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Principle of Charity
TRIGGER WARNING!: Should we Move Towards or Away from Triggers?
Trigger warnings have become common practice these days, not just in university campuses, but across the media landscape, in film, television, online and social media. They warn us that the material we’re about to see or hear might trigger distress. But what actually is a trigger? And what’s it meant to protect us from?
Trigger warnings were originally linked with post traumatic stress disorder - the idea being that those who have been through a traumatic event, for example sexual violence, and who then suffer from PTSD, can be triggered into re-experiencing that distress when exposed to related content. These days, however, trigger warnings seem to capture any sort of potentially distressing content, and are aimed at everyone, whether we have clinical PTSD or not. The idea is that we should be (or maybe even we have the right to be) warned about distressing content in advance.
But do trigger warnings work effectively? Do people in practice avoid content that may be triggering and if they choose to watch, are people able to prepare themselves emotionally, to reduce the impact of the material. Or, does the opposite happen - is there an ‘anticipatory effect’ where people get more distressed as they wait for and brace for the traumatic content.
Our guests on this podcast bring two different views to the table. Victoria Bridgland is a psychologist who has done detailed data based research into trigger warnings and has concluded not only that they don’t work, but that they are likely to exacerbate distress. Sociologist Nicole Bedera sees trigger warnings as important but not enough. She believes we need institutions that do much more to support those who’ve been through trauma, particularly sexual assault, otherwise they’re at risk of a secondary trauma caused by ‘institutional betrayal’.
Guests:
Nicole Bedera, Ph.D. is a sociologist at the University of Michigan and author of the forthcoming book On the Wrong Side: How Universities Betray Survivors to Protect Perpetrators of Sexual Assault.
Her research broadly focuses on how our social structures contribute to survivors’ trauma and make sexual violence more likely to occur in the future.
Her scholarship has influenced sexual violence prevention programming across the United States, including for Planned Parenthood, and her work has featured in media including The New York Times, NPR, and the BBC.
Victoria Bridgland
Victoria graduated with a research PhD in 2021 from Flinders University.
Victoria’s research interests include expectancy effects, emotional regulation, and memory for traumatic events. Her main body of work concerns trigger warnings, and what benefit – if any – they have for people encountering negative material.
Victoria currently serves on the Student Caucus Executive board for the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition.
In 2019 Victoria won a South Australian Postgraduate Fulbright Scholarship.
Victoria is currently at Harvard, with her research focussing on trigger warnings in art spaces.
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You can be part of the discussion @PofCharity on Twitter, @PrincipleofCharity on Facebook and @PrincipleofCharityPodcast on Instagram.
Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman.
Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in
Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and Twitter.
This Podcast is Produced by Jonah Primo and Bronwen Reid
Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com
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01:15:24||Season 1, Ep. 67Three years after his first appearance on Principle of Charity, the effervescent Tim Minchin returns for this first, and very special spotlight episode for 2025. Emile, Lloyd and Tim reflect on the principle of charity itself, and how themes explored in Tim’s latest book You Don’t Have To Have a Dream (Penguin Random House) relate to its application in our lives. What role can the scientific method, kindness and authenticity play in helping us consider the viewpoints of those with whom we most disagree, and lead flourishing lives? Tim MinchinIn addition to two decades of award-winning live performance and multiple recorded specials, Tim is the composer and lyricist of smash-hit stage musicals, Matilda and Groundhog Day.He is also a screenwriter (of the award-winning Upright, in which he stars alongside House of The Dragon’s Milly Alcock), and a screen actor, (Atticus Fetch in Californication, Friar Tuck in Robin Hood 2014, Darius Cracksworth in Disney's The Artful Dodger).He is a public speaker, and a book of his commencement speeches, You Don’t Have to Have a Dream, was recently published by Penguin Random House. Stage roles include his acclaimed Judas in the 2014 UK / Australian Arena Tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, and Rosencrantz in the Sydney Theatre Company’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. He is a voice actor, has published two children's books and a graphic novel, and sometimes get into trouble for criticising fundamentalists of all stripes. His 2020 studio album, Apart Together, peaked at #2 on the ARIA charts.Among many accolades, he has won two Olivier Awards for Best Musical, a British Composers Award for Best Score, a Logie for Best Supporting Actor, an ACTAA for best TV comedy performance, an Edinburgh Comedy Award for best Newcomer, a Whats On Stage Award for Best Actor in a Musical, The Richard Dawkins Award for Science Communication, and an Order of Australia for Services to the Arts and the Community. He has been nominated for some Tonys and a Grammy. CREDITSYour hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics CentreFind Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked inFind Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and XThis podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina OrganoFind Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information66. Does Consciousness Survive Death? Pt. 2 On the Couch
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01:12:55||Season 1, Ep. 65In this episode, we’re joined by one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, Anil Seth, and Advaita Vedanta spiritual leader and scholar, Swami Sarvapriyananda, to explore ideas around consciousness. When we die, does our consciousness die with us, or is our body just a vehicle, at best, for a consciousness that continues?Most mainstream forms of western knowledge are based on an understanding that nothing exists outside of the physical world which follows the fundamental laws of physics. It posits that whatever we seek to understand, we need to do so using the tools of material reality. It seems however, that this largely shared assumption around the nature of reality falls apart for many of us when we think about what happens after death. By far the majority of people living on this planet believe in a consciousness, or a related term like ‘soul’, that exists separate to our material body and can therefore continue after death. This belief is of course the basic building block of pretty much all religions - and all these beliefs share an assumption that there’s a realm of disembodied mind, or spirit, which can continue after our body dies. In philosophy of mind, this belief is called ‘dualism’. But for most hard-nosed scientists and philosophers, there’s something deeply problematic about dualism, of this separating out of conscious experience from the material world. Everything else can be explained using the tools of material reality. Why not consciousness?BIOSAnil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. He is also Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness. 2021 saw the publication of his best selling book, Being You - A New Science of Consciousness.Anil was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness (Oxford University Press), a role he served from 2014-2024. Swami Sarvapriyananda is a Hindu monk belonging to the Ramakrishna Order and the Minister and spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of New York. He was in the first group of Hindu swamis to participate as a Nagral Fellow for the year 2019-20 at Harvard Divinity School. He is a well-known speaker on Vedanta teachings and his talks are extremely popular worldwide. Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics CentreFind Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked inFind Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and XThis podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina OrganoFind Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information