The common trope espoused by many is that wisdom comes with age. The more you see and experience, the more primed you are to give advice and share your perspective on the world. In recent years I have begun to reject the idea that wisdom is baked into time spent on Earth. This is mainly because of the interactions I have had with people from the older generation.
It’s important to first define what wisdom actually even is. Usually, we would describe it as having good judgment, insights, and an overall ability to see what is right and wrong. I feel as though age does not always allow for this great judgment to bestow itself inherently. That’s not to say there is no wisdom with age. I just don’t think every aged person always has wisdom. Or at least should be perceived as someone who has infinite wisdom that should be taken without question.
I think there is often actual ignorance that comes with age. The complacency with the world you have grown up in forces you to defend what is currently in existence. Maybe this is why conservatism grows with age. There is an insecurity about what has not improved and a desire to defend the world your generation has created, for better or for worse. That’s why those who were teenagers during the Civil Rights Movement may now be reluctant to support any contemporary pushes for racial equality in the United States. “Isn’t what we did enough?” is sometimes what I will hear from people like this.
On the contrary, I feel as though there is underappreciated wisdom that can exist from being young. Wisdom may be found in youth because youthfulness often brings a stronger willingness to question what is around us. Not knowing the mechanics of society allows for a greater reluctance towards slipping into accepting things for how they are. Those who are older and know their way around the world may not question the things that they have accepted as facts of life.
I see many on the right who will often call left-wing college students “dumb and uneducated” and that they just haven’t learned about the “real world yet”. I think that a lot of youthful leftism comes with a rejection of a system that has not had much time to instill itself in them. Age brings a necessity to make peace with what has been established. Maybe there is real wisdom in those who have not yet made peace with the establishment yet.
I am reminded of a parable that starts a commencement speech titled “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace. He says, “There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’”
It’s easy to be complacent once you have lived one way for so long. Obviously, as someone who is in his youth, I am biased when writing this. But, I think that the youth in society serve an important place of questioning what we take as literal and matter-of-fact. They push and pry at what is considered normal and often, after prying for long enough, can expose some disturbing truths, eventually making progress that we didn’t even know could be made.
Maybe I will grow out of this perspective as my allegiance to a different age group emerges. For now, I am willing to be the one that may have to take up the mantle of poking and prodding at some of our accepted ways.