I took the title for this post from Bruce Charlton's recent discussion about old age, and the lack of lived wisdom that comes through in our culture. While I don't think elders were ever extensively revered to youth culture in the modern West, I do believe there were was a time when there were pockets of individuals that were able to transmit a certain degree of cultural inheritance that had significant influence. There was a reciprocity in this intergenerational relationship where the older generation was seen as valued as they bequeathed their life long gifts to the younger generation. But today, much of this has diminished as all generations are complicit in their denial of what is truly wise.
First, the older generation has refused to age gracefully. Instead, they fight it on every level. They make every attempt to keep their bodies young through strenuous exercise, health remedies, and cosmetic surgery. Sexual decline is manipulated through drugs. Recreational time is spent on travel, frivolous activities, and socializing. Their minds defer to youth culture, and the need need to “always stay young” by being in touch with whatever is novel. Instead of inspiring wisdom for the youth, it inspires pure vanity. The young will comment about how so-and-so looks great for their age, and yet it does little to impart any purpose for growing older other than making every attempt to delay the appearance of it. (sidebar: I speak from personal experience on this, as I am guilty of some of this vanity.)
The younger generation, although more innocent in regards to time, have their part to play. As they've grown up with internet culture, generational hierarchies of respect and reverence have collapsed. Images have taken over deep ideas. The youth are more prone to learn from memes and video clips than from perusing books. And if they read anything, it is rarely the classics. It's not that they stay outside of any ideas, it is more like they have become indoctrinated into the shallow ideas that permeate the stream of culture. Every so often, a viral father figure like Jordan Peterson will appear on the scene and inspire something that has been lost. Still, this needs to be made more pervasive for the impact to be enduring.
Jacques Barzun once articulated as to what makes a nation. He says, “A large part of the answer to that question is: common historical memories. When the nation's history is poorly taught in schools, ignored by the young, and proudly rejected by qualified elders, awareness of tradition consists only in wanting to destroy it.” It does seem this is what we are up against on a socio-political scale. How are we to impart tradition if those with experience don't live it themselves?
It seems getting older should really be about embracing the transition—instead of struggling against it—all while cultivating and deepening our spiritual, intellectual and moral growth and maturity. Only through embodying any sort of depth, will we be able to inspire it. Chesterton said, “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” If we really want to be alive and youthful, we really need to, as David Bentley Hart once quipped about wisdom: recover our innocence at the far end of our experience! We can do this not by being pompous or didactic towards our ideas about life, but by being possessed by faith and reason.
We all know getting old isn't easy. We may see health issues begin the creep in, we lose attention from others as our appearance dulls, we may find ourselves lacking energy, and we tire of the need to keep up appearances that may have led us astray from what we really wanted. So it's easy to see where curmudgeonliness, shame, and regret can take hold if we are not centered! Or maybe we have been too enamored with our life's successes and refuse to allow for our demise. The bottom line is getting old is truly a time to prepare for death. It doesn't mean we stop living, but the finiteness of time gives us urgency towards life's significance.
Despite all our advances it health care technology, we are still given a finite amount of time—and that has been the case for thousands of years. The Bible says explicitly, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years.” If you look at today's life expectancies, we have not moved too far off this scale. It is as if the human body has a generally defined time limit. So while youth may be wasted on the young, do we really want to allow old age to be wasted on staying fake young? It may be better we accept our days remaining and use them to impart our traditions and gifts among the youth who can truly hear/see, and prepare our transition to God's eternal home.