Word from Columbia University is that yet another female creature was triggered. Our victim was in her “Lit Hum” class—Columbia is, and soon to be “was”, one of the few schools which retained the classics of Western literature—when the professor stumbled across the myth of Persephone.

Now Persephone was out among her flowers—she and her mother were the gods responsible for asparagus and other greenery—when Hades pulled her under and laid her down. Homer has more details than Ovid, but neither description can be termed vivid. Well, Ovid mentions a “bosom”.

Anyway, the Columbia student claimed to be a “survivor” of a “sexual assault”, the nature of which was never revealed. Perhaps a male ogled her without permission. Skip it.

You won’t believe it, but this injured femme claimed “her professor focused on the beauty of the language and the splendor of the imagery when lecturing on the text” and not on her victimhood! “As a result,” reports the Columbia Spectator, “the student completely disengaged from the class discussion as a means of self-preservation. She did not feel safe in the class.” She could have died!

I can’t speak for you, dear reader, but when I read that I wept.

The paper goes on to insist “many texts in the Western canon…[contain] triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom. These texts, wrought with histories and narratives of exclusion and oppression, can be difficult to read and discuss as a survivor, a person of color, or a student from a low-income background.”

Solution? Eliminate the texts. I say burn them in the campus’s sustainable wood-fired electricity generation plant. Waste not, want not. And listen: we’re talking megawatts here, because it’s not only Ovid that gets consigned to the flames.

Recall: Poseidon set down his trident and, without a signed contract of mutual consent, had his watery way with Medusa. All recall the sequel. She became the world’s first feminist and, long before Andrea Dworkin came on the scene, patented the now-familiar withering vituperative feminist scowl. And Medusa’s looks could kill! Whereas the best modern feminists can do is to make the priesthood looked darned appealing.

Don’t let’s forget that Zeus was a particularly randy god. A sneaky one, too. Turned himself into a swan so he could get past Leda’s vigilance. He also forced himself upon Antiope. And those are only the low-lights. Reading about the antics of Greek gods could trigger even a Filipino sailor.

Purge Plutarch! He embarrassed us all by denoting the unscheduled trip the Sabine women were forced to make when their men were absent from home. Now he might have kept his place in the canon, except that the unmannered brute told us what happened afterwards. Seems these Sabinian ladies took a shine to their deflowerers (you heard me) and reasoned that men as vigorous as all that would make good husbands. Plus, they didn’t want to see their daddies involved in a useless fight defending absent honors. Rome soon had a new crop of healthy, happy babies.

We’re going to have to burn all the copies of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, too.

In the interest of fairness to men, who hardly ever get to play at being triggered, who recalls what occurred when Lot’s daughters got him liquored up? A tale to put you off the bottle, men. And these events took place after Lot had protected his heavenly house guests from the aggravated buggery threatened by inhospitable Sodomites (the originals, you understand). And wasn’t Dinah set upon by a slavering Canaanite? She was.

Out goes the Bible.

Do we even need to discuss the Japanese army’s appalling behavior in Nanking? And, come to think on it, the behavior of most armies everywhere, everywhen? So much for military history. What about the endless series of pretty young things served up to Mao and infected with his syphilitic seed? Oh dear. Thing is, Mao’s aberrant treatment of the ladies was not as rare as one would like. Even a moment’s thought is enough to convince that all of history is triggering. Don’t even mention Shakespeare. No other solution but a complete canon purge can prevent survivors and students of color and of low-income from grief.

Does this mean high-income white men are made of sterner stuff? I’m just asking.

Keep moving. It’s worse that you thought. A professor allowed one class to suggest a book they should all read. A wounded student put up Toni Morrison. But “another student declared that texts by authors of the African Diaspora are a staple in most high school English classes, and therefore they did not need to reread them.” The paper said that this student’s remark “was not merely insensitive, but also revealing of larger ideological divides.” Like the chasm between well-written and victim-hyped literature.

Columbia’s Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board on Literature & Humanities isn’t happy about the freedom professors retain. “Experiences in the classroom,” they say, “all too often traumatize and silence students.” Traumatizing, dear reader, is a bad thing. Worst news is that “not all professors seem equipped to be effective facilitators in the classroom.”

The MAAB demands “a learning environment that recognizes the multiplicity of their identities.” To this end they’re going to shoot off “a letter to faculty about potential trigger warnings and suggestions for how to support triggered students.” They’re also going to set up a re-education camp for profs to teach them “to constructively facilitate conversations that embrace all identities”. Professors need to be made to acknowledge that Western culture has “created an unjust, unequal, and oppressive existence for many”. Not the MAAB members, naturally, who are living the high life.

Ending on an upbeat note, the MAAB noted that “many instructors have been receptive” and have “expressed dedication” to removing the last vestiges of civilization from Columbia.

Related: ISIS’ destruction of biblical Iraq: A bitter irony of history. Also, Universities? Nuke ’em From Orbit. It’s The Only Way To Be Sure.

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Thanks to Shotover for alerting us to this tawdry subject.

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