Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Here.

To the Editor:

Incest and sexual violence are hardly the only sorts of topics that might trigger panic attacks in students. The same can happen with readings about racism or readings critical of abortion or affirmative action, which may give some students the panicky feeling of being attacked. Even depictions of love and success may induce panic in students who fear that they will never have these goods.

Here’s why I don’t use trigger warnings: I’m a teacher, not a therapist, and I teach young adults, not children. Rather than second-guess what might cause panic attacks in students, I favor a general statement that some students may find some course material upsetting, each student should deal with that in his own way, and my job is to provide intellectual thrills, not therapy.

FELICIA NIMUE ACKERMAN

Providence, R.I.

The writer is a professor of philosophy at Brown University.

Note from KBJ: Why would you even provide "a general statement that some students may find some course material upsetting"? Life is upsetting. Get used to it.

The more the media and the Beltway establishment slam Donald Trump, the greater is his support among those who dislike the media and the Beltway establishment. Go Donald!

Here.

Here.

The World Championships are in the United States this year. I'm watching the men's road race live on CNBC as I type this. It's on the streets of Richmond, Virginia. The winner gets to wear the rainbow jersey for the next year.

Addendum: Peter Sagan of Slovakia, a fan favorite even in the United States, is the new World Champion. Here is video of the final six kilometers. Sagan averaged 26.01 miles per hour for 162.4 miles. As a cyclist, I find that mind-boggling.

The strongest case in general terms for resistance to large and sudden change is, however, indirect. It rests on the great number of unintended and unpredicted consequences that will emerge from change of that kind. The prevailing political system influences numerous and various aspects of life. If it is suddenly or violently transformed, a host of stabilities which provide a background of regularity within which life can be rationally and prudently led are jeopardized. A change of tailor will affect one's clothing but will have few other substantial results and, if they are objectionable, the change can easily be reversed. A change of political system is likely to influence the whole social environment. It is not only that large political changes have many unintended results that are unwelcome. They also frequently fail to achieve their intended results or achieve opposite ones.

It may be thought that this line of reasoning assumes that most change is for the worse, or, at any rate, that most unintended and unexpected change has bad results. Are these unplanned by-products of change never bonuses, never changes for the better? In the abstract, is not unplanned change as likely to be good as bad? The formation and running of a state is more like walking on a girder high above the ground or driving a car along a narrow, winding road than like tossing a coin. There are innumerable ways in which it is possible to go wrong, indeed disastrously wrong, but only a very tightly restricted number of ways in which you can go right, apart from the simple policy of staying where you are.

Conservative traditionalism does not rule out change. As Burke said in his Reflections, 'A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation'. But change should be in response both to a change in extra-political circumstances—increase in population, of the proportion of the population that is literate, a new balance between agriculture and industry—and to a widely-felt need arising from it, and it should be gradual so that unplanned detrimental side-effects be counteracted. A particular reason for hostility to revolutionary change is that revolutions, when serious and not of the palace variety, bring about a large transfer of power and, naturally, of wealth and status. The resentment of the newly deprived is likely to be violent. The ensuing civil war is likely to divert the revolutionaries from their original intentions.

(Anthony Quinton, "Conservatism," chap. 9 in A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, ed. Robert E. Goodin and Philip Pettit, Blackwell Companions to Philosophy [Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1993], 244-68, at 254)

This image shows the Bavarian Belle Riverboat docked on the Cass River in Frankenmuth, with the old-fashioned covered bridge in the background. Click to enlarge.

To the Editor:

I did a double take of recognition at these sentences: “But many women who started out with all the ambition in the world find themselves in a place they never expected to be. They do not choose to leave their jobs; they are shut out by the refusal of their bosses to make it possible for them to fit their family life and their work life together.”

While struggling to balance working full time as a physician with caring for my dying father, my special-needs daughter and my 90-year-old aunt who had fallen and broken her hip, I requested that my boss allow me to go part time or telework. He denied these requests and explained to me how many other physicians were successfully making it all work. (Really?) I loved my work passionately, but I took an unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. In his world, where his wife was primarily caring for his children, my boss (a caring and thoughtful person) could not understand my struggle.

There remains a profound misunderstanding in the workplace of the toxic level of expectations and stress under which women are working. Does anyone really wonder why there are so few women “at the top”?

RUTH RODGERS

Corte Madera, Calif.

Note from KBJ: If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Unless you plan to be around 18 years from now, this is your last chance to see a blood moon.