Georgetown student: congratulations, you are on the right track! On your way to being Mr. Secretary of State, Ms. President, Mr. Non-Profit Manager, (or more likely) Mr. Consultant. You’re absolutely right—that summer internship you snagged will endear you to the right people to land a slightly above-entry-level job after graduation, so in 10 years, your salary will be high enough to pay off your law school debt and fund a social life in your off hours.
Provided, of course, ceteris paribus, that no shit happens, no external factors interfere.
And if they do? Your hierarchical career path is fragile in the face of change—at best.
In his manifesto Anti-Fragile: Things that Gain from Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb advocates against ladder-climbing. He sees “anti-fragility”—the ability to benefit from change in any aspect of life—as the path to the best life possible. Taleb argues that if you live your life in an anti-fragile way, you will not only survive, but likely thrive. This take is exciting and even inspiring … if you can get past his precious style, that is.
Taleb is maddeningly pretentious, pompous, and conceited—whining about “Soviet/Harvard” pretension and faux-intellectualism. He can drop a phrase like, “I can instantly tell if someone is a certain type of banker with minimal clues as I have physical allergies to them, even affecting my breathing,” and is particularly fond of pages-long, nit-picky digressions “not for the non-technical reader,” while claiming commitment to simplicity.
Taleb seems so eager to prove he doesn’t care for anyone’s opinion he comes off as desperate. It’s hard-to-get, mixed with superiority complex, mixed with an ego so tender it constantly needs stroking—I bet you’ll literally roll your eyes at least once a chapter.
But you might forgive these absurdities in light of his ideas. They attack much of our modern lifestyle: eating habits, career choices, education, philosophies. He flips the accepted on its head to share a more intuitive, “anti-fragile” vision.
Remember the first time you read Nietzsche? Or at least the first time you SparkNoted him? Whether in Intro to Ethics (wait, Nietzsche was likely not on that syllabus) or Political and Social Thought, it was probably a first shock in an otherwise tedious freshman lecture. Encountering someone who rejects Christian morality, someone so, non-Georgetown, is a milestone in any contemplative Hoya’s life.
Taleb is Nietzsche’s “new philosopher,” with a twist. He rejects the troubling parts of Nietzsche and adds some humanism. His book is a wake-up call—he wants you, the reader, to live passionately! Stop the daily tedium of the gym (because you have to stay in shape), the perfectly balanced meal (food pyramid, anyone?), and the econ drills you suffer even as a CULP major (a liberal education for all). Taleb wants you to do what you love and what feels right, intuitively and regardless of popular opinion, simple as that.
Taleb’s version of the good life is backed by ancient wisdom, from the Daoists of China and the sages of Greece. He refuses to drink anything that hasn’t been around for at least a thousand years—only wine, water, and coffee. Anything that has not simply outlasted, but improved from modernity, flux and revolution has proven its worth.
So you want to be the next Hillary Clinton (if you don’t suffer a Susan Rice event first)? Well Taleb offers a different, anti-fragile idol. His recurring character Fat Tony is in the minority of New Jerseyians who wouldn’t be caught dead in Georgetown, not to mention majoring in Government or going into finance. Instead, he earned his fortune betting against the banking industry pre-collapse, and now he has the money to fund his lifestyle of choice—mostly revolving around food.
On another end of the anti-fragile spectrum, Taleb presents Nero Tulip, an intellectual with the means to isolate himself with his books all day, only leaving to jet set to the exclusive parties and events around the world he finds most worth his time.
Neither Fat Tony nor Nero give a damn about how they are perceived, don’t have bosses to limit them, and follow their intuitions wherever they may take them—the perfect bad-boy, anti-fragile lifestyle. And aren’t bad boys the most attractive?
Even though some of his ideas are over the top, Taleb’s book is the kind that ought to be read every year to force a reassessment of your most fundamental beliefs.
This is not the counsel you will get from your dean’s office. Anyway, Taleb is not giving you a prescription to live. He is the anti-prescription, anti-formula —Georgetown has presented to us the ideal stage to fulfill the formula of a politician, academic, diplomat, or (god-forbid) consultant. But what if this formula isn’t as safe or right as it seems?
Even if you don’t agree with all of Taleb’s points (or just can’t stand his attitude), Anti-Fragile is a wake-up call for anyone who might feel obligated to tread the well-beaten path. And if you’re already anti-fragile yourself, it can only benefit you.
