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ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne
peanuts and trigger warnings ANGUS PADLEY
CW: PTSD, SASH, Trauma Although this article argues for a different approach, it is Woroni Policy to include content warnings. However, I (the author) do not want such warnings to discourage anyone from reading ahead. As this article will advise, if readers find that they are experiencing severe emotional reactions from the discussion of these topics, then they should seek professional therapeutic advice. Until the mid-1990s, peanut allergies were rare amongst children, with only about every four in one thousand children being susceptible. However, by mid-2008, this number had almost quadrupled to fourteen in every one thousand kids. As Johnathan Haidt recalls in his book The Coddling of the American Mind, the response of his son’s preschool, and most schools worldwide, was to ban peanut products. Just to be extra safe, some schools banned products with any traces of peanuts or tree nuts at all. The result? The rate of peanut allergies increased further still. As it would turn out, if a child’s immune system is never exposed to peanuts their bodies will be unable to cope with exposure
to even the smallest traces of peanut particles. Researchers would later find that early exposure to peanut products dramatically reduced the chances of a child developing the allergy. Now, organisations such as Allergy and Anaphylaxis Australia do not promote peanut bans at schools. What Haidt describes here is an example of an ‘antifragile’ system. An antifragile system is any system that strengthens from exposure to manageable shocks; first described by Nissan Taleb in his book The Black Swan. Our immune systems, our muscles, our bones, and, as Haidt explains in Coddling, our minds are also antifragile. In an antifragile system, overprotection leads to a positive feedback loop in which the ‘cure’ becomes the primary cause of the disease. If an antifragile system is never taken out of its comfort zone, it begins to weaken to the point where it can barely handle even the mildest of uncomfortable experiences. Particularly at universities, the assumption that humans are fragile (instead of antifragile) appears to be growing in popularity. A common manifestation of this is the modern university’s implementation of ‘trigger warnings’ and ‘safe spaces.
