With Orwell's 1984 now given a trigger warning and Shakespeare's works also under threat, Peter Whittle (@Prwhittle) tells us the "sinister" truth about trigger warnings. Clip from GB News paper review.
It also seems to me that the sudden reason they picked 1984 is to try and stop readers from "wrongthink" about the current Orwellian parallels in Society and realising now how accurate those events George Orwell warned us about in the book are.
That was my first thought, too, that they didn't want kids to see the playbook. Edit: The trigger warning very likely will have the opposite effect, as Eva Stephan relayed, the taboo tending to increase heightened interest among the young. It's ridiculous, but that actually amounts to a win-win, everybody being satisfied. Such a weird world we're living in now, every warning a flag for the sane, every flag a warning inane. Shakespeare'd be having the time of his life were he here, going bananas with all the ripe material.
@@dontpanic1812 Many years ago, when I was a youth, a fourth channel was introduced to British television. Appropraitely named "Channel 4", one of its first innovations was to introduce a little red triangle (if I remember rightly) in the top left corner of any programme that the old-school censors might have objected to. As a teenage boy, this was a magnet, much as any "Adult content" warning is. I watched hours of shitty movies, on the off-chance of a glimplse of breast or bum! 'Trigger warnings' should serve as an endorsement to any person capable of independent thought, that this is the very stuff they should be reading or watching. - Perhaps, like Channel 4's red triangle, they're not a bad idea after all!
Peter Whittle is correct about this self-loathing tendency in the West to cast all the Western classics - in art and in literature - under a cloud of suspicion. There was a recent exhibition of Rembrandt's work at the Canadian National Gallery in Ottawa. It focused not on how he achieved his masterpieces but instead on "how European colonialism funded Western art." A recent episode of BBC Radio 4's In Our Time featured the noted poet and academic Don Paterson and two other academics discussing Shakespeare's sonnets. When they came to discuss the so-called "Dark Lady" sonnets, all three academics lamented Shakespeare's "problematic attitudes on race and gender." There they were - these three British academics, who really should know better - taking Shakespeare to task for not sharing the exact same cultural values as 21st century 'woke' Western leftists. Insane!
This is the way I have come to understand the situation. At the end of the USSR, it became evident to communists worldwide that this was no longer a brand they could "sell" to the workers of the world: people had seen the gulags, the atrocities, the deprivation. They needed to reinvent communism in an appealing new way. This led, through the French intellectuals of the 1960s, to Identity Politics. Instead of the proletariat vs. bourgeoisie dynamic of communism 1.0, Identity Politics attempts to create the same conflict but between groups with different characteristics: black and white, young and old, male and female, straight and gay, etc. This conflict is used to undermine and destroy the existing society so that the communists can step in and proffer their new utopia. For instance, minority groups can be used as a human shield to drive through authoritarian policies and label any disagreement bigotry. The same approach can be used with causes labelled as "emergencies". Alternatively, direct group conflict, such as mass riots over confected issues, can be used to destabilize faith in law and order. These are just some examples of how to destroy the system from within and how to suppress dissent as you do so. That's why so many seemingly disconnected areas are under attack: works of literature, historical figures, social norms, policing, education, personal freedoms, demographic cohesion, genuinely conservative policies or politicians, non-compliant news sources, etc. It's all about kicking the pins out from under our civilisation so the communists can take over, supported by plenty of useful idiots who don't realize all this will turn out the same as the USSR.
Nah. It's all very sensible and fairly accurate, but the neolibs just went right, abandoning the working and middle classes to get out of progressive economic reforms that would've threatened their gravy train. All the division, derision and distraction is right, but it's to cement their separation from the electorate. There's Marxist stuff in it, but it's upside down, the elite taking over the means of production, limiting ownership, increasing rents, reshaping prices, disenfranchising voters from their means of redress and earning a living. It's not communism, it's capitalism run amok to create a ruling class. This isn't the fault of the useful idiots or Democratic voters. They couldn't see it coming for the threats perceived elsewhere. This decade's going to be about relearning how to cooperate with each other, how to control ourselves better, treat each other with greater respect. The woke prevented the asleep from waking, but more are tuning in to the sham. Will likely need to cap public service at 3x the poverty line to prevent the minority from ruling the majority, have only the most vulnerable from both wings lead us for a while, those focused on the upward mobility of the least of us. When the least of us is the best of us, when that finally is from where we derive our pride, we'll then be onto something, righting the ship where even the sinking are able to help paddle with the whole. I know, I know, that's precisely the collapse of capitalism Marx predicted, but it's not: it's not the workers rising up, it's the elite running off with all the wealth. Our job now is to prevent it. Votes of no-confidence, voting en masse to replace neoliberal leadership, replacing them with principled progressives and conscientious conservatives better able to work with one another to pull us from the brink. Enough corruption. The ridiculousness of the primaries and the outcomes of '22's elections will be rather telling. Figure lots of Dem seats get filled with Independents and progs, Pubs faring little better, cooler minds finding support. Rhode Island progressives are providing an example. 2 years after that will be the real rodeo, avoiding the Turkey Shoot of '22 via the Bloodbath of '24, Dems at jeopardy of losing governance for a decade or more. However, it turns out is going to be fun, turning heads, having neolibs asking, "Wait, what the hell is going on?" out of touch 'til the end. By '26, we should be well on our way to salvaging this national experiment, having righted the ship, our purpose realigned, focusing on economic security and opportunity once more. That's the plan from this end, anyway-- cleaving hard to what gets us there, relying on the democratic principles nearly everyone in leadership's presently attempting to circumvent and evade, offering better options. Sounds trite, but it's how we avoid the worst.
The centre Right has been completely hopeless in pushing back against the take over of our institutions. Classical Liberalism was never a strong position to pushback against Progressive Liberalism. We have been stuck inside the Liberal paradigm since 1945.
@@evolassunglasses4673 Ever think that conservatives just don't have the proclivity for collecting and sharing knowledge that liberals do, that the subjects conservatives are interested in are fundamentally the responsibility of parents, those that aren't predominantly taught in school-- religious studies, home economics, finance, politics, management skills? Am thinking it's a symbiosis, each knowledge set contributing to the survival of the other-- ag, husbandry, ecology, land use, psychology, the humanities, philosophy, the arts.
Fully agreed. It's not only intended as an infantile measure to prevent students from having their (progressive) views challenged, but also as an instrument for political indoctrination & subversion of British culture.
Exactly. It's been going on since the 1960s, with, usually, left-wing political parties (all right, Labour) conducting educational experiments in State comprehensive schools concerning political oversight of curriculum. It has been a drip-feed, which has become a torrent with CRT being forced into, or AS, curriculum, accelerated by Obummer's Common Core, something that has been adopted,in some form, across the Free World. This includes 'dumbing down', 'equitable exam results' (everyone wins/passes), and even mathematics being 'racist' or 'white supremicist' if one's answer to 2 +2 equals to "Whatever I feel like, and I will accuse you of being a bigot if you say I am wrong!". It's been the ' Frog in the pot' syndrome and I am afraid that we have all been touched by that. But many are now being TRULY woken up. As I have written elsewhere, it is now "The Awakened against the Woke". Protect your children, homeschool them, if you can, and stop drinking the Kool-Aid! Or take the Red Pill, if you prefer!
I've always been irked by stupid warnings about a TV or radio broadcast containing upsetting scenes. Nothing can be more upsetting than life itself at times. Get real.
As a retired psychotherapist who has treated many people with PTSD including torture survivors I can say unequivocally that trigger warnings are a load of nonsense. Anything such as a colour, a smell, a particular look can trigger a flashback or panic so do we warn about everything and anything and not just those things assumed to trigger or do we try to ensure that PTSD is identified and treated. How have universities become so ill informed?
My son is studying a module at the University of York called 'Human Remains.' The course has a "trigger warning" for all those who might study it. It reads: "WARNING this course concerns Human Remains." Well, if you are that thick to not have noticed the title of the module, you really should not be on this Masters course!
In principle not much different to "WARNING: may contain nuts" written on packets of peanuts but in practice far more insidious since a nut could actually harm an allergic idiot while no idiots could possibly be harmed just studying something. Nanny is certainly taking it too far nowadays and she's not got anyone's best interests at heart. I don't think she ever does or did because even when it's only well-intentioned worry (assuming it is ever just that) then it's all about "Nanny" and her feefees isn't it. Besides, just look where Nanny's coddling has gotten us.
@@purpuradraco3747 True, but you do get the opposite type of warning. Not so long ago I purchased some 'boat paint' from B&Q to decorate a piece of woodwork that my daughter had made. I read the instructions on the can. It said: "WARNING: Not to be used on boats." I suspect all university courses should be marked: "WARNING: Not to be taught or studied by the neurotic, hypersensitive and paranoid." That would seem to solve the problem.
The peanut warning came to my mind.. well said and the boat paint in the other comment made me laugh. Like when you buy a knife the warnings with that… OOooo I didn’t mean you could have a knife unless you… 🤣🤣🤣
"Lead, follow or get out of the way" seems to have left out something vital: stand. Applies more to our own than to authority, I gather, just like the original does.
This video needs a trigger warning 🤣. No the funniest one is a university adding a trigger warning to a children’s book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Always a pleasure to receive a dose of common sense from Mr Whittle. Also rather strange to see him looking more casual in a gilet considering how immaculately dressed he usually is!
How stupid are these people? Didn't whoever decided to slap a trigger warning on 1984 realise that he was making Orwell's point for him? It would be hilarious, were it not so scary.
They had to have agreed to do it knowing precisely how ridiculous it was, sardonic grins hidden. "Sounds like a great idea. We'd be happy to do that for you." Can imagine they'd never gleefully applied a warning so quickly, just for the perfect irony's absurdity.
Maybe we shouldn't despair. I seem to remember that when I was a teen any hint at "this is forbidden or undesirable" was the safest way to arouse my interest in the matter. It comes quite natural to adolescents to be contrary to everything that is taught and dictated.
Optimistic, pragmatic, logical and useful. Temptation applied productively, for a change. I like it. Trigger warnings drawing the young into the good things like moths to the flame. Like it very much.
I have a great response when they try to tackle me...... 'Have you taken your medication today?'..... or 'Are you on medication?' ...... stops them in their tracks and lets them know it's them not me! Works a treat. LOL
Imagine if Members of Parliament were as calm, thoughtful, rational, willing to listen, open to debate, and considered in their opinions as Peter Whittle. Then you look at Angela Rayner, David Lammy, Ian Blackford....
This, of course, is nothing new, though the process is now accelerating at a rapid pace given the "successful" march through the institutions. Indeed, Margaret Jane Kidnie, in her review of "The Play in Performance", in the Penquin Classics edition of "The Taming of the Shrew", reported the following: "Michael Billington, theatre reviewer for the Guardian [where else?] famously called in 1987 for a moratorium on new productions of "The Shrew" after seeing Michael Bogdanov's production at the Royal Shakespeare Company, arguing that a play so offensive to modern sensibilities 'should be put back firmly and squarely on the shelf'." Clearly, any nation which sits back and watches, unconcerned, while its national poet is cancelled, deserves everything that's coming its way. If only it would elect a conservative Government with an eighty seat majority.
Let's all hope that "trigger warnings" have the same effect as "parental advisory content" in that it becomes an attractant rather than deterrent.......worked well for the likes of the Sex Pistols & Public Enemy!
The guy pointed out that people will still go out and see gruesome movies just as I was thinking the same thing! The point really being that they are triggered by ‘wrong think’, as opposed to actual horror and gore. Troops don’t come back from war with PTSD from being exposed to differing viewpoints, do they?
The worrying thing is that schools and universities yield to these ridiculous 'trigger warnings' refusing to recognise, or maybe they just don't care, that our World of great literature, our history (good or bad) is being systematically erased leaving a blank canvas where all the lessons from the past have disappeared, only to be repeated.
The UK and 🇨🇭 is a creative model and that's the way forward, the idea for the EU to exclude the UK in innovation is ill-judged because the opportunities exist for outside collaborations with best & brightest intellectual: Pro i-Brexit👏🏼
We never used to have trigger warnings on books. We had this class that was called literature lessons. In it we discussed the context of the literature or video we were about to read or see. This is vital. Who on earth understands an opera, a Shakespeare play, Chaucer or some philosophical work without a bit of background. Trigger warnings basically tell the reader that this book challenges their narrative. We should have a trigger warning on this regime.
It is insidious The best way I heard all this p.c crap being explained is by saying it’s “a clown with a knife” Your first instinct is to laugh, but while you laugh the knife cuts deep
You should always respond to trigger warnings by undertaking whatever is being warned about! Regardless of the consequences and challenging those who "wrong think" the warnings are necessary!
Trigger warnings have their place -- not on university texts, but for example: I just now followed a link to a RU-vid short film illustrating cinematic composition, and the video description said "Trigger warn: contains scenes domestic abuse and child abuse." I do not have the stomache for that today, so moved on. As for Shakespeare being under threat -- it has survived this long, I think we'll be fine!
Oh, we've had stupider. Just wait, this is only the beginning; people are going to prove just how dumb they can be 'til it dawns on them they themselves are the problem. Watch the '22 election outcomes closely for who ends up winning the races-- (P), (I), (D), (R) or (T). I've (R), (I) & (P)s. '24's gonna be even more unreal, having neoDems asking, "Wait, what the heck's happening?" seats evaporating left and right.
It's a huge misconception that most students - be it those in primary, secondary, college or university, care about things like politics, gender, far left ideas or ruining the lives of those they disagree with. As a college student, I can say without doubt that there is no suppression of opinions and the *tiny minority* of students who care enough about identity politics enough to have conversations about it, stick to themselves. The lecturers are impartial so whether they vote greens or UKIP is completely irrelevant. The library does not ban books and encourages people to read controversial texts. The first thing you see upon entering the library is a shelf with several copies of Mein Kampf. Do you know how many of the current 15,000+ students have complained about it? None. If you really go out of your way looking, you might find somebody who thinks JK Rowling is a transphobe whose books should be avoided but to judge all students by the actions of the most vocal and opinionated minority is just dishonest and untrue. I am yet to meet a student or teacher who thinks banning speech is a good idea
You know, you're right. The horror of realizing they're actually living in what they're reading would likely trip something existential. They being how they presently are though, may just as likely inspire admiration or extasy. (Hey, there's a word I haven't seen in some time.) Wonder if someone 40 years ago missed the point and thought (hee-hee) Newspeak a super idea rather than a warning.
The other day I picked a copy of the old Flash Gordon movie - it seems that the BBFC had upped its rating TWO levels from a PG to a 15 for “mild scenes of domestic violence”. Another sign of NeoLiberal wets moving the goalposts...
Even having trouble imagining a conservative teacher. What would that even look like? I'm wondering whether this preponderance of liberal educators is due to gatekeeping or to their proclivity for collecting and sharing knowledge. Conservatives, historically, were burning the books attempting to preserve family values and traditions, were set against plurality rather than widening expression or conserving knowledge. Churches were notorious for this, too-- from Catholics to Quakers, yet now it's come full circle among liberals and progressives. I wonder if the further polarized we get, the more we regard information as dangerous, pulling us further right. I wonder if the conservative perspective doesn't lend itself well to exploration and critical thinking, whether the further from the center we get, the more potential things have to go cattywampus, we each feeling threatened by expression, individuality, personal agency and difference, lacking trust not only in ourselves but in other people, their becoming alien and suspicious, verboten and unreachable for our no longer interacting frequently or familiarly. Long, lovely sentence to say maybe conservatives just aren't interested in teaching anything but home economics, politics, management skills, religious education and finance, subjects largely the responsibility of parents that aren't emphasized on the K-12 level, nor in core university curriculums. Could it be conservativism just naturally resists education, that liberalism, by its very nature, is fundamentally predisposed to it, the two uninterested in the subjects of the other, yet each dependent upon the other's knowledge and expertise for their mutual prosperity and survival? So, why then the animosity for our fellows again, the paranoia of our peers, the contempt for learning the necessary and enlightening? What an incredibly odd species we are.
The ultimate problem with trigger warnings is that they dont work. They dont protect people with things like ptsd from the content as the warning just puts them into a deep state of anxiety throughout. Its like a tense scene in a horror film, waiting for the jump scare is worse than the jump itself. Thats what the data suggests, they dont help they often hinder.
While it is true that prior trigger warnings increase negative feelings while watching something, what I've not seen refuted is of course the point that trigger warnings can warn people to avoid content altogether, thereby potentially saving them distress overall. Not woke just care about the truth
@@mrboost4186 The data doesnt bare that out though. The studies as of yet show that they have no noticable positive effect. The argument that the warning will lessen the shock makes intuitive sense but the actual testing doesnt bare that out for any net gain. At least as of yet.
Trigger warnings are a load of nonsense. People needs to be educated about their emotions and how to deal with them effectively. Who the hell is responsible for developing this utter nonsense and these avoidant behaviours. They know nothing about emotional development or the treatment of trauma, that's for sure.
They also don't seem to remember that the best way to get young people to do something is to tell them it's taboo or that they can't. Shoot, that crap still works when we're adults.
Trigger warnings on hospital programs late at night or police programs late at night, we know what we r watching we don't need to know the content might b sensitive or upset us, now they putting warnings out before our soaps come on in case we get upset, what a fragile lot people r becoming
'Triggers" are real. They are real for people who have (genuine) post-traumatic stress disorder. The trouble is, we live is a world in which everybody is self-diagnosing and diagnosing others with serious psychotic conditions which they simply do not have. There may be genuine cases of students with PTSD. Indeed, there almost certainly are. Yet they probably, at most, account for 1% of the student body. To treat 100% of students as if they such from mental ill health is just a standing insult disguised as care. The other aspect to this problem of diagnosis is that anybody who questions the norm is also deemed to suffer from a form of psychosis. Hence, somebody who thinks a woman is a human being born with a vagina and a cervix is called a 'transphobe.' That is, someone who has been clinically diagnosed with an irrational fear (from the Greek 'phobos') of transsexuals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet once you damn somebody with the label of mental instability, you have no further need to argue your case. That is the principle upon which this works. The Soviets employed the same policy with their dissidents. They said that they were not criminals, but mad. They were then confined to asylums and their arguments condemned and dismissed forever. Incidentally, I work at a university that now has 'trigger' warnings on the cover of the Harry Potter books. Not because of the content but because of the views of the author. Recently, at this same university, I introduced the students to the Criminal Law Syllabus. To my astonishment they had to have a verbal 'trigger warning' prior to this introduction because the syllabus naturally concerned reference to rape and murder. I thought that I was getting used to this nonsense, but it is gets worse every single day.
@@whitemale6227 I do not actually disagree with you in terms of motive, which I did not bring up. This is the point I made about the 'disguised as care.' What are they disguising? The fact that those behind it are fundamentalists. Like all fundamentalists they are pushing a creed (call it an agenda if you will). Like all fundamentalists they will brook absolutely no dissent. If you cannot kill it at source (ie make the academic unemployed and unemployable), you badge him as insane. By doing do, his ideas will also be viewed as beyond the pale (if that is not now viewed as a racist term??) I work at a University. Every day I am 'walking on egg-shells.' I keep my mouth firmly shut, (as well as I am able), and my opinions competely to myself. For I know that if I do not, I will share the fate of some of my colleagues who were cast into the outer darkness, never to return.
