I understand the idea of shielding people from content that would be upsetting, but my own experience is, that I feel a little anxious as soon as I read Trigger Warning […].
How is your experience with it? Are you happy with it, or do you thing there are better ways to address dark topics?
Content/trigger warnings are not about “being shielded from hardship;” they’re about not springing trauma triggers or upsetting shit on unsuspecting people (or not causing actual physical harm to people, in the case of epilepsy warnings).
Like, OK, cool, you read Mein Kampf. I don’t think that’s a bad thing to do, for the reasons you did it. But you did that freely and knowing what you were getting into (“by Adolf Hitler” serves as an implicit content warning IMO). Suppose you were a Jewish student and your history teacher sprung a reading from Mein Kampf in the middle of a lesson with no warning. Or hell, just imagine having “Old Yeller” sprung on you the day after your dog died. I don’t think it’s babying anyone to warn them about something that could ruin their day.