Please, I implore you. Can we just retire the term resilience?<\/p>\n
This might seem like a strange request, but I can\u2019t muster the, uh, resilience to endure prolonged exposure to this \u201cplastic word.\u201d<\/p>\n
German linguist Uwe Poerksen described the emergence of a plastic vocabulary that has become ubiquitous, so much so that these words are devoid of meaning. Resilience is a prime candidate.<\/p>\n
Moulded for maximum appeal, plastic words crop up everywhere, from scientific to popular discourse. We are all supposed to know what these words mean. Upon closer view, however, it\u2019s not exactly clear what they mean. \u00a0As Poerksen explains in his book Plastic Words: The Tyranny of a Modern Language<\/em><\/a>, they are the \u201ceveryday prison of perception. They are handy, and they open doors to enormous rooms. They infiltrate entire fields of reality. And they reorder that reality in their own image.\u201d<\/p>\n Popularized by developmental psychologists who were trying to understand how children overcame disadvantage, the term \u201cresilience\u201d has penetrated every corner of public discourse. Resilience is that \u201csilver lining,\u201d the positive residue left from trauma and tragedy. We are exhorted to be or become resilient, to summon the inner strength to deal with what life has flung our way. Develop the capacity to deal with adversity and, presto, you can bounce back stronger than ever. Of course, it seems almost silly to oppose resilience. After all, what is the alternative? Getting stuck?<\/p>\n The COVID-19 pandemic has revved up the resilience industry. Kids who were forced out of school and confined to their homes in March are expected to return to class \u2013 in whatever form that takes \u2013 ready and eager to learn. Their parents are supposed to be resilient, too, there to help them adjust to the new normal, even if those same parents are struggling themselves \u2013 working from home if they can, or required to report to work if they are essential workers.<\/p>\n And the Trudeau government\u2019s recent speech from the throne \u2013 titled \u201cA Stronger and More Resilient Canada<\/a>\u201d \u2013 was all about \u201cbuilding back better,\u201d borrowing a phrase from Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. In August, the federal government<\/a> even announced its \u201cInvesting in Canada Infrastructure Program,\u201d which allows provinces and territories to access funding for \u201cpandemic-resilient infrastructure projects.\u201d This would include supports for schools, hospitals, and walking paths \u2013 programs that would be worthy of public support in non-COVID-19 times.<\/p>\n What if resilience is just another way of saying \u201cget over it\u201d? What if a positive attitude is not enough to pull you out of poverty? What if dealing with hatred and racism is not made better by just not letting it get to you? What doesn\u2019t kill you makes you stronger, right? It might not kill you, but it can harm you in ways that might make you feel like you would be better off dead.<\/p>\n Julie Lalonde, Ottawa author of the aptly titled Resilience is Futile<\/a>, describes being stalked for several years by an ex-boyfriend. She says sexual assault survivors are ensnared in the \u201cdouble bind\u201d of resilience: \u201cThe few women who decided to report to police lived in a double bind. They had to look bad enough for their trauma to be taken seriously, but not be too much of a mess or else risk being seen as crazy and unstable. It wasn\u2019t enough that women were subjected to discrimination, violence, and neglect, I realized. We also had to perform our trauma in a very precise way in order to get any semblance of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n The resilience industry is rooted in an individual model of change, one that leaves untouched the structures and systems that are responsible for the trauma in the first place. Children growing up in under-served communities would not have to \u201covercome\u201d their environments if their schools and neighbourhoods had the resources they deserved. Indigenous people would not need to become resilient in the face of colonial dispossession had they not been forced into residential schools or had their land occupied. As disability studies scholar Eli Clare<\/a> reminds us, the language of \u201covercoming\u201d is deeply ableist, as well, implying that people can will things away if they just work more or try harder.<\/p>\n The idea that recovery from trauma or disadvantage builds character is particularly odious because it marks certain communities as needing adversity to toughen them up while allowing others to simply go about their privileged lives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Some commentators link the arrival of all things resilient with contemporary capitalism. \u201cNeoliberal citizenship,\u201d says Mark Neocleous<\/a>, \u201cis nothing if not a training in resilience as the new technology of the self: a training to withstand whatever crisis capital undergoes and whatever political measures the state carries out to save it.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea that recovery from trauma or disadvantage builds character is particularly odious because it marks certain communities as needing adversity to toughen them up while allowing others to simply go about their privileged lives. The narratives that swirl around resilience often invoke stories of strength in the face of adversity, telegraphing that you, too, can shake off the cumulative cycle of disadvantage.<\/p>\n And resilience crosses the ideological divide: it serves progressive ideas of success \u201cagainst the odds\u201d as well as more conservative notions of individual grit and \u201cpulling oneself up by the bootstraps.\u201d<\/p>\n