In “Older,” Ben Platt makes this interesting claim, which I’ll use as a jumping point for this month’s story.
When you are younger
You'll wish you're older
Then when you're older
You'll wish for time to turn around
Don't let your wonder turn into closure
When you get older
I remembered this song during a lengthy argument I had with an older man, a retired faculty member, about youth activism. He said, to paraphrase, that he is skeptical of policy scholars, because their nuanced discourse gives them excuses not to take action, as any suggestion will have a million rebuttals. He prefers to see revolutionary idealism, passionately speaking out for what is right and wrong without deliberating too heavily about practicalities. Real change, not marginal change, is made by those who boldly reject the system, he believes.
I remembered this song because, as I articulated why I am skeptical of high moralism and think that it can be counterproductive, he interrupted to tell me: “You’re thinking too old, too young.”
Our cultural conception of age is loaded with meaning. (For an exaggerative illustration, take C.S. Lewis’ treatment in Perelandra, where the Lady says, “Then I must explain it to him … Let us go and make him older.”) With only one adjective — for one to think “old” — I understood immediately what he meant. Yet, I believe he was mistaken about what that should connote.
The question I pose here continues a millennia-old tradition contemplating human nature. Good, bad, or tabula rasa? I consider: uncertain or dogmatic?
What we know is that children need to deliberately internalize principles that are not intuitive to them. (For a legendary case study, see this cute baby.) Children are born without preconceived assumptions, or at least drastically fewer of them than they will eventually come to hold. True innocence is an open-mindedness, a keen sensitivity to absorb, and to be able to rapidly socialize into a community of norms.
Children are open-minded, however, in a highly manipulable way; they may effortlessly receive one dogma, but once it is solidified, they struggle with ambiguity, and will reject conflicting information. Have you ever seen a child cling frustratingly to puritanism, where an adult might acknowledge nuance and exception?
Naturally, there is a trade-off between exposure and receptivity. As we accumulate experiences, we are prone to let them define our perspectives, and enter new situations with assumptions. Our vision worsens metaphorically as it worsens literally. Charles Dickens, in David Copperfield, captured a vague longing for this youthful quality of sincere attentiveness:
This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood.
What the retired professor called “young” thought, I consider old. Pure activism, in my view, is the “oldest” political tendency, because it leads one to proselytize rather than seek to be persuaded. Taken to an extreme, we result in phenomena such as Cultural Revolution-era China, when students would take over classes to re-educate their professors in Maoist ideology. This post-learning, post-dialogue rendition of activism is not youthful passion. These students are super-aged, acting even “older” than their professors.
Perhaps a youthful life is not celebrating and embracing immaturity, but carefully preserving our vulnerable openness so that it becomes resilient, generous with attention but not with confidence.
I had more thoughts I wanted to share this month, but I ran out of time. I’ll extend these ramblings further in next month’s newsletter. Before I go, courtesy of my academic advisor, here’s an illustration of last month’s theme about staying present:
Fall Song
It is a dark fall day. The earth is slightly damp with rain. I hear a jay. The cry is blue. I have found you in the story again. Is there another word for ‘‘divine’’? I need a song that will keep sky open in my mind. If I think behind me, I might break. If I think forward, I lose now. Forever will be a day like this Strung perfectly on the necklace of days. Slightly overcast Yellow leaves Your jacket hanging in the hallway Next to mine.
Enjoy autumn. Go watch The Diplomat season 2. Remember to send me stuff!
No Art, Music, and Performance for this month? :)