Comment by pkinsky | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pkinsky | Hacker News Reader

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I'm a bit of an edge case here, as I'm more-or-less triggered by certain comments on Christianity. Let me explain: I'm Assyrian, a member of a middle eastern minority Christian ethnic group. Fortunately my grandparents emigrated from Iraq before Saddam. Many of us aren't so lucky. ISIS is known for their mass beheadings of Christians and bulldozing of Assyrian historical sites, among other atrocities. Some prominent 'anti-racists' referred to this ethnic cleansing as 'karma' because the victims were Christian, which is of course an official Oppressor Class. So now, despite being an atheist, whenever I see someone flippantly claiming that Christians are never oppressed I can't help but hear it as a dismissal of ongoing genocide.

That said, I would never demand that all critical discussion of Christianity be banned.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but it sounds like you merely take offense. Perhaps the issue has been blurred through popular usage, but the "trigger warning" culture arose around social and environmental "triggers" that might cause someone to have a PTSD episode or to re-engage in self-destructive behavior (think eating disorders as a common case here).

And even so, if the point had been to halt discussion, there would be no such thing as "trigger warning" because the only reason to warn anyone is so that the discussion can still go forward, and people who feel the need can excuse themselves. How often we should promote discussion in which people feel the need to excuse themselves, however, is worth consideration.

When I see this quote in the article, “I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs,” I wince a bit too.

Offending and triggering are not the same thing. And although people within that political sphere are sometimes guilty of using the terms interchangeably, those who criticize that political sphere are often guilty of treating the entire thing as ridiculous. When in so many circumstances it's really not. I mean, you wouldn't dismiss the needs of a solider who had trouble around loud noises.

We just all need to be really careful about distinguishing between offensiveness (a matter of opinion) and triggering (a matter of involuntary mental state).

You aren't an edge case - you are an exception. Your distress is being co-opted, to everyone's loss.

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