What Does It Mean to Be Antifragile?
What Does It Mean to Be Antifragile?
The term “antifragile” is a very recent concept that only entered public consciousness starting in 2012, when Nassim Nicholas Taleb released the book “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.” Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who also wrote the bestseller “The Black Swan,” a book about rare and unpredictable events that bring major changes to society. For example, the Covid-19 pandemic was such an event.
A mathematician, risk analyst, essayist, and a man of encyclopedic spirit, Nicholas Taleb coined this term because he realized that there was no word (in any language) whose meaning was the opposite of fragile and, as he points out in his book, he needed it to describe a certain type of phenomena.
Fragile, Robust, Antifragile
We all know what fragile means – something that can easily deteriorate with any shock, any stress, any significant change in external conditions. At first glance, it might seem that the opposite of fragile is robust (or resistant). Robust means that it withstands shocks, that it does not break easily, that it does not change easily. A glass is fragile; if you drop it, it can break. A metal mug doesn’t suffer much damage and can be said to be robust. However, Nicholas Taleb argues, there are things in nature that not only do not suffer from stress and harsh conditions but, on the contrary, become better. In fact, it’s not about things, but about complex, living systems that can evolve over time. These are antifragile.
The most readily available example is the muscular system. It is known that to have developed muscles, we need to exercise, to use our muscles – which in fact is a form of mechanical stress. If we don’t, the muscles atrophy over time, as happens, for instance, with astronauts who spend a long time in space, where there is no gravity, and the muscles are hardly used at all.
The same happens with our immune system. To have a developed immune system, the body needs to come into contact with various pathogens, to “learn” to react to them and to acquire what is called acquired immunity. And that’s why it’s good not to create a 100% aseptic environment for our children, to let them get dirty sometimes, because only then does their immune system strengthen.
Obviously, the disruptive factors must be within certain limits, otherwise the system can be destroyed. If we want to strengthen our leg muscles by jumping from a height of one meter, we will have stronger legs, but if we were to jump from 100 meters – not.
Fragile and Antifragile Education
The fragile/antifragile analysis can be applied to complex systems of all kinds and at various levels of organization; organisms, institutions, economies, political systems, etc. This is what Nicholas Taleb does in his book, using mathematical apparatus to argue the validity of the concept. One of the fields where we can apply this analysis is education.
We live in an era where, although materially speaking we have a better life than our ancestors, we feel increasingly anxious and depressed, more vulnerable, lonelier, and more powerless. And with each generation, it seems that things are getting worse, which is paradoxical. Older generations faced much greater economic hardships, did not have access to today’s technology, and yet seem much less psychologically affected by what is happening around them.
Jonathan Haidt, an American psychologist, has observed this worsening of the psychological state of the population from one generation to another. He believes this is happening because our education system and our cultural norms are making us increasingly psychologically fragile.
The fact that we try to provide our children with a life as free of any kind of risks as possible, that we no longer tolerate any kind of exposure to danger, that we want everything to be as easy for them as possible, that we do everything to make them feel as safe as possible, makes them feel weaker and more powerless.
The fact that we try to provide our children with a life as free of any kind of risks as possible, that we no longer tolerate any exposure to danger, that we want everything to be easier for them, and that we do everything to ensure their safety, makes them feel weaker and more powerless.
Those who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s remember how they used to play outside alone, starting from primary school, without any worry. How many of us would let a 6-year-old play unsupervised today?
How Do We Become Antifragile?
Antifragility is the mechanism through which nature allows everything alive to adapt and develop in an uncertain world over which we have only limited control. No matter how much we want to create a safe, rational, and predictable environment, we can only do it partially.
Life means adversities, unpredictability, and failures. And some things can only be learned by taking risks and letting others take risks and make mistakes. And perhaps the biggest mistake is not allowing your children to make mistakes from time to time, trying to shield them from all life’s hardships; in doing so, you make them fragile, when in fact you should be helping them become antifragile.
All our little failures are, in fact, valuable information that can help us avoid big mistakes, major failures. Remember how our children learned to walk. How many times did they fall? I don’t think anyone imagined their child would walk flawlessly from the first try. So, nothing and no one will replace the learning from one’s own mistakes.
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