It’s a common idea in many cultures that we should respect our elders. As a result of having lived for many years, goes the cultural trope, they’ve accumulated wisdom and knowledge. Therefore, young people should, depending on one’s culture, either listen to elders attentively or simply defer to and accept their decisions—without an argument.
As I approach retirement in a few months, I’ve found myself wondering if this common assumption really makes much sense.
What triggered me to ask this question was an episode of the 1960’s television classic, The Twilight Zone, called, “The Obsolete Man.” In a seemingly fascist future society with little use for books and knowledge, a humble librarian is sentenced to death on the grounds that he and his occupation are obsolete. While I’m neither a fan of fascism nor the death penalty, after watching the episode (with my 87-year-old father, I might add) I was troubled. Maybe, I thought, at 60—I’m obsolete.
All my fellow elders are now probably shouting, “Ageist!” But hear me out. I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. It was the time of Vietnam, race riots, the civil rights movement, Star Trek, and that most horrid of horrors—the leisure suit. It was also a time when Americans went to the moon using spacecraft with less computing power than my smart phone.
That last point is important.
Over the 60 years of my life, there has been major—and rapid—change in technology. When I was a kid, TV was in black and white and things to read were made of paper and ink (which ended up making your hands black if you read the newspaper). Today I read most books on a Kindle. I’m writing this article on a computer. My neighbor’s car can park itself. And then there’s GPS, which has made the entire concept of a paper, fold-out map absurd.
But the change isn’t just about technology. When I was a kid, there were no concerns about pronouns; gender meant male or female. There was no open discussion and exploration in high school, as there is often today, of people’s gender identities. In 1965, 84 percent of Americans were white; today that number is below 60 percent (if Hispanics are excluded). And the U.S. was a far more middle-class society than it is today. When I was 10 years old in 1971, 61 percent of households were considered “middle class.” Forty years later, that number had dropped to 50 percent.
Personal computers from the 80’s from Commodore, Sharp and IBM.
Heiko Rebsch/picture alliance via Getty Images
Perhaps the most significant change of all is the rise of social media, which has reconfigured the basic fabric of how people interact, whether it’s communicating via text, online dating, or making videos on TikTok.
Given the incredible pace of both technological and social change, it seems worth asking if the experiences—and, thus, knowledge and ideas—of elders should be taken as unquestionably and uncritically worthy of consideration by younger people. Today’s young adults have grown up in a world—particularly when it comes to modes of social interaction—vastly different from the one I experienced well into my forties when it comes to social media. And because their most formative years have been shaped by a very different kind of social context from that of their elders, it seems reasonable to imagine that they think in ways significantly divergent from how Boomers think.
This means that they make decisions and have value systems that may be quite unlike those of people like me, who are over 60. Here, I make no judgment on which mindset or perspective on the world is better. I just see these outlooks and contexts of experience as different. But recognizing difference has important practical consequences—particularly when it comes to leadership in areas such as business, government, and religion.
In short, when someone describes a leader as “out of touch,” if the person is a Boomer there’s a good chance this is accurate.
Ally Sillins works at her home in San Francisco, Calif., on Sept. 16, 2020.
San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images
A 65-year-old CEO today grew up in a time so unlike the world of 2022 that it would be a surprise if they weren’t out of touch with the generations that will succeed them. And this suggests that their wisdom and experience may not be all that applicable to the modern world, nor to the organization they lead. Perhaps this is a reason why many CEOs seem to be struggling with the idea that working remotely as opposed to being in an office often seems to increase productivity. When you are old, it can be difficult to imagine a work culture that looks significantly different from that in which you’ve spent much of your working life.
Of course, people learn and adapt as they age. We don’t just get stuck in 1965 and stay that way. But how we learn to see the world early in life continues to shape our identity and outlook over the life-course. And the experiences we accumulate shape how we view our social surroundings and make decisions.
Even if that 65-year-old CEO makes considerable effort to understand today’s society, it’s still worth asking the extent to which they can truly appreciate what it is to experience the early decades of life embedded in a society dominated by social media and smartphones. Or, perhaps more importantly, to be in one’s twenties amidst a global pandemic making social interaction difficult and intensifying stress about the future. As a Boomer, while we did have Vietnam and the economic mess of the 1970s, I don’t recall any global event that generated the kinds of stress and other mental health issues associated with the COVID pandemic.
That last paragraph shows how subtle the differences can be, because, at 60, I shudder every time I use “they” as I just did. I entirely agree with the gender-neutral purpose, but I spent 50+ years experiencing an English language in which that usage is grammatically wrong. Old habits, based on long-term experience, are hard to shake. We should pay attention to the old habits of Boomers and how they, often negatively, influence our society.
People visit the installation entitled ‘Garden of Eden’ and representing an abandoned workspace at the exhibition ‘Useless Bodies?’ by Scandinavian artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada on March 30, 2022 in Milan, Italy.
Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images
To be 60 or 70 or 80 in 2022 is very different from being 25 in 2022. The rapidity of social and technological change our world has experienced over the last half-century (at least) should give us pause when assuming age necessarily brings appropriate experience and wisdom. While we certainly should value all people, whether we should respect the experiences and leadership decisions of older people should not be an assumed and uncritical affirmative.
Instead, we should question whether the accumulated experience, knowledge, and wisdom of someone who has lived for many decades is necessarily appropriately attuned to the context of decision-making found in the modern world.
And, perhaps, those who have deep experience and understanding of a world with social media and self-parking cars are better equipped to lead in the 21st century than those who have spent much of their lives in a very different world.
