A piece of ersatz medical research appeals to me deeply, as it might to any middle-aged person. A reader pinged it to me from the Harvard Business Review website: “Brain Functions that Improve with Age,” by Barbara Strauch.
“Ersatz” is perhaps unfair; and a German would anyway flinch at its use as an adjective. I mean the word only to suggest “substitute” in the sense of drawing on the work of fairly respectable neuroscientists; not in the sense that margarine is “ersatz butter.” All journalism is “ersatz” in this way. Readers of newspapers must live with that.
The article appeals not only to my age-based bias, but to my mature understanding. For some time now I have been noticing that as people grow older, they become less clever but more intelligent. Of course we could spend the rest of this column distinguishing those terms.
According to Strauch, and in truth, younger minds are genuinely more capable of mastering things like computer games. The young have exquisite short-term memories, and of course, the very young have a marvellous capacity to learn by rote. The virgin tracts in their brains are ready to receive fresh furrows.
The older seem set in their ways, and disinclined to cut across the ridges. The young, by comparison, have the energy for anything; they can pull all-nighters whether studying or just drinking.
We do envy them in some ways.
But with wisdom comes a little age. And again, according to Strauch, “In areas as diverse as vocabulary and inductive reasoning, our brains function better than they did in our 20s. As we age, we more easily get the ‘gist’ of arguments. Even our judgment of others improves. Often, we simply ‘know’ if someone—or some idea—is to be trusted. We also get better at knowing what to ignore and when to hold our tongues.”
Though we eventually fall into “anecdotage.” I recall a very wise professor (a certain Howard Brotz) replying to a pert young thing: “That argument is so dumb, I can’t even remember the refutation.”
Indeed, Aristotle gives a good account of all this in memorable passages of his Rhetoric—a work everyone should read for many different reasons; and certainly, anyone who deals with politics or culture. On “the ages of man,” see book II, chapters 12 through 14—if only for the reminder that we are discussing stuff that has been known for a very long time.
Age, and experience, teach us to distinguish the possible from the impossible. The young don’t have this yet, and in a political culture dominated—in all parties—by young policy wonks, the absence of this wisdom is telling. They think they can fix things that cannot be fixed. They avoid things that could be fixed very simply. Fortunately, they have older politicians watching over them, who have been around; but unfortunately, age is not a guarantee of wisdom.
It is no coincidence that terrorists tend to be younger people. Or that they are used, to evil but not immediately obvious purposes, by cynical old men. Yet it is also true, that on the side of the angels, the old subtly master the art of putting the energy of youth to good purpose.
According to the neuroscientists (apparently), this all makes sense. The aging, furrowed brain can, even subconsciously, leap to good conclusions because it has, in effect, been wiring itself to that end for many years. “Ah’ve seen this be-fore,” as an old lady in Maine once said to cute young college students, while casually picking up the rubber, novelty-store turd they had so wittily placed in the middle of her priceless Persian carpet.
“Crabbed age and youth cannot live together,” said Shakespeare in one of the most poignant lyrics in the English language. (Scholars have doubted its authenticity in the past; but I’m old now, and I just know it is really by Shakespeare.)
It is brilliant because it makes the argument for youth against the old cronies, but with a droll undertowing beat, that keeps marking the passage of time. And then, at the end, a double dying fall: the ardent young shepherd will wither.
My column is always political; my point today arose from watching a part of the ridiculous “health-care summit” in Washington, and listening to the echoes of young policy wonks, from spokesmen for both American parties. They have no idea what they are doing; what the fallout will be.
For as the old know, and the young cannot, the problems of this world will not be solved with grand schemes. They can be ameliorated; they can be dealt with piecemeal, and prudently, a little at a time.
Sound public policy is chaste and cautious. It requires maturity.
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