As Americans, we often pride ourselves on our strength. Our grandfathers survived the Great Depression and stormed the beaches of Normandy, and they did not complain. This refusal to retreat from a tough challenge is what makes us great as a nation. And as a result of our strength, we are natural leaders. As the world’s superpower, America has an obligation to lead the world in terms of ideas. Unfortunately, our status as an exceptional nation is under threat, thanks to trigger warnings. In order to preserve our character, we must rid ourselves of trigger warnings altogether. To someone unfamiliar with the issue at hand, the notion that America is somehow under threat because of a trigger warning may come across as outlandish. However, a question must be raised: What happens to us as a society when we become too fearful of ideas? This question, once answered, clearly proves why the fear of our decline as a nation is rational, yet also unsurprising. Trigger warnings originated with a seemingly reasonable purpose. For those suffering from PTSD, certain images, concepts, or movie scenes can recall previous trauma and cause them to experience great distress. Thus, trigger …show more content…
Though there are some exceptions, the young generation at large today has been brainwashed by politically correct culture. That culture shuns complex thought, and makes any dissent from the PC mainstream punishable by shunning, yelling, and attempts to silence. It runs rampant on college campuses, and Hofstra is no exception. Trigger warnings are unfortunately a major aspect of this culture, and there is little remedy other than to save the minds of those we can still sway. As best summarized by the American Association of University Professors, “The presumption that students need to be protected rather than challenged in a classroom is at once infantilizing and anti-intellectual”