Enfeebled academics of a nervous disposition should look away now
THERE are many disturbing moments in the Bible including the four horsemen of the Apocalypse and the massacre of innocent children.
But nowhere in the ancient Scriptures is there any record of a warning for readers that if they are of a nervous disposition, they should look away now.
Yet that is the advice for theology students at Glasgow University, whose tutors issue ‘trigger warnings’ ahead of a lecture that features ‘graphic’ crucifixion scenes.
Bear in mind that the university’s alumni include Adam Smith, the father of modern economics and great Enlightenment thinker, from an era famous for bold, innovative thinking and freedom of expression.
Our universities were once dedicated to the free play and cultivation of contentious ideas: crucibles of radical thinking and daring philosophical inquiry.
Now many lecturers are obliged, allegedly because of a ‘duty of care’ to their students, to read a caveat about the content of the forthcoming lesson to give anyone of a delicate or squeamish frame of mind a chance to vacate the room.
One would imagine the words would die on the lips of any self-respecting academic.
But if your pay cheque relies on reciting politically correct garbage to adolescents, there is an understandably strong incentive to do just that.
One Scottish university lecturer attempted a defence of the practice yesterday, claiming that it ‘isn’t politically correct to recognise that paintings can be charged with grief’.
Possibly not, but what are we to make of someone who signs up to study theology, who may well have heard something about the crucifixion in their schooldays (though with the Curriculum for Excellence, who knows?), and is then shocked and appalled to see depictions of Christ on the cross?
More importantly, what should we make of an institution that panders to this sort of acute sensitivity, a condition that has led to this generation of students being nicknamed ‘snowflakes’ because they are so easily upset?
Doubtless university chiefs are fearful of litigation, letters of complaint either from the student or perhaps — God help us (apologies for a lack of trigger warning before such an oath) — from their parents.
Glasgow University medical students are also being told they can opt out of classes on how to break bad news to the bereaved — if they feel they would ‘struggle’ with the content.
How much of a shock can it be for any highly educated medical student that at some point in their career — indeed probably on a regular basis — they will have to convey difficult news to the families of the recently deceased or very sick?
More worryingly, if such a laidback attitude is taken to participation in such a key lesson, what on earth does it say about the broader standard of education on offer?
There may be occasions, according to the British Medical Association, ‘perhaps if a student had suffered a recent bereavement themselves, that they may appreciate the opportunity to opt out of a role play scenario’.
Here, of course, is the whole point of the trigger warning: the practice of issuing them began in the US where it was felt that exposure to difficult or sensitive issues could ‘trigger’ bad memories among, for example, survivors or sexual abuse in classes where the subject was being discussed.
Where the US leads, we all too often follow. And now a trigger warning for a gender studies course at Stirling University says: ‘We cannot anticipate or exclude the possibility that you may encounter material which is triggering [ie, which can trigger a negative reaction] and we urge that you take all necessary precautions to look after yourself in and around the programme.’
Quite what those precautions would be is open to debate: ear plugs or perhaps blindfolds? (These may well be reasonable precautions in any event for a lecture on ‘gender studies’).
Students of forensic science at Strathclyde University in Glasgow are given a ‘verbal warning… at the beginning of some lectures where sensitive images, involving blood patterns, crime scenes and bodies etc are in the presentation’.
This must be a profound shock for budding forensic scientists, none of whom could possibly be expected to know that the subject would entail encountering images of blood.
The presumption of such mental fragility is dubious in an age when many of those in lecture theatres and seminars are likely to have seen far worse in violent films or video games.
Professor John Sutherland warned in the Mail last week that this curious trend has made it impossible to teach such classic novels as Heart of Darkness because of concerns about the alleged racism of the text.
American Psycho, the cult bestseller, is similarly out of bounds because of its extreme sexual violence and misogyny.
Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s goriest play, is frowned upon because of its graphic nature including scenes of rape, murder — and severed body parts.
Distasteful, possibly, and no-one is forcing students to like these texts or to approve of them.
But surely sheltering them from a play that is hundreds of years old and holds a vital place in the history of literature — however ‘challenging’ it may be — is counterproductive.
It creates a climate of ‘intellectual caution’, as Professor Sutherland has warned, while Dr Stuart Waiton, a senior sociology lecturer at Abertay University in Dundee, talks of the rise of ‘emotional correctness’.
This is the presumption that there is a ‘correct’ way to feel about an important subject, one that encourages conformity and compliance with the prevailing philosophy.
In universities, this has led to the creation of ‘safe spaces’, which refer to meetings that are welcoming to all but prohibit what is deemed to be discriminatory language.
Curiously, university bosses are often less than enthusiastic about discussing the mechanisms by which intellectual vitality is being slowly squeezed out of higher education — perhaps because they are simply embarrassed.
Glasgow University had precious little to offer to explain the rationale of its crucifixion warning.
Edinburgh University refused to respond to a freedom of information request, saying it would cost too much, an argument it maintained when the decision was appealed.
The unlikely explanation was that it would cost around £40,000 to contact individual members of staff who issue the trigger warnings, and collate replies — a disproportionate cost that enabled the institution to avoid providing any examples.
The principal, Sir Timothy O’Shea, has seen his earnings rise this year to more than £300,000 — so perhaps he could have been persuaded to help cover the costs…
Or could it be there is something substantial to hide? After all, last year a student at the university was threatened with being thrown out of a meeting after being accused of violating ‘safe space’ rules — by having the temerity to raise her hand.
But in the final analysis, some of the blame for the cossetting of undergraduates must lie with the bad example set by our virtue-signalling political masters, who have done so much to drain public discourse of much of its honesty and connection with the real lives of ordinary voters.
Our MSPs are perfectly at home with protesting about a cut to the size of Toblerone bars — as one Nationalist MSP did in a parliamentary motion — and demanding that Donald Trump be banned from Scotland (in essence, it seems, because he is simply not Left-wing enough).
They are less comfortable discussing the growing crisis in our NHS or failing state schools.
With a political system that long ago gave up any pretence of meaningful debate, we can hardly be surprised that the rot is now spreading to our universities.
