Column: Graceful surrender: age and youth in the era of longevity
By Charles Jeanes
“Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.” — Desiderata
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’ —
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’ — Bob Dylan, The times they are a-changin’ (1964)
Every generation
Blames the one before,
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door.
— Mike & the Mechanics* [see appendix]
Introduction: the equilibrium of human generations
I begin with a proposition, not a truth: there is a limit to the optimal number, or fraction of the whole, of homo sapiens who are the elders in their population.
Now I provoke: I think we’ve passed that optimal number now. That’s nothing more than a personal opinion; I’m not trying to be persuasive.
Second, I offer this hypothesis on change in human history: while Marx declared forcefully that class struggle is the engine driving human social history, I would counter that cultural change is driven by the friction of generations, the older and the younger, as the former relaxes their power and the latter matures into it. One hopes the handover is done with grace.
Elders and Youth: a delicate relationship demanding sensitivity
Who can heal ‘The World’ from its rush to catastrophe? Sure, everyone can contribute, but no one doubts that some have more power to do it than others.
One’s perspective on the issues of the role one plays depends on one’s age. I am 74, and calculating my potential to make a difference is very difficult.
Do Youth tremble under the weight of so many ‘olds’ with power and money? Youth are not flourishing as the Boomer generation once did in its youth, and the fault is in capitalist logic. The better times of Boomers have everything to do with how capitalism has evolved, distributes wealth, and ruins societies.
But we “olds” get the blame for capitalist chaos; I blamed my parents for it.
https://theamberroad.blog/2017/01/11/generation-b-for-blame-waiting-on-the-world-to-change/
[*The appendix of this column is a selection of poetry and lyrics illustrating just how generational relations have perplexed humans in many eras.*]
What we say about old age and the process of aging
Enter these words in a search engine and prepare for a lot of material to read. “attitudes to age and aging.” A. I. at Google offered me this summary:
“Attitudes towards aging are complex, ranging from negative views (decline, burden, ageism) to positive outlooks (growth, continued contribution), with significant impacts on health, longevity, and well-being, as positive attitudes predict better physical/mental health and longer life, while negative stereotypes fuel ageism, leading to poorer outcomes, stress, and self-limiting behaviors, affecting individuals and society. These attitudes are shaped by culture, personal experience, and internalized stereotypes, but can be improved through education and fostering intergenerational connection.”
There is never going to be a last word on this topic. I’m not discouraged.
Judgments: privileged or entitled?
Youth say the olds are privileged; the elders say the youth act as if they are entitled. My sympathy is with the young. They will be around longer.
Let’s imagine we are awarding points on an Experimental Species Scorecard. The experimental species under our microscope is homo sapiens sapiens.
I take comfort from a perspective of not identifying passionately with my own species, not feeling that its fate is catastrophic when it undergoes massive die-off. We’ll survive as a species; if our numbers are tiny relative to present levels, I will not judge that fact to be worthy of my grief. Our numbers have gotten too large. Successful species adapt and adjust. Populations must not over-grow.
Unique era? Social class and longevity
The origin of the unprecedented number of ‘olds’ is in our advanced sciences for medicine, surgery, and pharmaceutical knowledge; these are keeping many old humans alive in the richest societies on earth. These modern/ ‘Westernized’ societies have also exerted control of births among their affluent classes… Voila: fewer babies born here, more folks with longer lives.
Who lived longest was straightforward in the Middle Ages. Medieval nobility and clergy were notable for their old age, and old age accompanied wealth and power: class matters – Marx got that right — and upper classes live longer lives.
Nobles of any era anywhere most certainly did. “Rank hath its privileges,” as the saying went; longer life was a privilege. The power of the wealthy was absolutely obvious in material, in politics, in religion, in economy, in culture. Individuals of the ruling classes in general live longer. It was as true in the time of Julius Caesar and of the Buddha.
If you are old in 2025, you are a member of a modern cohort of people doing well relative to a lot of other humans on this earth. It is a situation of economic disequilibrium. That imbalance too is as old as history.
The Economy, our religion: long life and the blessing of wealth
Christianity knit medieval society together, and the discourse of the day was unthinkable without reference to Providence and divine purpose. Today the indispensible formula is not the ‘Will of God’, it is ‘The Economy’.
Turn to any analysis of present events, and somewhere The Economy is said to be the origin of things, such as flourishing health, good jobs, general wellbeing.
The Economy, as any informed person can tell you, explains government policy in a host of ways. A bad economy is the bane of any elected government. Voters want material standards of living not to fall. Governments are blamed if it does.
Canada today is considering how to capitalize on the vast wealth potential of Alberta fossil fuel reserves and deliver it to market via pipelines to BC’s Pacific coast. Surveys say we prioritize social economic good over protecting nature.
And https://davidcoletto.substack.com/p/canadians-are-not-hostile-to-a-new ]
Political tribes
In human political behavior, liberal and conservative inclinations traditionally divided by age naturally, with the young having less conservative leanings.
Boomers skewed Left in politics in their youth, during the radical 1960’s of Movements against the Viet Nam War, for civil rights, for women’s rights. Boomers in Canada stayed loyal to the Liberals and NDP, to judge by the last federal election result. Youth, by seeming reaction, now skew to Conservatives.
In a world capitalism has made, anxiety in and focus on The Economy moulds and sculptures human minds. No longer do we have the pervasive medieval consciousness of a spiritual aspect in living. We are scientific about life, yes?
Choosing to Exit Life
Canada has a legal provision for individuals to exit life with medical assistance, or MAiD. It is highly controversial. Helping people to die because life in poverty is too miserable, is how some critics see aspects of assisted death. [https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-passionate-eye/when-it-comes-to-medically-assisted-dying-critics-say-canada-has-left-people-with-mental-illness-behind-1.7368322 ]
Morally, one would abhor a situation where individuals die for lack of funds; money is a key to access medical and pharmaceutical care for a condition that is not fatal if and when one has wealth to pay for treatments. Practically, not morally, we accept this truth. Americans die every day as evidence of it.
Such a situation could be described this way: “To postpone death, to lengthen life, one must accumulate wealth.” In face of debilitating mental and bodily effects of age needing care, cash is your defence. Health is for sale.
Wealth purchases health. Rank has privileges, and one of them is long life. I would say Canadians accept this is true. Medieval people knew it too.
Generations are split by class interest; not all Boomers rule. Only the ruling-class Boomers have power to apply to save the world.
Conclusions: responding to the realities of our time and place
It is my observation, anecdotally and with some study, that feelings of responsibility to youth are quite common; I desire to contribute something of value still, since I have lived so long and enjoy good health. Many Elders do.
My grief about the absence of equilibrium among generations and classes is anchored in my sense of justice. Many who live short lives deserve as long a life as any, but it is the wealthy and powerful who purchase it.
Young people are dealing with the consequences of societies with a surplus of elders. The great change in circumstances for aging humans now, since the rapid development of the modern, materialist, scientific, capitalist society we enjoy in Canada, means there are a lot more of us, and a novel responsibility now has come to rest on the Elders of our time.
I am an Elder who feels the responsibility to hand on a decent future to youth. I am not a member of the ruling class. My power to change the world is in no way obvious to me, and so neither is my role in changing our world.
People of power, as usual the moves are up to you. You hold ‘the high cards.’
*Appendix: poetry of age and youth*
The Living Years
Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door
I know that I’m a prisoner
To all my Father held so dear
I know that I’m a hostage
To all his hopes and fears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years
Oh, crumpled bits of paper
Filled with imperfect thought
Stilted conversations
I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got
You say you just don’t see it
He says it’s perfect sense
You just can’t get agreement
In this present tense
We all talk a different language
Talking in defence
Say it loud (say it loud), say it clear (oh say it clear)
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late (it’s too late) when we die (oh when we die)
To admit we don’t see eye to eye
So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
It’s the bitterness that lasts
…
I wasn’t there that morning
When my Father passed away
I didn’t get to tell him
All the things I had to say
I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I’m sure I heard his echo
In my baby’s new born tears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years
Say it loud, say it clear (oh say it clear)
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late (it’s too late) when we die (it’s too late when we die)
To admit we don’t see eye to eye
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: B.A. Robertson / Mike Rutherford
The Living Years 2014 lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Concord Music Publishing LLC, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
The Seven Ages of Man
Speech from William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Act II scene vii
Jaques: All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Old Man
Old man, take a look at my life, I’m a lot like you
I need someone to love me the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes and you can tell that’s true
Lullabies, look in your eyes
Run around the same old town
Doesn’t mean that much to me
To mean that much to you
I’ve been first and last
Look at how the time goes past
But I’m all alone at last
Rolling home to you
Old man, look at my life
I’m a lot like you were
Old man, look at my life
I’m a lot like you were
Source: LyricFind
Songwriter: Neil Young
Old Man lyrics © Peermusic Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Teach Your Children
You, who are on the road
Must have a code you try to live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a goodbye
Teach your children well
Their father’s hell did slowly go by
Feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s the one you’ll know by
Don’t you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you
And you, of tender years
Can’t know the fears your elders grew by
Help them with your youth
They seek the truth before they can die
Teach your parents well
Their children’s hell will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s the one you’ll know by
Don’t you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you
Ooh, and know they love you
And know they love you, yeah
And know they love you
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Graham William Nash
Teach Your Children lyrics © Nash Notes, Iconic Nash Anthems
Medieval insights
https://www.medievalists.net/2012/02/attitudes-to-old-age-and-ageing-in-medieval-society/
Ancient Greco-Roman poets on age and youth.
https://thebookbindersdaughter.com/2019/05/20/de-senectute-sappho-ovid-tennyson-musil-and-cicero/
