of the Internet" list was introduced in 2006, it listed 13 countries. From 2006 to 2012 the number of countries listed fell to 10 and then rose to 12. The list was not updated in 2013. In 2014 the list grew to 19 with an increased emphasis on surveillance in addition to censorship. The list was not updated in 2015.

When the "Countries under surveillance" list was introduced in 2008, it listed 10 countries. Between 2008 and 2012 the number of countries listed grew to 16 and then fell to 11. The list was not updated in 2013, 2014, or 2015.

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World Day Against Cyber Censorship - Wikipedia, the free ...

The TPP allowsmulti-national corporationslike Monsanto tosue America for lost profits in private courts. This means an end to any nation's self-determination, and the abolition of US citizen rights if they threaten corporate profits. See why it's so secret?

CIA Memo to propaganda assets in NBC, CBS, Newsweek, New York Times, et al regarding assassination of President Kennedy, suggesting ways they could discredit or slander writers or journalists critical of Lone Gunman Theory. This became the template for every cover-up since then.

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Like the slaves that were forbidden to learn how to read, upon pain of death to them or those who instructed them, the masters of war believe you don't deserve the truth, or wisdom, or any means to empowerment.Journalisticsuppression and propaganda are the key means to achieving that cognitive enslavement. Planting questions is textbook propaganda, and no honest leader appeals to it.

"A coalition of multinational corporate executives, big-city bankers, and hungry power brokers want to give you George Bush their purpose is to control the American government." - Ronald Reagan, 1980

Shermerism: (noun) A delusional, pedantic belief system wherein all scientific wisdom is presumed already known. Behold my marvelous Shermerism. I am so smart I know all science laws and paradigms and that includes future mathematical branches I prematurely criticize. As a gatekeeper in a secret brotherhood of illuminated miscreants I am the self-appointed judge of ultimate wisdom and falsehood. I play a devil's advocate just to be an asshole, and most people dont really like me.

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For the sake of the movement, every effort should be made to distance Black Lives Matter from pseudo-activist Ijeoma Oluo, Marissa Johnson, and any other operative hungry to exploit the tragic murder of a young man for Hillary's political gain.

When we hear about a beloved lion named Cecil tortured for 40 hours by an American trophy hunting dentist, we still have a child-like innocence and can still see this majestic creature unsullied by years of negative media conditioning. It would be different if that innocence was exposed to lion "terror alerts" every day.

The formal Monarch Mind-Control project was developed from observations of high level Satanic families. These families had no qualms about the concept of traumatizing the fetus. Italian generational witchcraft is called the Ways of the Strega. These generational occult bloodlines, esp. in Tuscany and Naples, are very much into generational ancestor spirits. These were the ones that Aleister Crowley went to learn how to create Moon Children.

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Booth: "I would be permitted to pass and protected by himself (Mr. Johnson) absolutely in my escape, and that on the death of President Lincoln, he (Vice-President Johnson) would become president of the United States, and that in this official capacity I could depend on him for protection and absolute pardon, if need be, for the crime of killing President Lincoln, which he had suggested to me and I had agreed to perform."

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2015-09-30T10:39:55+00:00March 28th, 2015|Categories: Censorship, Cloak and Dagger, Featured, History, JFK, MLK, RFK, Politics, Religion, Secret Societies|

By 2013, we would find out about a great national security threat, a secret that had to be protected at all costs: every American, every Englishman, every New Zealander, every Australian and every Canadian was considered a potential terrorist and would require constant surveillance. Snowden NSA files also reveal FOX News alliance in phone hackingscandal.

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The Impious Digest Censorship

Why is music censored? and who are the censors? A general introduction to the issues of music censorship.

01 January 2001

In countries like Sudan, Afghanistan and China, violations of musicians rights to freedom of expression are commonplace. In the USA and Algeria, lobbying groups have succeeded in keeping popular music off the concert stage, and out of the media and retail. In ex-Yugoslavia musicians are often pawns in political dramas, and the possibility of free expression has been aversely affected.

WHY IS MUSIC CENSORED?

You may wonder why music is being censored. Why have musicians been tortured, jailed, exiled and even killed. Why have certain forms of music been silenced?

Music is a free expression of the ideas, traditions and emotions of individuals and of peoples. It may express musicians hopes and aspirations, their joys and sorrows, their very identity as a culture. Yet these expressions may conflict with those of people in power. The ideas themselves may simply be unpopular or outside the current thinking or practices of a regime or special interest group. For there are those the world over who are threatened by the very nature of a free exchange of ideas. There are those who will stop at nothing to stifle them.

Music censorship has been implemented by states, religions, educational systems, families, retailers and lobbying groups and in most cases they violate international conventions of human rights.

Video about music censorship

See more here:
About music censorship | Freemuse

US internet censorship mirrors China's 5/5/2015 - Of the world's great powers, China, is perhaps the most restrictive when it comes to freedom of speech and expression. That said, it should come as little surprise, then, that the Communist Party leadership of China works overtime to monitor, control and censor what the Chinese people are allowed to... Facebook is deliberately censoring alternative media, pushing globalist agenda 10/30/2014 - Increasingly, Facebook is being accused of censoring material that users post on the world's largest social media website, prompting outrage and confusion from many who see hypocrisy in the site's rules. In one recent instance, as reported by InfoWars.com, multiple users of the site have complained... Freedom of the press vanishing from student newspapers across America 12/9/2013 - Most of us don't pay attention to student newspapers. Yet, these publications are where many budding journalists get their feet wet for the first time. It's exciting to learn to craft a story that your peers will read. Knowing the paper is sure to be read by teachers and school administrators, too,... Google reports 'alarming' rise in government censorship requests 6/23/2012 - In what may be the most ironic thing to happen all year, tech giant Google - a serial privacy violator - says the company is experiencing what it describes as an "alarming" increase in the number of censorship requests being received by Western (in particular, the U.S.) governments. Seems the Leviathan... At least 7,000 websites black out their homepages in protest of SOPA and PIPA internet censorship bills 1/19/2012 - On January 18, 2012, thousands of websites from around the world came out in protest of two pieces of legislation that threaten to censor the internet as we know it. Google, WordPress, Wired.com, Wikipedia, Tumblr, The Daily Paul, reddit, NaturalNews, and thousands of other websites censored portions... FDA censorship of nutritional science threatens health of all Americans 9/9/2010 - Concerned about breast cancer? There are three nutrients that virtually eliminate your risk of the disease, even if you carry "breast cancer genes." Wondering how to cure arthritis? A combination of four different nutrients virtually eliminates arthritis symptoms. Afraid of diabetes? Five different... Google calls for end to internet censorship 8/9/2010 - Testifying before a Congressional panel, Google's director of public policy, Alan Davidson, called for firm action to end censorship of the Internet. "The growing problem for Internet censorship is not isolated to one country or one region," Davidson said before the Congressional-Executive Commission... FDA defeated in federal court over censorship of truthful health claims 6/4/2010 - Health freedom has just been handed a significant victory by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, which ruled last week that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) violated the First Amendment rights of a nutritional supplement company when it censored truthful, scientifically-backed... GMO alert: U.S. attempting global censorship of GMO food labeling 5/4/2010 - I received an urgent alert from Jeffrey Smith today about a dangerous situation taking place right now at the international CODEX conference. The U.S. is attempting to push its agenda to censor all GMO labeling of foods everywhere around the world. This would result in a global GMO cover-up as consumers... FDA tyranny and the censorship of cherry health facts (opinion) 5/2/2006 - In the past, I jokingly said that broccoli might someday be banned as soon as the public begins to learn about the potent anti-cancer chemicals found in the vegetable. Thats because, as I jested, the FDA wouldnt want people treating their own cancer with the anti-cancer medicines found in cruciferous... See all 102 censorship feature articles. Corruption: Prescription drugs: Dangerous drugs: Drug companies: The FDA: Pharmaceutical companies: Drug racket: FDA: Big Pharma: Ethics: Vioxx: Drug safety: Sodium: America: Medicine: Drugs: Most Popular Stories TED aligns with Monsanto, halting any talks about GMOs, 'food as medicine' or natural healing 10 other companies that use the same Subway yoga mat chemical in their buns Warning: Enrolling in Obamacare allows government to link your IP address with your name, social security number, bank accounts and web surfing habits High-dose vitamin C injections shown to annihilate cancer USDA to allow U.S. to be overrun with contaminated chicken from China Vaccine fraud exposed: Measles and mumps making a huge comeback because vaccines are designed to fail, say Merck virologists New USDA rule allows hidden feces, pus, bacteria and bleach in conventional poultry Battle for humanity nearly lost: global food supply deliberately engineered to end life, not nourish it Harvard research links fluoridated water to ADHD, mental disorders 10 outrageous (but true) facts about vaccines the CDC and the vaccine industry don't want you to know EBT card food stamp recipients ransack Wal-Mart stores, stealing carts full of food during federal computer glitch Cannabis kicks Lyme disease to the curb TV.NaturalNews.com is a free video website featuring thousands of videos on holistic health, nutrition, fitness, recipes, natural remedies and much more.

CounterThink Cartoons are free to view and download. They cover topics like health, environment and freedom.

The Consumer Wellness Center is a non-profit organization offering nutrition education grants to programs that help children and expectant mothers around the world.

Food Investigations is a series of mini-documentaries exposing the truth about dangerous ingredients in the food supply.

Webseed.com offers alternative health programs, documentaries and more.

The Honest Food Guide is a free, downloadable public health and nutrition chart that dares to tell the truth about what foods we should really be eating.

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Censorship news, articles and information: - NaturalNews.com