Homeostasis is a set of processes which bring things back to ‘normal’ – like how your body works to keep your temperature steady.
Allostasis is a more recently invented terminology which better explains our full physiology. We have stores of energy and more oxygen processing capacity than we need when we’re resting – because when we need to exert ourselves we can. We can operate at a higher level of output for long periods when necessary. Our hormonal systems (e.g., adrenaline) can make us hyper-alert and ready to change. Yet basic cellular maintenance continues (e.g., red blood cell replacements, detoxification in the liver, immune system hunting down viruses).
Allostasis is more how we need to think about our lives. Some things need to be rock-steady; for everything else we must be able to surge capability, and be adaptable. We can develop physical and mental capacity through training before we need it in the crisis moment.
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I finished listening to this podcast series on The Cold War. Highly recommended. It brought back many memories and gave me information I didn’t know. I’m older than most of my work colleagues, who don’t have memories of bomb drills in school or long gas lines or maps showing the most likely nuclear targets. (I lost recess privileges one day when I explained to our class that crouching under our desks was not going to save us from thermonuclear war, and apparently scared the other children.) I remember the ‘malaise’ of the 1970’s and the despair of some families whose sons died in Vietnam. There was no formal declaration of war with the Soviets but it was bloody, and thankfully only bloody short of nuclear weapons. It was an incredible relief when the Soviet Union fell after the Berlin Wall came down.
The West beat the Soviets on technology innovation and economics. (The US spent 3% of GDP, the Soviets 25%!) Yet the real power of the West – Individualism vs. Collectivism — was the moral difference. The Soviet leaders were killers and murdered millions of their own citizens. Kennan ended his famous “long telegram” with this counsel:
“We must have courage and self confidence to cling to our own methods and conceptions of human society. After all, the greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet Communism, is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping.”
The US is in a kind of cold war with China today, albeit different in many dimensions. Perhaps someday there will be a good historical review of this cold war. How will our times be remembered? What stories are we living now? How can we maintain our efforts to live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, flawed as we are?
Perhaps I should be thinking about what allostasis is needed now for peace and human thriving in the future.
