hat is the difference between being “resilient” and being “antifragile”?

In this fascinating episode of Integral Justice Warrior, Diane and Corey are joined by Gail Hochachka and Rob McNamara to explore anti-fragile approaches to climate change. We are also joined by fellow integral enthusiast Deb Collins, who offers her own perspectives around the tragic wild fires that swept across the Australian continent.

Antifragility is a concept made popular by author Nassim Nicolas Taleb in his book, Antifragile: Things that Gain From Disorder, in which Taleb posits three different characteristics any given system can have:

• Fragile systems tend to fall apart when hit with a system shock.
• Resilient systems (or “robust systems”) tend to stay the same when hit with a system shock.
• Antifragile systems actually change and evolve when hit with a system shock.

As it becomes increasingly clear just how fragile our ecological, economic, and political systems have become, it is also becoming increasingly important that we begin to meet the many fragilities of our time with a genuinely anti-fragile response — after all, fragile reactions only produce more fragility. We are looking for solutions that are far more comfortable with volatility and uncertainty, and that can actually help systems and organizations evolve in the face of ongoing disruption. Solutions that do not deny the existence of fragility, but rather seek to increase their own anti-fragility by working to reduce fragility in the world, wherever we find it.

In this episode we discuss how naturally anti-fragile the integral sensibility is, thanks largely to its fluency with multiple perspectives and value sets, as well as its access to meta-aware cognition (awareness of awareness) that allows integral practitioners to bring far more presence, patience, humility, and humor to conversations like these. After all, it’s hard to think of a better slogan for our own capacity for anti-fragility than Ken Wilber’s famous line, “Hurts more, bothers you less” — an integration of both tender fragility and unshakable resilience, allowing us to respond to the needs and pressures of the moment with both bottomless compassion and unwavering equanimity.

So join us in this fascinating discussion of fragility, resilience, and anti-fragility in the heart of the Anthropocene.

Be sure to join us for our next episode, on the last Saturday of each month (see Integral Live for the full calendar!)

Text by Corey deVos