Janie B. Cheaney: Of logs and specks

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, September 20th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: trigger warnings and other mistakes.

WORLD Commentator Janie B. Cheaney warns conservatives not to compound the trouble by giving in to unrighteous anger or claims of victimhood.

JANIE B. CHEANEY, COMMENTATOR: What’s music to the ears of a conservative Christian? The words “I was wrong” from a progressive secularist. Jill Filipovic’s piece on The Atlantic’s website titled “I Was Wrong about Trigger Warnings” attracted me like peach ice cream. “Trigger warnings” signal any distressing or “triggering” material in a written or spoken presentation, such as a discussion of racist or sexual violence. They began online but spread to the college campus, where instructors issued warnings if a lecture or assigned reading included potentially disturbing topics.

Filipovic is an author and outspoken feminist who accepted trigger warnings as a reasonable accommodation to sensitive readers. After a while, though, it seemed readers might be getting too sensitive. One complained that a humorous photo of cats attacking dogs triggered thoughts of domestic violence. Another asked for a warning about eating disorders when Filipovic mentioned gagging over a piece of conservative legislation. “In giving greater weight to claims of individual hurt and victimization,” she wonders, “have we inadvertently raised a generation that has fewer tools to manage hardship and transform adversity into agency?”

As someone who wrote about trigger warnings for the WORLD blog back in 2014, I can’t resist an I-told-you-so twinge of smugness. Though I understand handling real trauma victims with sensitivity, the definition of “trauma” has been politicized and expanded to include any adversarial ideas—especially conservative ideas. While “perception is reality” is common parlance in the mental-health community, many professionals warn against conditioning patients to live in their own reality rather than adapting to the real world.

I have to wonder, though, if we on the right are subject to our own form of triggering. If depictions of domestic violence and white supremacy send one side scurrying for cover, might ideas like “the elites” and “stolen election” carry the other side into the capitol building waving signs and chanting “Hang Mike Pence”?

Those are two extremes. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, where we try to sort our differences and get along around the dinner table. Meanwhile, political rhetoric is bull-horning into our phones and living rooms, so loud we can hardly hear ourselves think. There’s plenty to be righteously angry about in this world, and bad ideas have terrible consequences. But if we Christians find ourselves repeatedly “triggered,” and our anger leaves no room for compassion, we might be wise to put ourselves in timeout. As James warns us, “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

Even on the left, people are people, not slogans. Jill Filipovic came to see how she was wrong about trigger warnings. Likewise, she was very negative about marriage until she found a man she wanted to marry. If someone is willing to admit mistakes, we should be open to listening rather than sneering. Besides, there’s bound to be something we’re wrong about.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

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