In ancient Roman mythology, Janus stood at thresholds and transitions, his two faces allowing him to look both backward and forward simultaneously. Today, as we live through what some call ‘the end of modernity’, resilience presents us with a similar duality – but one that goes far deeper than resistance versus adaptation, endurance versus change. We are on the threshold of what sociologist Ulrich Beck calls “the metamorphosis of the world” – a transformation so profound it requires we completely reimagine what resilience means.
It begins with words and what they mean. The term resilience comes from the Latin “resilio” – a word within which lies a revelation. While we commonly understand resilience as the ability to “bounce back,” its original meaning as a verb – “to resile” – meant something quite different: to withdraw, to retreat, or most tellingly, to abandon a previous position. This forgotten origin tells us something crucial about resilience that we have largely lost sight of – that sometimes the most resilient action is not to persist, but to change course entirely.
Consider nature’s most profound metaphor for the kind of change we’re facing – the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. This isn’t just a poetic image; it’s a living blueprint for the kind of transformation our society is experiencing. Just as the caterpillar carries within it ‘imaginal cells’ containing the blueprint for something entirely new, our society harbours seeds of transformation within its current structures. Like the caterpillar’s immune system that initially attacks these cells as threats, our existing institutions often resist these emerging possibilities. Yet, like those persistent imaginal cells that multiply and connect, new forms of organisation, relationship, and meaning are taking shape within the dissolution of the old.
We see this pattern playing out in multiple domains: in the shift from hierarchical to networked organisations, in the emergence of decentralised technologies, in new forms of community organising, and in evolving relationships with the natural world. This is not mere change or adaptation – it is metamorphosis. Just as the butterfly doesn’t represent an improved version of the caterpillar but rather an entirely different being, the emerging social forms aren’t simply better versions of what we have, but fundamentally new ways of being human together.
We are in a moment also called “the end of modernity”, the end of an era defined by extractive capitalism, patriarchy, perpetual growth and cognitive dissonance about our relationship with each other and the natural world. This imminent ‘death’ creates a profound split in how people respond to our global challenges, a schism reflected in the two faces of resilience:
The backward-looking face seeks to preserve existing systems through adaptation and incremental change. Like the caterpillar’s immune system attacking imaginal cells, this face of resilience resists fundamental transformation, seeking instead to maintain familiar structures and power relations, even as they prove increasingly unsustainable. We see this in climate policies that prioritise economic growth over ecological limits, in social systems that perpetuate inequality in the name of stability, and in educational approaches that prepare students for a world that’s rapidly disappearing.
The forward-looking face embraces metamorphosis, recognising that true resilience in our current context requires fundamental transformation. Like the imaginal cells that carry the blueprint for the butterfly, this face of resilience holds the potential for entirely new ways of organising society and relating to our world. We witness this in regenerative agriculture movements, in experiments with new forms of democracy, in indigenous wisdom traditions gaining renewed recognition, and in emerging models of economic organisation that prioritise wellbeing overgrowth.
This brings us to a crucial distinction between “weak” and “strong” resilience. Weak resilience focuses on resistance and enduring disruption through whatever short-term adaptations might protect and maintain existing system structures. It’s the face of Janus that looks backward, seeking to preserve what is familiar, even when that familiarity has become toxic.
Strong resilience, in contrast, demands the courage to “resile” from destructive systems and make deep systemic changes. It’s the face that looks forward, recognising that true resilience in our current context requires nothing less than metamorphosis – a fundamental transformation in how we live, work, and relate to each other and our planet.
Yet crucially, true resilience emerges as a dynamic dance between preservation and transformation. Like a skilled dancer who knows when to hold steady and when to leap, we must develop the wisdom to recognise which face of resilience each moment calls for. This isn’t about choosing one approach forever, but about moving fluidly between them as circumstances demand. Sometimes we need the strength to endure and maintain what’s working; other times we need the courage to let go and transform. The art lies in knowing which is which.
Is the great paradox of our time that those who most strongly resist change in the name of resilience may actually be undermining our collective capacity to survive and thrive? Like a caterpillar’s immune system fighting against its own transformation, efforts to maintain the status quo through mere adaptation may actually prevent the metamorphosis necessary for true resilience.
This understanding demands a new kind of leadership – from us and from each other – leadership that can hold both faces of Janus in view simultaneously and so:
The times we live in demand more than mere resilience as bounce-back; they require resilience as metamorphosis. Like the imaginal cells that guide a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly, we need to nurture new ways of thinking, being, and relating that can guide humanity’s evolution toward more sustainable and life-affirming forms.
This is not about choosing between the faces of Janus, but about understanding when each serves the greater good. We need the wisdom to know what to preserve and what to transform, the courage to let go of what no longer serves life, and the vision to nurture new possibilities even when they appear threatening to existing systems.
The end of modernity need not be the end of hope. Rather, it can be the beginning of a profound metamorphosis toward ways of living that better serve both humanity and our planet. The question is not just about being resilient – it’s about what kind of resilience we choose to cultivate in service of this great transformation.