The Advocates
Gérard Bouchard, Successful Societies, Fellow
Michele Lamont, Successful Societies, Fellow and Co-Director
The Pitch
The human body can suffer incredible injury and somehow recover. Fortunately, we understand many of the mechanisms at work here. What about societies? They too can be laid low, and be damaged in ways that beggar comprehension. Poverty, corruption, inequity, social turmoil, economic crisis are only the beginning. Societies can be wounded by flood or hurricane, devastated by earthquake or landslide, crippled by war, famine or oppression. And yet in many cases, like living organisms, societies find the strength rise again. Prosperity and enfranchisement replace scarcity and alienation. Old wounds heal, and sometimes not only do societies get back to normal, but living conditions may improve in various ways.
Sadly, not every society proves this robust. Like the human body, societies can surprise us as much with their fragility as with their recuperative capacity. Why, though, are some societies more resilient and more creative than others? If we can find the answer to this question, it could help us mitigate the suffering of millions of people all over the world whose societies have been laid low by one form of hardship or another.
Another important reason why this question matters so much is because we believe it is answerable. The vagaries of history, geography, personality and culture that shape any given society – its highs and its lows – may seem mysterious or impossibly complex, but we believe that, to a large extent, they are knowable. There are real truths, for instance about why life expectancy plummeted in Russia after the fall of Communism, but not in the Czech Republic. There are reasons why Canada weathered the recent economic meltdown better than many other countries. There are better and worse ways that Haiti can respond to the earthquake that struck there last January 12.
It is our conviction that a lot can be learned about what makes a society resilient. And we can use that knowledge to empower ourselves to better respond to the injuries and setbacks that any society might one day suffer. Culture and more specifically collective imaginaries are one of the many factors that we seek to investigate as a source of resilience – or lack thereof.
The Bottom Line
“What makes a society resilient?” is the Next Big Question because it addresses some of the greatest difficulties faced by humanity, and can help point the way toward alleviating the suffering of millions of people.