Comments on: Resilience: bouncing back better

By: William R. Cumming

William R. Cumming — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:18:23 +0000

Pat! thanks for the comments on the post and the excellent report you have made available. Lots of hard work and thought therein!

By: Pat Longstaff

Pat Longstaff — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:33:22 +0000

Certainly Maslow’s hierarchy of needs gives us some ways to establish priorities in reaction to any kind of “surprise” in the environment. A good plan for a resilient community would include letting people know how they can get these needs met. This will often mean giving them the tools to help themselves and their friends and family. It is often true that resilient communities are made up of resilient individuals. They often need to adapt to new realities and not just go back to “the way it was.” Their trust in the people telling them that adaptation is necessary (nobody WANTS to change!) is critical. Unfortunately, that level of trust is not always invested in government or the media. But it is often given to friends and family (and maybe neighbors). Finding opinion leaders at the local level BEFORE the surprise would make a message suggesting (or requiring) adaptation much easier to communicate.
We are very interested in the interdisciplinary work being done on the resilience of ecological and human communities. When a system cannot “resist” surprises it develops resilience to bounce back. The sorts of forces and resources that make a forest bounce back from a fire seem to be relevant (and nonpolitical) in the current discussions. This work indicates that resilience is enhanced when resources necessary for survival are diverse, loose coupled, and local. It helps if the system has had to respond to surprises in the past because the inevitable tradeoffs between efficiency and resilience are weighted more toward the later. It is also important to understand how resilience is destroyed in order to change maladaptive behavior (which can be very resilient to even the toughest regulation) and to defend against enemies who use resilience tactics to survive. I have looked at these ideas in some depth at http://pirp.harvard.edu/pubs_pdf/longsta/longsta-p05-3.pdf

By: William R. Cumming

William R. Cumming — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:39:08 +0000

Viktor Frankel’s philosophy great to stimulate exchange of “victim” status to “responder”!

By: Philip J. Palin

Philip J. Palin — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:29:40 +0000

It could be very productive to apply Maslow’s need heirarchy to the concept of resilience. How about also looking to Viktor Frankl’s work for socio-psychological guidance. In each of their systems — and in most treatments of complex systems — resilience is a function of the system spontaneously reorganizing itself around “attractors of meaning.” The early identification, cultivation, and multiplication of these attractors of meaning begins to move resilience from theory to practice.

By: William R. Cumming

William R. Cumming — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:06:42 +0000

REstoration of ability to provide products and services? Reconstitution–okay guess that is government side! How is demand restored? Is that a factor in resilience? Do Maslov’s heirarchy of needs apply to institutions as well as individuals?