Resilient Life

What does it mean to live dangerously? This is not just aphilosophical question or an ethical call to reflect upon our ownindividual recklessness. It is a deeply political issue,fundamental to the new doctrine of 'resilience' that isbecoming a key term of art for governing planetary life in the 21stCentury. No longer should we think in terms of evading thepossibility of traumatic experiences. Catastrophic events, we aretold, are not just inevitable but learning experiences from whichwe have to grow and prosper, collectively and individually.Vulnerability to threat, injury and loss has to be accepted as areality of human existence.In this original and compelling text, Brad Evans and Julian Reidexplore the political and philosophical stakes of the resilienceturn in security and governmental thinking. Resilience, they argue,is a neo-liberal deceit that works by disempowering endangeredpopulations of autonomous agency. Its consequences represent aprofound assault on the human subject whose meaning and solepurpose is reduced to survivability. Not only does this reveal thenihilistic qualities of a liberal project that is coming to termswith its political demise. All life now enters into lasting crisesthat are catastrophic unto the end.