Completeness or Incompleteness

Do we live in a world of completeness or incompleteness? Most folks intuitively sense that incompleteness is far more prominent than completeness. Is there anything that is complete, static, unmoving? Probably only very rare things like God and aspects of mathematics, and even those are simply accepted as complete without proof. Everything else is changing, including the mountains whose intensely gradual movement is invisible to us.

Just as we would not refer to a complete mountain, we cannot refer to a complete human being, even though some people assert that spiritual exercises or belief in a supreme being, or even science, can bring this about. Perhaps. But the number of such people, assuming their condition is even verifiable, is vanishingly small.

Of course we can talk about “completions” in a simple sense, such as when we finish a budget, a round of golf, a prayer, a vacation trip, a book, a meditation or often best of all, a drink. But my interest is not in such completions. It is in the Incompleteness Theorems proposed by the great Austrian mathematician, Kurt Godel, and the application of those to our lives.

Both theorems deal with highly complex mathematics. The first Theorem says that all logical systems are likely to have inherent flaws because they are based on unprovable assumptions. The second Theorem says that seeing a system from the inside may indicate that it is consistent and whole. And it may be, but we cannot determine that without going outside the system. The key insight is that internal flaws are not visible from inside any system.

So what? you might say. That’s all about highly sophisticated math and it has no relevance for everyday life. At one level that is certainly true. At another, I think not. Deepak Chopra, in the fine book, War of the Worldviews, says “If I boldly take this out of the realm of numbers, Godel is saying that unprovable things are woven into our explanation of reality.”

For example, most secular humanists believe that God does not exist, but cannot prove it. Religious people believe firmly in God’s existence, but also cannot prove it. Each accepts his own belief as complete, while seeing the other’s belief as not just incomplete, but dead wrong into the bargain. For each the world is workable in his terms, seeing and acting as he does with an insider’s view. But neither can escape the limits imposed by his own system of thought and belief, and this is often a source of often great animosity between the two.

Although the unprovable assumptions are the root from which many of our personal and societal problems grow, it is not always they that cause the trouble in our relations with others. It is that we accept them and their legitimacy at face value, if we are aware of them at all. And this acceptance is accompanied by a great emotional force, a large hindrance to seeing outside our own systems of belief and thought.

Leonard Mlodinow, the other author with Chopra of War of the Worldviews, gives a fine example of contrasting but workable world views. Imagine a goldfish in round bowl. As it looks out of the bowl, an object moving on a straight path is perceived to be moving in a curved path. An observer outside the bowl sees the object’s linear movement and does not see the curved movement. Contrasting views, but they work within each world.

Human society is not so fortunate. Differences in world views would not be the personal or societal problems they are if people holding them did not interact. But we engage constantly with people whose views we do not share or whose behavior we do not like. We have an insider’s view of our own beliefs and thus cannot subject them to a rigorous critique. And we have an outsider’s view of the other’s beliefs and imagine we can subject them to such a critique. But the challenge is that our assumptions and biases usually preclude us from making a fair analysis.

From the last post I repeat George Friedman’s prescient comment from his fine book, Flashpoints, “There is always a price, and nothing is more dangerous than not knowing what the price is, except perhaps not wanting to know.” One of those prices occurs in failing to appreciate the natural incompleteness of one’s views and positions, leading to absolutism of thought and action, anathema to a healthy person, group or society.

A particularly damaging view arising from absolutism is perfectionism, a belief that humans and their systems are perfectible. We can totally solve societal conflict, we can ensure that no one’s feelings will ever be hurt, we can eliminate poverty, we can guarantee total social success by electing only people from my party, we can make everyone equal with enough money and government effort---these are all examples of perfectionism, mainly from the political realm. While admirable in intent, these views are unworkable because those holding them fail utterly to understand the lessons of human history and what we know of human psychology.

Perfectionism obviously implies completeness, that there are definitive Answers to complex societal problems and differences, instead of approximations of answers. Godel confirms that there is no such thing as a perfect or complete system, no matter what humans think or want. This should give us pause in our thinking, and certainly in our acting. Incompleteness is a fact of existence, and may well be the one that matters most in human relations.

The belief that there are Answers that totally resolve an issue is demonstrated by people who think and accept at absolute face value that their ideas are both correct and workable. Their efforts will produce the complete outcome they have in mind, and there will not be any unintended consequences. Further, and much more dangerous, such folks have an unshakable belief in the moral rightness and purity of their thoughts, beliefs and motives---completeness personified in them. Naturally, this absolutism means that people with a different perspective cannot be tolerated, and must be demeaned if not crushed.

There are two ways of looking at completeness. The first may be clear from comments above. It says that humans can be complete (are perfectible) and can have complete views and produce complete systems and positive outcomes, without flaws. Thus, it falls prey to Godel’s Incompleteness Theories---internal flaws very likely exist everywhere and are invisible within the system. Because such folks hold their views and motives in perfect regard, seeing outside the self-contained system is virtually impossible. Why look outside a system or set of views that is accepted at face value as being complete? This perspective has the obvious unintended and undesirable outcome of adding to personal conflict and societal disturbance instead of reducing them, all of which is deniable by those locked in their own system.

The other version is more realistic and more useful in that it accepts both Godel’s Theories and the inherently flawed nature of humanity in the sense that Kant did: “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” This does not literally mean that humans cannot produce anything good. It means that our all-too-human predilections, such as unconscious biases, excessive personal needs, and irrationality often get in our way. This view respects the idea that troubling societal problems are not completely solvable, but may be amenable to approximations of improvement---we progress fitfully.

In this view, each success is a struggle against our own “crookedness,” which pushes us into the damaging perfectionist view, so comforting and so wrong. Each success, whether societal or personal, arises because we have, for the moment at least, escaped the prison and falseness of our internal consistency, possible only by seeing our views from outside.

We move toward completeness to the degree that we give up the idea of completeness, of perfection, and act to constantly uncover our desire to see everything from within the framework of our systems of thought, belief and emotion---what might be termed in Eastern thought as incomplete completeness. The Zen cat waits for no one.

The Road to Character

This title comes directly from that of David Brooks’ most recent book, a series of mini-biographies of people who Brooks believes embody the elusive personal quality of character. Specifically, Brooks is referring to moral character, evidenced by those who, “…possess the self-effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don’t need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline.” These traits all deserve attention, but I will talk mainly about humility, which is a vital foundation.

These traits indicate a person who has come to terms with the world as it is, and has often (as in Brooks' examples) gone through torment and emerged a better person from the "...struggle to deepen the soul."  Brooks quotes Thomas Merton: “Souls are like athletes that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers.” We have seen such people, although rarely. They show great emotional balance, and an inner cohesion and integration---they act with complete integrity. There is a strong sense that they will not be easily damaged by adverse circumstances, and can be relied upon in the worst of moments.

I was struck by the fact that those portrayed were not superheroes, nor did they embody all the characteristics mentioned above. Even though they accomplished much, they had flaws. Nonetheless, they all demonstrated great inner strength, most often under conditions of extreme stress or in arduous effort that lasted for years or decades. Life’s challenges brought out the best in them, and others benefitted.

Talking about humility in the recent past, Brooks says, “…there was a moral ecology…encouraging people to be more skeptical of their desires, more aware of their own weaknesses, more intent on combating the flaws in their own natures and turning weakness into strength. People in this tradition, I thought, are less likely to feel that every thought, feeling, and achievement should be immediately shared with the world at large.”

James K. A. Smith reviews the book in the Fall, 2015 edition of “The Hedgehog Review.” According to Smith, “Those eager to read The Road to Character are likely already receptive to its argument, whereas those who inhabit the moral ecology of self-expression and so-called authenticity are also most comfortable with ironic distance and haughty confidence in their own righteousness. Brooks’ argument cuts to the root of this: There’s no character without discipline. There’s no discipline without submission. And there’s no submission without something beyond me.”

So, character requires discipline and submission to something greater than oneself. In today’s environment, discipline, submission, and self-effacement are not at all popular. Rather, the ethic is self-promotion and seeing oneself as the center of the universe---the opposite of humility. In his research, Brooks looked at this ethic and commented, “The self-effacing person is soothing and gracious, while the self-promoting person is fragile and jarring. Humility is freedom from the need to prove you are superior all the time,…”

We can see the “fragile and jarring” aspect in many people as they desperately, and futilely, try to fill an inner void with external applications. The self-promoter cannot attend to the well-being of others because he is so stressed trying to find a place for himself in life. He does not understand how the world works, and thus wastes energy and time trying to create a reality that cannot exist, running roughshod over others in his need.

Unlike the self-promoter and those with a “haughty confidence in their own righteousness,” people who focus on themselves, the humble person focuses on her obligations to others, near or far, rather than on her rights. There is a constant refrain these days about rights, at all levels and aspects of society, from families to universities to corporations. But there is hardly a whisper about our obligations to others, a view that is clearly and regrettably in bad odor. Focusing on rights divides us, while focusing on obligations unifies us.

The path to character runs right through humility.

Anti-fragile

The concept of fragility and anti-fragility is useful for looking candidly at ourselves and our relationships with others, and thereby at least indirectly enhancing deep happiness. In the prior two posts I introduced the framework and showed fragility’s connection to us at the personal level. In this one I want to talk more about anti-fragility and why it is beneficial for us to understand and acquire, and how we might do so. But, first, let me review emotional fragility a bit. 

The fragile person has an excessive investment of focus, energy and emotion in a particular desired state, one that MUST happen. This needful state could involve a job, idea, person, car, or vacation. Or it could be the “fulfillment” of a deep personal need, such as to be right or to be certain. Or it could be really simple---irritation at the computer not working or needing to overwhelm someone who disagrees with us. These fragile states pop in and out constantly through the day, temporarily knocking us off balance, and causing suffering for us and those around us.  

Anti-fragility does not mean being unaffected by challenges, disruptions, and disappointments. The world often intrudes in ways that upset us, and we cannot plan for these or avoid them. These intrusions can cause fear, anger, anxiety, uncertainty and a host of other emotions, normal reactions to unanticipated or undesirable events or other people’s behavior. The difference between a fragile person and an anti-fragile one is the reaction to the stressor.  

Anti-fragility is also not necessarily about being robust, which Taleb, the author of Anti-fragile, says is being impervious to injury. A ceramic cup is fragile to rough handling and very fragile to falling on concrete. A steel cup is not at all fragile to the same concrete; it is robust.  For humans, a bit of robustness is not a bad thing unless it gets in the way of being anti-fragile, as it would with an excessive desire to “armor-up” to protect us from experiencing stressors. Such an effort actually causes greater fragility. Healthy robustness and anti-fragility arise as we learn (grow) how to take hits without being knocked off balance.  

A key aspect to developing anti-fragility is accepting stressors as information that encourages us to see things differently. Each disappointment, set-back, or interaction with a disagreeable person is a chance to practice our new understanding of how stressors impact us, and how we can better respond to them. Each is a chance to grow, to achieve equanimity and inner harmony, the “rewards” for understanding our fragility and acting to reduce that every day. And, I cannot over-emphasize the need for continued practice, forever.  

What are some characteristics that we could adopt that will help becoming more anti-fragile? The most important is self awareness---“… having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions.” (ref:pathwaytohappiness.com) Without self awareness, there is almost no possibility of becoming a truly emotionally healthy person. More self awareness equals more anti-fragility. 

Curiosity is also vital because without it we will not examine our behavior and its adverse outcomes. Taleb says that curiosity is anti-fragile because through it we come to know and understand more about ourselves and the world. As we inquire, we become reservoirs of options that we may need in case of a stressor, which can often be as simple as someone disagreeing with us on whether Ayn Rand’s philosophy has any merit to it. Simply, the more options we have in dealing with a stressor, the more likely we are to respond healthily to it. As George Leonard said in his superb book, The Way of Aikido, “…the health of an individual…is generally directly proportionate to the number of perceived options at (his) command.” Options are anti-fragile. 

A very simple example regarding options and their benefit: imagine another car cuts me off, and I get angry, in the past my usual emotional default when things don’t go right. I have no options, and am clearly fragile to the situation. I am off balance. But what happens if I have options, such as intellectually analyzing (without judgment) what the driver did, extending compassion to that person, or ignoring the whole thing? Clearly my path to greater anti-fragility is enhanced by having these options. 

Fearlessness is clearly a vital ingredient in developing anti-fragility. Lacking it, any curiosity and self-awareness will be short-circuited. Fear may be the largest and most serious hurdle that we have to overcome in the search for greater emotional health, for greater anti-fragility. 

As I have noted in other posts, the BIG problem with acquiring the anti-fragile characteristics (or others related to changes in behavior) is that we are legends in our own minds, having constructed positive, and often false, stories about who we are and how we interact with others. I know any number of folks who are sure they are self aware, when their actions clearly indicate the opposite. And the same is true of being curious and fearless. Thus, while many might agree that the characteristics I describe are helpful, such folks are unlikely to make much progress in developing them. The blindness or denial costs them---there is no free lunch in trying to make ourselves what we are not. Being fragile has a price. As George Friedman says in his fine book, Flashpoints, “There is always a price, and nothing is more dangerous than not knowing what the price is, except perhaps not wanting to know.” 

Creating more anti-fragility is wise for at least two reasons. One of those, the possibility of growing from stressors and uncertainty, I have already mentioned. The other is that anti-fragility reduces our inappropriate emotional or dependence on things, including ideas, people and events, and thus assists us in living a more harmonious life.

 

 

Personal Fragility

In the prior post I opened the discussion of anti-fragility and fragility, focusing for the most part on large entities like nations and economies. In this post I want to address how the framework tells us why we as individuals (and small groups like families) are fragile. The next post will continue the discussion and suggest how we might become more anti-fragile and what that means for us and for those around us. 

We know that a system or organism is anti-fragile if it can grow or improve when subjected to certain types of shocks or stressors. Being fragile, on the other hand, refers to an entity that responds poorly to stressors or disruptions. We also know that entities (humans for this post) can be anti-fragile in one arena and fragile in another, and can be either in degrees. A person might be anti-fragile toward investment disruptions because she has spread her wealth over a wide number and types of financial opportunities, possibly including gold under the bed. But she might be fragile in her relationships with co-workers because she has a high need to be liked. I am some degree less fragile to my anger than I was before I started working on the issue. But at a deeper level this really means that I am less fragile to not getting my way, which is what much anger is all about, protestations of angry people to the contrary notwithstanding. 

What does it mean to have personal fragility? As mentioned, mostly it is being harmed and possibly diminished by challenges from people or events. This harm arises mainly from our need to have things work exactly as we want them to. Since nature generally does not oblige, we suffer, and we generally inflict that on others.  

Where does this fragility come from? Two big sources are the views, beliefs and attitudes we have about ourselves and the world, and our emotional needs. As I have mentioned in previous posts, some views we have about ourselves, such as that we are objective, fair, inclusive, compassionate and tolerant, may well be partially or totally false. Views about the world are often similarly dubious, such as that there is a single and simple Answer to everything; that humans are infinitely perfectible; that things can be seen and understood solely in black and white terms; or that a lot of or no government will solve all societal problems. These simplistic nostrums clearly make a person or group fragile. Even if these views are not outright wrong (I happen to think they are), they are at best incomplete. Held as correct or complete when they are neither pushes the one holding them into fragility because reality will win out, one way or the other. 

Personal needs are also a huge factor in our fragility. People with high emotional needs are very likely to be fragile since they MUST have a certain outcome in stressful  situations, and respond unhealthily if they do not get it. Examples of these include the need to be right, for certainty, to win, to be loved, to precipitate conflict, to be secure, for order, to control, to be appreciated, or to be admired. At some level we all have needs like this, but they only become problematic beyond a certain point, different for each person---and for those who think they have no such needs, it’s best to lie down until the thought goes away. This needful state dictates that only one outcome is possible---a fulfillment of the need. But since the need is primarily the result of inner emptiness, it can never be fulfilled from outside. It is insatiable. For that reason, absenting great personal inner work or therapy, the person’s futile efforts never cease. Fragility is “institutionalized.

 

For those with high personal needs, each encounter with a stressor brings emotional upset, especially if it is from another person. I know a very bright and charming man whose sense of self is so delicate that he is endlessly on the look-out for slights and criticisms, most of which he manufactures. He is fragile to his very high need for validation and that creates unpleasantness in interactions with others. His need, like all such, is based on fear (terror?), in this case that someone will call into question who he is, which in his view they do constantly with their “insults.” 

Beyond the big fragility-inducing aspects such as false beliefs and major needs, simple everyday upsets are the main contributors to fragility. Some examples: The man in the market check-out line who wants to chat with the checker, distracting her. The driver who cuts you off. The spouse who sulks whenever he is offended. The diner near you whose voice could not get any louder if she were screaming. The friend who, in any discussion, liberally uses sarcasm. The person who, under the guise of righteousness, allows his anger to dictate his responses. A person who uses the counter-punch technique to vanquish others. The guilt-tripper. The list is endless, but the point is clear. We will encounter situations like this all the time, and if we respond poorly to them we have fragilized ourselves, and we pay the price. 

But there is more to these stories. People acting in these ways are clearly fragile themselves as they respond badly to difference or to upset, or who act in ways that ignore the well-being of others (loud diner). They all want something that they think or feel they can only get if they misbehave, often using the highly manipulative techniques mentioned above. Of course, there is no conscious recognition of this misbehavior. If there were, the positive stories they tell themselves would prove false, and that is unacceptable. 

This is not to say that all emotional upset indicates chronic fragility. Situational fragility can often be perfectly normal and even healthy. The loss of a loved one does not call for stoic pretending that all is well. Not feeling loss and great sadness is unhealthy, and, paradoxically, an indication of fragility. 

As we saw in the last post, fragility is exportable. In the personal realm responding badly to those acting inappropriately, as cited above, is illustrative. A particularly interesting example is raising children. Over-protective parents raise fragile children, ones who cannot deal well with distress or setbacks, whether those are physical, emotional or intellectual. Less protective parents raise children to be anti-fragile by ensuring that those children experience and learn from normal life challenges and disappointments. The latter are anti-fragile because they have reserves of energy and response (options) that take into account often difficult situations that they might experience. The fragile children have no such reserves.  

The challenging thing for parents is that they have to accept or even encourage in their children randomness, adventures, self-responsibility, mistakes, hurts, messes, uncertainty, and self discovery. But some do it anyhow, meaning they are anti-fragile (not uncaring) to their children’s troubles and development. Fragile parents, on the other hand, live in endless anxiety knowing they must be constantly on guard for the next challenge from which they must protect their child. Since this is impossible, they live a life filled with fear and anxiety.  

Most people have no idea that they are fragile, or that they are exporting fragility; they just know that things often do not go right. They maintain their fragility by assigning the responsibility for all things that go wrong or upset them to other people or bad luck. But some people are aware that they are on the receiving end of exported fragility. It could be from a spouse, life partner, other relative or friend, and I am familiar with a number of people who are in this situation. They have consciously accepted that they will be the target of an occasional unpleasantness. While I still see this acceptance as unhealthy for both, and indicating often significant fragility for the receiver, at least the latter is making a deliberate and informed choice.  

So where are we? Some readers will recognize the connection of being fragile to the Eastern concept of attachment. Both reflect the need to have things exactly as we want them, a futile condition. It is clear that chronic or inappropriate situational fragility is very undesirable, as we are constantly emotionally unbalanced and upset, prohibiting attaining deep happiness. It is also clear that we all have some fragile aspects. Deny them and we (and others) pay a big price. Acknowledge them and try to develop equanimity, and all is open to us. The prescription is to think, feel, and act in ways that express deep-rooted anti-fragility. Easier said than done, by a long shot, but I’ll take a stab at it in the next post.

 

 

Anti-fragile

No, I did not make this word up. Nassim Nicholas Taleb coined it in his book of the same name (he is also the author of the excellent The Black Swan). He needed a word that would express a unique and very important aspect of how complex organic systems function, including us.  

Anti-fragile refers to a system or organism (including humans and their societies) that can grow or improve in response to certain kinds and levels of shocks or stressors. Such systems are not vulnerable to challenge, disruption, or uncertainty, at least up to certain points—they actually benefit from them. At the personal level---lifting weights judiciously is an example of how the body can absorb stressors and actually improve in response, or getting low or mediocre grades on a composition is a stressor that helps some students become better. At the organizational level---planes do on occasion crash, a significant stressor that fragilizes the plane and the passengers. But since the airline industry and FAA use the crash information to make plane travel safer, the overall system is anti-fragile. 

Redundancies are a way to ensure anti-fragility, at least to some degree. Economies that have many new business start-ups have considerable redundancy. While many of these will fail, they are fragile to the risk, the economy itself will be healthier as many are successful. It will be anti-fragile. As Taleb says, “Restaurants are fragile; they compete with each other, but the collective of local restaurants is anti-fragile for that very reason.” The start-up and loss of these small entities ensures the continued dynamism of the local or national economy. From the above example, planes have a number of redundant systems that help with anti-fragilizing. 

Fragility, on the other hand, is the condition of responding poorly to stressors---being vulnerable to and harmed by shocks, disorder or uncertainty, even if of a small order. It is a function in part of having few or no options when disruptions hit, or in having the wrong ones. Anti-fragility is rare, but fragility is quite common on both the personal level (later post) and larger societal level. 

For fragile systems to survive, they require that all goes according to a “plan,” formal or not. Most governmental programs, for good or ill, are predicated on the assumption that the effort will pan out as described if many conditions (those of the plan) are met. Since these programs are initiated as part of complex interactions, and are implemented in complex settings---other agencies, groups or individuals, including opponents---the chances that the plan will work as intended are remote. Complex conditions always produce unexpected, for the most part unpredictable, and often undesirable, consequences. Thus, these programs are fragile to the unpredictability of human systems complexity. 

The greater the fragility of a system, the easier it is to knock it off balance. Highly fragile systems are very sensitive to even tiny shocks, which throw them quickly and sometimes deeply into disarray, if not into disintegration. A firm whose sales and profits have declined, and which has past-due obligations, is far more fragile than one whose financial condition is better. A relatively small shock to the first, say a letter from a lawyer for one of its smallest customers, could precipitate many bad things, with bankruptcy being only one. 

The collapse of mining in Africa has seriously damaged the well-being of a growing middle class. As global mineral demand has declined, particularly from China, Nigeria, Angola and South Africa have been hit hard, but Zambia has experienced some of the worst outcomes, with much higher unemployment, sharply increased inflation, a currency worth half its value, and higher suicide rates. Since each miner’s salary supports 15 dependents, loss of a job has a devastating impact. The nation and those workers, families, and companies dependent on the mineral industry are fragile to the decline in demand. Those at the top politically or otherwise  are anti-fragile to the demand change by virtue of the money and power they have acquired, legitimately or not. 

From our recent credit bubble of 9 years ago comes a similar story. All states were hit by the recession, but two states took particularly huge hits---Arizona and Florida, mainly because their growth and success depended primarily on the housing market, which tanked big time. Once again, high dependence on one sector means fragility when the shock arrives, and it always does, eventually. As is the case with all complex systems, when a shock will arrive and its magnitude are completely unpredictable. This construction disruption, like the African examples, led to significant unemployment and difficulties for workers and families, not to mention state revenues. 

California’s current tax structure depends greatly on the wealthy and super wealthy---around 50% of its budget comes from sources like income taxes and capital gains taxes from the top 10% of the population. When times are good, California reaps the reward and when they are bad, it pays a significant price. Its revenues are thus subject to roller-coaster-like trends, and during low points funding of many of the state’s programs is jeopardized. The state is thus fragile to its own tax structure and to the ups and downs of the state and national economies. Naturally, when revenues decline, cuts have to be made even in programs that are of great benefit, with the state’s fragility exported to those most needing those programs, and often to the average taxpayer.

The US and the EU currently have economic sanctions against Russia. Nonetheless, the people at the top in Russia are getting richer and richer while the average Russian is suffering from cuts in health care, interest rates not far from 20%, the flight of capital leading to higher unemployment, and from higher inflation generally. Anti-fragility at one level, encompassing very few people and companies, and fragility at another, involving great numbers of people. 

It is not just economies that are subject to fragility. Politics is as well. Two of those running for president, Sanders and Trump, are one-trick ponies. For Sanders, his pitch is that nearly everything is the fault of Wall Street, and more taxes on it will solve the nation’s troubles, especially if we give away all kinds of things for free. For Trump, he is selling himself as the end of all America’s problems. Neither Trump nor Sanders has much knowledge beyond his very (one might say astonishingly) limited domain, indicating fragility because national and international shocks (things not going as planned---practically guaranteed) will seriously upset either’s tiny apple cart, leading to poor, if not disastrous, errors in response---fragility. But their fragility would also be exported to the American public, who will pay the eventual price for mistakes resulting from either one’s singular and simplistic view of the world. 

These examples only hint at the expansiveness of the anti-fragile/fragile concept. Fragility and anti-fragility are evident in all human activities and processes. The examples also inform us about the complexity of the anti-fragile/fragile relationship. It is seldom that a system or entity is either anti-fragile or fragile. It can often be a mixture of both. Even with the Russian sanctions, because Putin has stopped importing much Western foodstuffs, this has meant a great boost to the local farming communities, which are thus anti-fragile to the sanctions. In our immune systems individual cells will die---fragility---in order for the system itself to grow stronger---anti-fragility. Our bodies, like many systems, thus have characteristics of both fragility and anti-fragility. In addition, comparisons indicate differences in degrees of fragility/anti-fragility. Although affected adversely by the decline in mineral demand, South Africa’s economy is more diverse than Zambia’s and is thus somewhat less fragile than the latter. 

What can we learn from understanding fragility and anti-fragility? One big thing for sure---that anti-fragility is a more desirable state than fragility. Expecting things to go as we want is a prescription for fragility. This is as true for individuals and families as it is for nations, governments, economies, religions, stock markets, and businesses. If anti-fragility is a desired state, what can we do to create more of it, at least for ourselves if not for larger entities? That will be the subject for the next post.