"Triggered"

So there's a new term that's become standard on the internet, and it's starting to cause problems.

"Trigger."

It's not used the way it's presented.

...Don't worry, I will explain.

Because I think it's a term that should  evoke a response from the audience, a response that...

Whoa, getting ahead of myself.

OK.

Most of you may not be aware that there's apparently a huge subset of American culture that's becoming so overly sensitized, and so overly entitled, that they're actually performing stunts like telling college professors not to present certain literature to them because it "triggers" them, or leaving in tears when a columnist says they chose not to use a particular word in their column because it's offensive, but refuses to do so without using the word they're trying to say they no longer use.

....Wuuuuuuuut.

But it's a thing.

Tumblr is full of it; one of the things I hear on a regular basis from Lovely Wife is descriptions of internet drama exploding because someone on Tumblr failed to tag a post correctly to prevent someone from being triggered.

Tags aren't there to prevent you from ever, ever seeing anything that you might not like, chum. They're there to make searching for things you actively do like more successful. You can use them to reduce the incidence of stuff you're not interested in, but expecting tags to utterly prevent you from having to extend your perceptions beyond the bounds of your special plastic bubble is expecting other humans to be perfect, which is...

...Well, it's fucking stupid.

So, let's talk about the term itself.

"Triggered."

Its meaning is that you experience a totally involuntary reaction of such power and pain that your responses are beyond your ability to control.

That is, of course, not what it's used for. It's used for anything that offends, because that way it can be a passive-aggressive way to put other people on the defensive; after all, it's not that they said something you don't like, it's that they said something so awful it traumatized you into a whimpering ball of kleenex.

I have a simple solution to this, for those of us who would rather not live in a world in which every thought, every word, has to be so self-censored that it's impossible to speak for fear of offending someone. See, I have no issue with basic courtesy, and will try to speak to people in the terms they prefer - up to a point. But when you start trying to demand that I go beyond the bounds of courtesy and cater exclusively to your whims - or if you're one of those demented jackoffs that think "cis-anything" is somehow an insult - you quickly overstep the bounds of my investment in you.

See, as a person, you have the right to basic courtesy and decency.

But that's all. Additional consideration comes not from you being a unique and special snowflake, but from your willingness to extend additional consideration for me. It's called "personal investment." You invest in me, I invest in you, and thus relationships are built.

There are ways to torpedo that.

For example, let's say we meet for the first time, in context of my job; I'm there to sell you something. You appear, to the unaided eye, to be female; you have feminine features, are wearing women's clothing, and makeup.

I say, "how are you today, ma'am?" Because that is the courteous way to greet an adult female.

Unbeknownst to me, you self-identify otherwise.

Now, there are ways to handle that. For example, common fucking sense:

"I actually self-identify as male; would you mind?"

"Not at all, sir, how may I assist you today?" Aaaaaand done. Nobody's offended, nobody feels disregarded, nobody acted like an asshole, positive interaction all the way around.

Or, instead...

"How dare you! Calling me 'ma'am' just perpetuates your rape culture, you cis shitlord!"

This doesn't get you anywhere. You got offended because I was polite, and now you have offended me in return. Now, I am at work, so instead of saying what I want to say, which is "wow, you're a prickly little monkey, aren't you? Where's your organ-grinder?" I will simply say, "My apologies; I will be happy to find you a more sensitive associate." And then I will introduce you to the dumbest, most insensitive brick I can find on our staff, because fuck you for being a tremendous douchecanoe.

So, here's the thing.

I think there's a simple way to handle this mentality that says that every offense, no matter how tiny, is an involuntary trigger of tremendous and involuntary trauma.

See, anyone who is involuntarily unable to control their reaction to offense, to the point where they find it incapacitating, is mentally ill.

I think we should act like it.

After all, we live in an age in which mental illness is destigmatized, right? We're able to talk about this plague of mental instability that's growing by leaps and bounds.

We should be proud, happy; indeed, we should be profoundly grateful that these total strangers have chosen to invest in us, to the point where they've chosen to share something deeply personal, something critical to their well-being, with us; it's not every day that someone simply bares their soul to a stranger and welcomes them in, even though they're risking shock and damage.

So we ought to respond accordingly, as a society.

"Oh, sweetheart, I had no idea! I'm so sorry. Bless your heart, do you need a tissue?"

If you don't want to go the Southern route, you can always do what Northerners seem to do when confronted with mental illness; hold both hands out in front of you like you're trying to hold off a serial killer while unarmed, open your eyes wide to indicate shock and disbelief, and back away slowly.

But we shouldn't be allowing the culture of offendedness to bully everyone around to the point of demanding college professors ask permission from freshmen to use certain words in their curriculum. College is supposed to expose you to more of the world, and bring you out of the insular world that is high school, preparing you thusly for entrance into society at large, not train you to be even more hermitlike in your determination to avoid anyone else and their opinions.

And we certainly shouldn't do anything to legitimize the idea that claiming you're "triggered" by something puts the onus for action on anyone BUT you.

If you have a trigger, avoid it.

If that trigger is something so commonplace that it becomes silly, you should be used to it by now and it should, over time, lose it's power. "I'm triggered by lemons!"

Well, good Christ don't play Portal 2, then.

But don't come to my house, enter my kitchen, and then tell me to remove lemons from my diet because you don't like them.

I don't really care what you do on the internet, guys. But if you act in real life the way you do online, you're gonna have a bad time.