Against Adaptability
by Clay Risen

The New York Times recently reported on two interesting trends: First, that as global warming increases and the polar ice caps begin to melt, shippers are becoming more interested in the until-now unpassable Northwest Passage. Several ships every summer already ply the Passage, and there are plans to run ice breakers through it to keep it open for most of the year.

Second, jump to America's highways, where record levels of rush-hour traffic are leading many ingenious commuters to use that time to make airline reservations, surf the web, even carry out business deals over their cell phones. In turn, car makers are adding more and more amenities, like on-board computers and GPS tracking systems.

Different issues, yet both of these seemingly unrelated trends bespeak the same fundamental aspect of human nature — adaptability. Long hours stuck in traffic every day? We adapt, and turn our cars into offices. Polar ice caps melting? Again, we adapt, and plow ship lanes through the newly weakened ice. We use the negative to produce an unexpected positive.

Man has always praised this aspect of his being; sci-fi author Neal Stephenson says that it is this single trait, adaptability, that has made us the "biggest evolutionary badasses" in history. Indeed, time after time success is described in terms of the winner's ability to adapt — Microsoft, Michael Jordan, today's unparalleled economic growth.

And yet it is in the face of examples like the two above that we must stop and wonder if perhaps adaptability is not always a good thing. Or, better, that what we so often call adaptability is really just the creation of excuses, shortcuts and easy ways out of much bigger problems. Perhaps it is often a good idea to look for the silver lining, as it were, but not always.

High-traffic and long commutes are obvious problems, especially in the SUV Age — more pollution, more stress, less time with the family. And yet what seems like efficient adaptability — using that time to get work done — is at the same time a cowardly dodging of bigger issues. Maybe mass transit really is better. Maybe the commutes aren't really worth it. Maybe we shouldn't be looking for ways to cram even more work hours into our schedules.

And shouldn't we be at all concerned that an event as foreboding as the melting of the polar ice caps should be seen by so many as a business opportunity? Yet in our perverse logic of adaptability, it is these people who win the prize, get the praise.

In an era when capitalism has firmly entrenched itself as the Eternal Insanely Great Thing (and especially America's "thinking-outside-the-box" version), it seems all to obvious that these and many other examples should give us pause. Few will argue that capitalism is perfect, yet even the most even-handed approach fails to account for the disadvantages of adaptability — in these cases, the impact on the environment, the family and social cohesion, at the least.

However, within the logic of our late capitalism, a capitalism based on innovation and creative exploitation of new markets, technologies and resources, it becomes useless to think of such side effects. If we don't adapt someone else will, and we will lose. If not the United States then Japan or the European Union will use the Northwest Passage. If I don't use my two-hour commute as a continuation of my already-long work day, I can be sure that Bob will, and he will get promoted while I get passed up.

Of course, there are always remedies for this sort of thing — we set emissions controls, we create international regulatory bodies. But these are band aids that only cover up the real source of our woes; namely, the fact that our uncritical praise for those who innovate in the face of adversity is often a cover for our collective unwillingness to solve the root problems that surround us.

E-mail Clay Risen at risenc@yahoo.com.