Jedi Students These Days Can’t Resist the Dark Side Because of Trigger Warnings, by Luke Skywalker
You might expect that a revered Jedi Master who walks into a meditation circle filled with young acolytes would meet a group of students ready to learn about the powers of the Force, Light AND Dark. This has, after all, alwayds been the tradition of the Jedi Order, which, except for the brief and unfortunate period of my youth during which they were disbanded (a period to which I fear we will return if something is not done about the topic of this article!), and also the times when they were wiped out by the Sith every few centuries. Apart from those examples, Jedi have always taught students to seek the Light side, but to cope with the Dark.
I won’t say my own Jedi training experience was comfortable. I know I complained a lot at the time — but my teacher was insistent that I go into the Dark Side cave and face an illusory image of my greatest enemy, only to sever his head and find that inside his helmet was my own face! But today, there is an increasing movement in Jedi Academies — by which I mean mine, it’s the only one- to demand warnings before students are exposed to visions of terror, damned parents, millions of voices screaming out in terror, and other quite common things that people deal with on a regular basis.
The argument for so called “trigger warnings” was articulated by my former student “Kylo Ren,” who I refer to by this name only out of respect [and because my editors wouldn’t approve this piece otherwise]: if students are suddenly exposed to visions of, say, a gigantic, noseless figure imploring them to join the Dark Side and rule the galaxy, they might find themselves tempted! The fact that Be- I mean Kylo — had this unfortunate experience — and I do acknowledge that I, perhaps, could have done better in that situation-does not change the fact that during my own Jedi training, I not only faced such a figure physically, but resisted his call by leaping thousands of feet.
How am I to train a generation of Jedi if they expect to be warned everytime I show them what it’s like to feel the death of an entire world, or give them a vision of my father’s decaying, burned-out face? Trigger warnings are a slippery slope — to the Sith themselves.
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