Peanuts and Trigger Warnings The Olympics the World Wanted and Tokyo

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.

These measures are designed to protect traumatised students from stimuli that may cause them anxiety or other negative emotions. However, such measures go completely against the advice of the vast majority of the psychological literature. Richard McNally, a Harvard Psychology Academic, argued in a New York Times article in 2016 that “trigger warnings are counter-therapeutic because they encourage avoidance of reminders of trauma, and avoidance maintains PTSD”. Instead, he advises that students who experience severe emotional reactions from course material to “prioritise their mental health and obtain evidence-based, cognitive-behavioural therapies… these therapies involve gradual, systematic exposure to traumatic memories until their capacity to trigger distress diminishes.” Exposing oneself to manageable anxious situations is considered so important to recovery, that some therapists advise their patients to avoid anti-anxiety medication during treatment for trauma (as Haidt outlines in Coddling).

The assumption of human fragility is also harming our ability to think critically about certain uncomfortable topics. Jeannie Suk Gerson of Harvard Law School stated in a 2014 New Yorker article that students are becoming increasingly anxious about classroom discussion and are often encouraged by the university administration and other students not to participate if it makes them feel uncomfortable. Gerson wrote “asking students to challenge each other in discussions of rape law has become so difficult that teachers are starting to give up on the subject… if the topics of sexual assault were to leave the law-school classroom, it would be a tremendous loss—above all to victims of sexual assault.” In Australia, Dr Short and Dr Lane wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2016 that the same-sex-marriage plebiscite should not take place because the public debate of gay rights would harm the mental health of members of the LGBTQI community. In 2016, on the Canadian News program The Agenda, trans rights activists refused to defend their own views on national television because they deemed that debating the rights of trans people to be harmful.

However, not only would refusing to engage in such discussions to protect the emotions of listeners make them emotionally worse-off in the long run (given antifragility), but it also fails to realise that the majority of issues worth discussing will necessarily make someone feel uncomfortable. For example, it could equally be argued that the same-sex-marriage plebiscite made fundamentalist Christians uncomfortable given that their identity and worldview had been brought into question. However, exposing these individuals to potential flaws in their beliefs may have ultimately changed their understanding for the better. Without public debate, their arguments could not be publicly debunked. After all, not engaging in discussion isn’t going to change the minds of people who already disagree with you. This also applies to personal matters. Discussing with your partner that you wish to end the relationship is going to make everyone involved uncomfortable, however, such a discussion is necessary to achieve a happier future. The process of updating our understanding of the world is generally uncomfortable. After all, the realisation that we were wrong destroys (at least part of) the vision of the world we had previously established and requires us to relearn things we once thought were true.

Such proposed restrictions on public discourse also come at a massive cost to society. Human beings are naturally biased creatures. We ourselves cannot fully confirm the soundness of our arguments without bringing in third parties to find the flaws and inconsistencies that we may have overlooked. If we refuse to engage in debate or refuse to allow others to criticise certain ideas, we risk holding flawed beliefs which may end up harming ourselves and others. No single person, or group of people, can determine which ideas we should dogmatically believe because it is exactly our own biases that may be preventing us from realising why such ideas might be wrong. Ultimately, freedom of speech is not just a right; it is the very mechanism that allows society to avoid tyranny and to pursue the truth.

If we wish to grow—if we wish to develop ourselves into smarter, more competent, and more confident human beings— we must explore the experiences which lie beyond our comfort zones. Uncomfortable situations are not objects to avoid, but challenges to overcome so that we can emerge better people on the other side. Such exploration is ultimately what makes life worthwhile and meaningful.