Please, say what you mean! Be more in touch with your inner feelings! Don't hold back on their account!Batou667 said:
College student wants class' graphic novels "eradicated from the system"
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It's not clear what your point is here?Thyunda said:
Is being a humanities student a pre-requisite for being a private investigator?
Or is it that humanities is a subject that has a lot of confronting material?
Then if so, why would people who are sensitive choose to be humanities majors if they can't handle the subject matter?
It doesn't make sense to defend their sensitivity by saying humanities major's deal with a lot of harsh material so that's why they're over-sensitive. Wouldn't that make them more easy-going in that regard and able to put things into perspective instead of being triggered by inconsequential stuff?
(and I'm pretty sure that poster was exaggerating the PTSD potential of abstract maths for sarcastic effect.)
It's a cruel irony where people who get into humanities do it because they're sensitive and creative, and the first objective of those courses is to crush that sensitivity. Generally, humanities students are more easy-going and capable of dealing with it because they're exposed to it in the right context. There's rarely any pre-course warning for this (at least none that I've seen) and you do get people like the student in the story whose minds get totally blown by the concept. The private investigator thing was an example of how you can get almost 'second-hand PTSD' from reading too much disturbing material, and not directly connected to the humanities thing in terms of occupation, just in rough practice.Kwak said:
Not sure where all this "millennials are sheltered and have an exaggerated sense of entitlement" stuff is coming from, considering how prominent book burning and witch hunts were in the past. In many ways, today's college-age kids are more desensitised to violence and sex than any generation that came before.
Let's keep in mind that in the USA, "concerned parents" get up in arms about biology textbooks teaching actual biology (ie. evolution). Let's not pretend that previous generations are all thick-skinned and open-minded.
Let's keep in mind that in the USA, "concerned parents" get up in arms about biology textbooks teaching actual biology (ie. evolution). Let's not pretend that previous generations are all thick-skinned and open-minded.
It's coming from this:DizzyChuggernaut said:
https://www.google.com.au/search?client=opera&q=+trigger+warnings+on+literature&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
The fact that previous generations have had similar or worse puritanical behaviour is not a reason to excuse the most recent incarnation of it or to think it should pass without comment or criticism.
Of course, but it might be a result of lingering outdated attitudes rather than young people being less open-minded than previous generations. The trigger warning thing you pointed out, while I guess it could be a bit unnecessary depending on the warnings, wouldn't actually result in people banning or censoring books. I'd say it's quite considerate if a book has rape in it to have a warning for those who do not want to read it, especially if it'll conjure up images of a rape the reader has experienced.Kwak said:
When it comes to a curriculum that has media with sexual or violent texts... errr... that's where I draw the line. Especially if it's a creative course, you need to immerse yourself in works that involve subjects like those eventually. But generally, it is the puritanical that want to ban books like these.
I'm ever so slightly confused by foreign education systems, so just to be sure - College is university, right?
Well, if that missy is upset about a few graphic novels with some nudity and violence, she probably shouldn't have chosen an Art degree. I'm sure the professors teaching modern English literature now can't wait for her to enrol in their courses and enjoy her reaction to stuff like A Heart of Darkness (oh my, racism!) and A Clockwork Orange ("My droogs, I think this devotchka about ready for some in-out in-out right after we provide a real horrorshow performance of the good ol' ultraviolence." /in character). God forbid she encounters European literature - Nabokov and marquis de Sade would give her (daddy) a heart attack.
One does not simply censor classical art. The silliness of some people.
Well, if that missy is upset about a few graphic novels with some nudity and violence, she probably shouldn't have chosen an Art degree. I'm sure the professors teaching modern English literature now can't wait for her to enrol in their courses and enjoy her reaction to stuff like A Heart of Darkness (oh my, racism!) and A Clockwork Orange ("My droogs, I think this devotchka about ready for some in-out in-out right after we provide a real horrorshow performance of the good ol' ultraviolence." /in character). God forbid she encounters European literature - Nabokov and marquis de Sade would give her (daddy) a heart attack.
One does not simply censor classical art. The silliness of some people.
Thank you!major_chaos said:
While I'm a humanities major myself, I have friends and family in healthcare/police and a friend who studied forensics. Reading de Sade might be disturbing, especially for people with colourful imagination, but seeing pictures of a motorcyclist being scraped from under a truck, that's some shit. Having people die under your hands, that can be traumatizing. We at humanities mostly talk ideas or personal accounts, rarely are we a witness.
Hear, hear.Arqus_Zed said:
While we're at it, we should probably give them Garth Ennis' The Pro.
I mean, I dread to think how these people would react to something that's actually disturbing, like Charles Burns' Black Hole or, hell, anything Suehiro Maruo's ever put down on paper.
I thunk a thought, that maybe the apparent trend of trigger-proofing and sanitising academia is the current generation's way of rebelling and challenging authority. So kind of the same as every generation, just the specific tools to do it have changed.
People used to wear loud bow-ties or listen to atonal jazz to freak-out their professors and other assorted authority figures, now they threaten their livelihood with legal action for not being sensitive enough to them. They have power to use so of course they will find a way to use it, what generation doesn't? Same old same old.
People used to wear loud bow-ties or listen to atonal jazz to freak-out their professors and other assorted authority figures, now they threaten their livelihood with legal action for not being sensitive enough to them. They have power to use so of course they will find a way to use it, what generation doesn't? Same old same old.
The weirdest thing about this to me is, I read all of these books at one time or another, and I can't comprehend the mindset to hate ALL of them at the same time. Each individually I get, I don't agree mind you but I can understand.
Someone wants to ban Y the Last Man? Well I would assume it was on the grounds that the books could be twisted to be viewed as anti-feminist or even anti-women as a whole if one really wanted to.
Someone hates The Fun Home? I would assume they are angry about depicting lesbians as being people instead of monsters (or something like that) or maybe even about portraying the abusive dad as a kind of good/redeemable guy.
Someone hates Sandman? Well, as others have said, that would be along the lines of violence or some implied rape scenes. Not to mention a very dark tone (which is the main reason people liked it to begin with, but that kind of thing always gets SOME hate from some people).
And someone hates Persepolis because..... they hate Iranians? They think its racist to show how the author dislikes modern day Iranian political bodies? They were offended by that bit where she maybe gets a guy arrested on false indecency charges because she was afraid of the cops (which makes no sense because she devotes a great deal of time reflecting on how shitty that was afterwards when her Grandma calls her on it)? Seriously, how can you want to ban Persepolis? Who is this girl, the Ayatollah? the ghost of the Shah? WHO ARE YOU!!
Someone wants to ban Y the Last Man? Well I would assume it was on the grounds that the books could be twisted to be viewed as anti-feminist or even anti-women as a whole if one really wanted to.
Someone hates The Fun Home? I would assume they are angry about depicting lesbians as being people instead of monsters (or something like that) or maybe even about portraying the abusive dad as a kind of good/redeemable guy.
Someone hates Sandman? Well, as others have said, that would be along the lines of violence or some implied rape scenes. Not to mention a very dark tone (which is the main reason people liked it to begin with, but that kind of thing always gets SOME hate from some people).
And someone hates Persepolis because..... they hate Iranians? They think its racist to show how the author dislikes modern day Iranian political bodies? They were offended by that bit where she maybe gets a guy arrested on false indecency charges because she was afraid of the cops (which makes no sense because she devotes a great deal of time reflecting on how shitty that was afterwards when her Grandma calls her on it)? Seriously, how can you want to ban Persepolis? Who is this girl, the Ayatollah? the ghost of the Shah? WHO ARE YOU!!
They're used interchangeably for the most part, but mean different things. Colleges have bachelor's degrees ; universities (made of a collection of schools) also have master's and doctoral programs, in addition to bachelor's.dangoball said:
On the one hand, the Internet makes available the sum total of human knowledge at the touch of a button.
On the other, it also makes available the deluded whining of every vacuous, entitled nutbar capable of wielding a keyboard.
I'm not sure we've come out ahead on that.
On the other, it also makes available the deluded whining of every vacuous, entitled nutbar capable of wielding a keyboard.
I'm not sure we've come out ahead on that.
Well hopefully a lot of people will read Persepolis in the hopes that it will contain pornography and upon finding out that it is really a beautifully written coming of age story they will not be too disappointed
Spoilers below (albeit for very old, genera classic material)
I'd have to read their exact statements to see if I'm correct, but it might just be that they are using "pornography" in it's proper context as opposed to the way it's been recently used to largely refer to sexual content. The basic idea is that anything that can be considered "offensive and without redeeming value" can be considered pornography. This is a point some people seem to be missing. When I took Criminal Justice many years ago there was a bit on this, as well as how the review process for things in Connecticut worked, where each individual work seeing a complaint needed to be reviewed, and then if it was found to be "pornographic" it would become illegal, as all porn is by definition illegal. Most things people consider porn have never been reviewed due to the simple volume which makes it impossible, and the term is being used improperly in a legal sense since it was never declared to be such. Most "porno" for example is technically "adult art films".
That said to be fair, I'm a huge fan of "Sandman" and enjoyed "Y", that said to be truly understood they need to be taken as entire series to get the context. Taken as individual volumes the way this is being brought up, well, I can sort of see the point. From what I remember of "The Doll's House" it was pretty lurid, even if not the most graphic comic I've ever read, and the subject matter was intended to push the envelope. The context for what was happening and why was largely included for other volumes, as was a proper analysis of Dream's place in the cosmos, and the reasons why he needed to maintain abject neutrality, his inability to do this was part of why he was ultimately preparing for his own "death" and replacement. That said when you get to that serial killer convention, the overall message there is that to each of these people they are heroes in their own mind, and feel justified in what they are doing. Dream winds up threatening to take away their ability to imagine themselves as being good guys. What's more he's there to recover the Corinthian, the ultimate nightmare he himself created, and which was the driving force behind those events. Devoid of greater context it could almost be seen as a sort of tacit approval as long as Dream was not crossed, and after all Dream is respectful of and willing to use his own creation. On certain levels this can be pretty offensive, and while I don't remember it perfectly, any redeeming merits would largely come from context gained from other volumes in the series. The same could likely be said about "Y" because that's a series that is also intending to push the envelope and it's one where the justification and context is spread throughout the entire work, as there are multiple plot twists, and how "wrong" certain things are becomes a substantial part of the entire narrative and the ultimate message which takes a long time to arrive at.
Those making the complaints are wrong, however the teacher probably does need to be spoken to and called to task over their choice of material. Simply using one volume of a lengthy work like this that tells a single, rather complicated, story, is asking for trouble. Rather the class should have focused on one of those series in it's entirely. I could easily see how someone with no familiarity with "The Sandman" could walk away feeling like it was close to endorsing
the worst kind of malevolent behavior. The whole metaphor of dreams needing nightmares, and how when Dream decides he means business he fights with nightmares (and needs what is arguably his strongest one) is ongoing through the series, as well as the specific role The Corinthian is being used for, to protect the new Dream, ultimately he winds up doing things like eating Loki's eyes in a sort of "heroic" role which is intentionally supposed to be at odds with what he did before and what he was created to do. At the level Dream is playing, there are reasons why he needs a nightmare as powerful as a god.
Persepolis strikes me as something that doesn't belong in a fiction class, it's supposed to be autobiographical, and it has a definite very obvious political slant. I wouldn't call it pornographic, but I do think it belongs more in a politics class or something having to do with Middle Eastern studies, to show one particular set of claims regarding the culture. It's not offensive and without redeeming value, unless your even more slanted against Middle Eastern culture than I am by far.
Fun Home is even more of a political piece, and is again autobiographical by the claims of the author, not a work of pure fiction. It belongs in a gay and lesbian studies class or something like that, not in a general class dedicated to fiction. That said to say it's "porn" requires you to be even more slanted than me.
Simply put the first two selections do have some political/social commentary, especially "Y" but both are complete works of fiction and the context is fantastic enough where viewed as a whole and within their own established worlds and logic they aren't even remotely offensive. The latter two are however political pieces that aren't even really fiction which is one of their selling points, and are intended to be non-fantastic in their own way with the intention of selling people on accepting left wing points of view. They are not good fits with the class but hardly offensive.
To be honest, when I first read "offensive graphic novels" for some reason I thought it was going to be stuff by Garth Ennis, and say a class where someone decided to use "Preacher" or "The Boys" both of which are entertaining but I'd honestly have a hard time defending the merits of as anything but offensive entertainment. I mean heck Ennis even mentioned in one interview I read a long time ago that with "Preacher" he hoped nobody would set out to emulate him because it was a carefully calculated and balanced kind of offensive and he figured if someone else did it, it would just be meaness for the sake of meaness. Both of those rapidly undermine any real point they had by intentionally being "okay, so how do I create something even more F@cked up than the last issue". Of course I admit my inner weirdo would love to see a college class being assigned essays on the characterization of "Arseface" and the Russian Super Hero "Love Sausage", or class wide discussion about people who sculpt women out of raw meat in their freezer and have sex with them.... then maybe I could see parents getting offended and wondering what exactly the money they gave their kids for college was being used for. "Hey dad, school gave me a new role model, his name is Billy Butcher...."
I'd have to read their exact statements to see if I'm correct, but it might just be that they are using "pornography" in it's proper context as opposed to the way it's been recently used to largely refer to sexual content. The basic idea is that anything that can be considered "offensive and without redeeming value" can be considered pornography. This is a point some people seem to be missing. When I took Criminal Justice many years ago there was a bit on this, as well as how the review process for things in Connecticut worked, where each individual work seeing a complaint needed to be reviewed, and then if it was found to be "pornographic" it would become illegal, as all porn is by definition illegal. Most things people consider porn have never been reviewed due to the simple volume which makes it impossible, and the term is being used improperly in a legal sense since it was never declared to be such. Most "porno" for example is technically "adult art films".
That said to be fair, I'm a huge fan of "Sandman" and enjoyed "Y", that said to be truly understood they need to be taken as entire series to get the context. Taken as individual volumes the way this is being brought up, well, I can sort of see the point. From what I remember of "The Doll's House" it was pretty lurid, even if not the most graphic comic I've ever read, and the subject matter was intended to push the envelope. The context for what was happening and why was largely included for other volumes, as was a proper analysis of Dream's place in the cosmos, and the reasons why he needed to maintain abject neutrality, his inability to do this was part of why he was ultimately preparing for his own "death" and replacement. That said when you get to that serial killer convention, the overall message there is that to each of these people they are heroes in their own mind, and feel justified in what they are doing. Dream winds up threatening to take away their ability to imagine themselves as being good guys. What's more he's there to recover the Corinthian, the ultimate nightmare he himself created, and which was the driving force behind those events. Devoid of greater context it could almost be seen as a sort of tacit approval as long as Dream was not crossed, and after all Dream is respectful of and willing to use his own creation. On certain levels this can be pretty offensive, and while I don't remember it perfectly, any redeeming merits would largely come from context gained from other volumes in the series. The same could likely be said about "Y" because that's a series that is also intending to push the envelope and it's one where the justification and context is spread throughout the entire work, as there are multiple plot twists, and how "wrong" certain things are becomes a substantial part of the entire narrative and the ultimate message which takes a long time to arrive at.
Those making the complaints are wrong, however the teacher probably does need to be spoken to and called to task over their choice of material. Simply using one volume of a lengthy work like this that tells a single, rather complicated, story, is asking for trouble. Rather the class should have focused on one of those series in it's entirely. I could easily see how someone with no familiarity with "The Sandman" could walk away feeling like it was close to endorsing
the worst kind of malevolent behavior. The whole metaphor of dreams needing nightmares, and how when Dream decides he means business he fights with nightmares (and needs what is arguably his strongest one) is ongoing through the series, as well as the specific role The Corinthian is being used for, to protect the new Dream, ultimately he winds up doing things like eating Loki's eyes in a sort of "heroic" role which is intentionally supposed to be at odds with what he did before and what he was created to do. At the level Dream is playing, there are reasons why he needs a nightmare as powerful as a god.
Persepolis strikes me as something that doesn't belong in a fiction class, it's supposed to be autobiographical, and it has a definite very obvious political slant. I wouldn't call it pornographic, but I do think it belongs more in a politics class or something having to do with Middle Eastern studies, to show one particular set of claims regarding the culture. It's not offensive and without redeeming value, unless your even more slanted against Middle Eastern culture than I am by far.
Fun Home is even more of a political piece, and is again autobiographical by the claims of the author, not a work of pure fiction. It belongs in a gay and lesbian studies class or something like that, not in a general class dedicated to fiction. That said to say it's "porn" requires you to be even more slanted than me.
Simply put the first two selections do have some political/social commentary, especially "Y" but both are complete works of fiction and the context is fantastic enough where viewed as a whole and within their own established worlds and logic they aren't even remotely offensive. The latter two are however political pieces that aren't even really fiction which is one of their selling points, and are intended to be non-fantastic in their own way with the intention of selling people on accepting left wing points of view. They are not good fits with the class but hardly offensive.
To be honest, when I first read "offensive graphic novels" for some reason I thought it was going to be stuff by Garth Ennis, and say a class where someone decided to use "Preacher" or "The Boys" both of which are entertaining but I'd honestly have a hard time defending the merits of as anything but offensive entertainment. I mean heck Ennis even mentioned in one interview I read a long time ago that with "Preacher" he hoped nobody would set out to emulate him because it was a carefully calculated and balanced kind of offensive and he figured if someone else did it, it would just be meaness for the sake of meaness. Both of those rapidly undermine any real point they had by intentionally being "okay, so how do I create something even more F@cked up than the last issue". Of course I admit my inner weirdo would love to see a college class being assigned essays on the characterization of "Arseface" and the Russian Super Hero "Love Sausage", or class wide discussion about people who sculpt women out of raw meat in their freezer and have sex with them.... then maybe I could see parents getting offended and wondering what exactly the money they gave their kids for college was being used for. "Hey dad, school gave me a new role model, his name is Billy Butcher...."