Resilience and Fragility
the performance implications of your social objectives
“Dr. Fauci’s aficionados, including President Biden and the cable and network news anchors, counseled Americans to “trust the experts.” Such advice is anti-democratic and anti-science. Science is dynamic. “Experts” frequently differ on scientific questions and their opinions can vary in accordance with and demands of politics, power, and financial self-interest. Nearly every lawsuit I have ever litigated pitted highly credentialed experts from opposite sides against each other, with all of them swearing under oath to diametrically antithetical positions based on the same set of facts. Telling people to “trust the experts” is either naive or manipulative — or both.”
-Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in “The Real Anthony Fauci”
There are a lot of different medical providers that fit under the umbrella term “behavioral health”. There are specialized physicians (psychiatrists), doctors of psychology and PhDs (psychologists), and licensed clinical social workers to name the main types in the military setting. Then there are behavioral health extenders such as unit Master Resiliency Trainers (MRTs), cognitive enhancement specialists (CES) at Ready and Resilient Centers and embedded in Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) teams, and Unit Ministry Teams (Chaplains and their assistants). Why do I outline all of these different providers? Because there is a conflict brewing. Behind the scenes there is a war going on within each of these fields simultaneously. Motivation being the master of reason, the side of this conflict any of these individuals will fall on can be determined by the answer to a simple question: “What is the best way to improve society?”
If you believe that in order improve society, we must change cultural norms and eradicate any behaviors that have the potential to make anyone uncomfortable, you and everyone you convince of this will become fragile. If, on the other hand, you recognize that the most control you have in this world is over yourself, and you direct efforts to improve your competence in dealing with a world that wasn’t created just for your benefit, then you become resilient. If you’re thinking that it goes without saying that resilience is preferable to fragility in the minds of all behavioral health experts, think again. Believe it or not, there are experts that will earnestly swear that the assumption that resilience and self-reliance are valuable traits is merely the product of toxic masculinity and white privilege. These experts are beginning to exert significant influence over the U.S. military and have largely already dominated other influential institutions such as the APA. I’m not alone in my belief that an effective military can’t afford to be fragile, but too few are articulating this point. Most worrying, there are some behavioral health providers and leaders that seem content with condoning, or even promoting the fragility that results from internalization of this victim mindset in troops1. After doing a masterful job of outlining the impact of woke ideology on the military in his book Irresistible Revolution, Matthew Lohmeier was fired from his command position and forced out of the military. I encourage anyone who is interested in exposure to robust historical context and astute observations about CRT in the military to read Matthew’s book. Since this is just an article about human performance optimization per the purpose of this publication, I’ll focus on one aspect of woke ideology that has been officially endorsed in the Army, and explain how it directly contradicts the teaching of Master Resiliency Training (MRT)2 to give readers a sense for the impact that wokeism can have on readiness.
While various tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) have trickled into mandatory training, one concept derived from wokeism has been solidly integrated into Equal Opportunity (EO) training across the force: Microagressions. If you want a full picture of what microagressions are, you can read this influential piece of primary literature3 that helped to establish the concept across institutions dominated by the managerial class4, or simply read this article that efficiently outlines how absurd it is. I will confine my criticism to how conceiving of microagressions is tantamount to actively working to make yourself fragile and incompetent from the perspective of the positive psychology work that underlies MRT.
One of the most powerful tools in the MRT kit bag is the ATC model5. Applying this model builds self-awareness by identifying how activating events (such as “microagressions”) cause heat-of-the-moment thoughts that have predictable consequences. The power of this skill is that it teaches Soldiers that while you have little control over activating events, and the consequences of your thoughts, you do have some control over your thoughts, and directing effort here can enhance your ability to take purposeful action when under stress. In other words, like all of the MRT skills, applying the ATC model makes Soldiers more resilient. In order to best articulate how the microagressions concept undermines reslience, we need to focus on another MRT skill designed to support the ATC model by improving mental agility competence called “Avoid Thinking Traps”. While there are many thinking traps, I’ll cover three that help outline how the primary literature on microagressions actually encourages Soldiers to get stuck in thinking traps.
Mind Reading: Assuming that you know what another person is thinking or expecting another person to know what you are thinking. An example of a racial microaggression is asking a racial minority “where are you from”. This is a racial microaggression because it sends the message that “you are not American”. In order to come to the conclusion that this is the message being communicated in such a situation requires mind reading. You can always assume nefarious intent on the part of others. If you assume every comment made towards you is a racial microagression, it is toxic to optimal cognitive performance and requires mind reading. I posit that those with a genetic predisposition that get into the habit of maligning the intentions of others in conjunction with this thinking trap are at risk of developing schizophrenia.
Them, Them, Them: Believing that other people (or circumstances) are the sole cause of every problem you encounter. Saying “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.” is a racial microagression that exemplifies this thinking trap. In the microagression framework, meritocracy is a myth, meaning that you can’t succeed by performing well if you are a racial minority secondary to systemic racism. This is explicitly a “Them, Them, Them” thinking trap where any time you encounter a problem, racism is always the sole cause.
Always, Always, Always: Believing negative events are unchangeable and that you have little or no control over them. This is closely related to the specific microagression example above where belief in the legitimacy of microagressions would necessarily lead one to conclude that they don’t have control over outcomes in their life. You can’t take purposeful action to avoid negative events in the future by developing cognitive skills if racism is ALWAYS responsible for negative events in your life.
This would be a lot easier to grasp if the advocates of fragility weren’t such blatant hypocrites. If Army leaders that regurgitate the fragility promoting platitudes of CRT and allow microagressions to be included in EO training really internalized these ideas, their performance would be predictably abysmal. People that apply this ideology to its logical conclusion are almost incapable of effective communication as the cognitive resources required to do so are diverted towards mind reading and other thinking traps. The fact that some leaders advocate for CRT and talk about diversity and inclusion (in the CRT sense), while also promoting MRT just proves they have no idea what is going on. They’re busy people after all, and none can politically afford an accusation of racism, sexism, or misogyny. MRT and CRT are totally incompatible, and this short article doesn’t even scratch the surface. If anyone hopes to optimize their performance, or that of an organization that they lead, recognizing the threat imposed by the fragility promoting ideology of CRT is critical.
You will easily be able to find “experts” to demonstrate how being fragile is the best thing for everyone. None of these experts have ever led a high performing organization that has had to produce results in the real world. They’re all either academics or bureaucrats of some variety. Any that run actual companies see sharp declines in stock value. As the saying goes “get woke, go broke”. As the DoD progresses into a period without continual exposure to ground combat to keep commanders honest, the ideology of fragility has the potential to completely dominate military culture in the coming years. Some may argue that it already has… Fortunately, we don’t need anything new to resist this growing threat to readiness. A renewed focus on MRT can guide the Army back towards resilience. I think the American people probably need the same thing, and any individual hoping to improve performance should ensure that they can make themselves perform optimally before they deign to prescribe social objectives to cure all of the ills of society.
While most are familiar with diversity training, the most extreme example of this that I’m aware of is a commander of an infantry brigade bringing in all of his racial minority troops and apologizing for his “white privilege”. This signals that this commander believes that systemic racism is responsible for his attainment of his position. There are serious implications when a senior leader takes a position like this. It implies that the primary way for minority Soldiers to advance within the organization is to dismantle this inherently racist system and institution.
MRT is every bit as integrated into the Army as Equal Opportunity training. Each Company sized element is required to have a Soldier designated as the MRT, and all Soldiers are required to conduct MRT training approximately once/month to meet annual requirements.
This article was published in American Psychologist and has been very influential in establishing microagressions as an ecologically valid concept. I am concerned that anyone who accepts the arguments in this article will only internalize cognitive processes that increase the likelihood that they will be perpetually offended, emotionally incompetent ignoramuses.
Almost all institutions in the West.
Activating Event, Thoughts, Consequences. This model is based on the work of Albert Ellis, originator of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy. For a commercial off the shelf version of ATC, one of Dr. Ellis’ students Michael Edelstein wrote a book called Three Minute Therapy that provides a robust framework for implementing this skill to manage psychopathology and/or enhance cognitive performance.
Excellent points. CRT seems to directly contradict positive psychology and individual excellence. It undermines cooperation with peers by mind reading and assuming bad intent. It undermines self improvement by opposing individual responsibility. Normally, the easiest thing to control is our own behavior that influences our outcomes. We can work to replace this toxic ideology with a focus on excellence and positive psychology.
It seems designed to create fragility, and hence the downward spiral of increased administrative control, mandated learned helplessness, and dysfunctional dependency.