Triggered

“I went into photography because it seemed like the perfect vehicle for commenting on the madness of today’s existence…Sell the public flowers–things that they can hang on their walls without being uptight.” – Robert Mapplethorpe

“He wasn’t certain whether he was a good or bad person. Whether he was altruistic. Whether he was demonic. But he was certain of one thing. He was an artist. And for that he would never apologize.” -Patti Smith on Robert Mapplethorpe, from her memoir Just Kids

“Freedom is…the right to write the wrong words.” -Patti Smith

In their 2018 book, The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff write about a culture of “safety-ism” that arose in the early 2010s. They called it “safetyism” because it was a collection of morals and values that obsessed over and optimized everything for young people to feel safe and comfortable. This meant parents not letting their children play outside alone. It meant removing upsetting or controversial content from television, the internet, or news media. And yes, it also included trigger warnings.

The aims of safety-ism were noble. They saw that young people were experiencing greater amounts of anxiety, stress, and depression than previous generations and sought to remedy their angst by protecting them from anything that could potentially harm or upset them.

But this is not how the human mind works. The human mind is not fragile—it does not need to be protected and cushioned from the hard surfaces of reality like a vase or piece of fine china. The human mind is antifragile—that is, it gains from discomfort and strain. That means to grow stronger, the human mind needs to regularly be confronted with difficult and upsetting experiences to develop stability and serenity for itself. -Mark Manson

While I understand trigger warnings and believe they come from a good and noble place…isn’t a main purpose of art, especially the theatre, to trigger? To hold a mirror up to ourselves and society? To bring up difficult and sometimes painful emotions? To stimulate important dialogue? To engender greater empathy for the human condition?

Yes, art absolutely can and should entertain. Entertaining and providing an escape has meaningful purpose.

But additionally, I think most people go to the theatre and interact with art at large–even if on a subconscious level–to also be triggered. To have their worldview expanded. To be shaken up a bit.

And if that’s the case, should we also then put trigger warnings on bland art that does nothing? So that people who do want to be triggered know ahead of time that they won’t be.