What if adapting weren’t a virtue in itself?
That’s the provocative question Léonie Varobieff asks in this special episode of Quotient A.
A philosopher specialized in care ethics and environmental ethics, a doctoral candidate at Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, and founder of the firm One Health Expertise, she works with companies, institutions and universities on what technical solutions alone cannot solve.
With Evelyne Dentz and myself, she examines the concept of adaptation using the tools of philosophy: Heraclitus, Hannah Arendt and the banality of evil, care ethics, Baptiste Morizot and the alliance among living beings.
She distinguishes adapting (with awareness and collectively) from adapting one’s environment (through force or passivity).
She asks: adapting to what, for whom, in the service of what project?
She reminds us that over-adaptation can lead to total inadaptation, and that resisting is sometimes the highest form of intelligence.
A demanding episode, which puts adaptation back in its rightful place: not an automatic response to the world, but an ethical choice.