To Be or To Become? That Is The Question

Douglas MacArthur once gushed about his G.I. cadets, “They’re the best damn kids in the world.” Not thirty years before, Cornelia Comer, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, accused the youth of having “mental rickets and curvature of the soul.”[1] Both spoke for their peers when they delivered these assessments. The young are those who must carry out the vision of the old, who concretize the wisdom (or folly) of those who have lived long and seen much. So, the youth are a perennial concern for the old, and will be judged according to the alacrity with which they carry out the missions assigned to them. In childhood, elders will imbue them with teachings and guidance, and will measure them by how closely they hue to this instruction. On the occasions when there is a concord between the elders’ mission and the moral compass of the young, society rockets forward. When they are out of phase, there is only stagnation...at best.

Any pluralistic society will inevitably furnish a robust marketplace of ideas. In antiquity, there were a handful of monopolies on what constituted wisdom. The ancients conceived of history as cyclical - endless iterations of the same patterns portrayed by interchangeable individuals, significant only insofar as they signified archetypes. With the invention of linear time during the axial age, the wise began to imagine the world as a continuous process of creation in which human beings could participate. We could help God bring the world to its glorious conclusion.

The nature of this climax, however, was very much up for debate and rapidly became the domain of those who had achieved wisdom: the old. At first there were few who lived long enough to attain such circumspection, but over time their numbers swelled and with the new arrivals came fiercer competition to dictate “the vision”. Humans are a memetic species. We ascended to the apex of the food chain not by brute force, but by means of communication and memes - useful bits of easily transmissible cognition that often form the “grammar” of our thoughts. Those that foment group success survive; the ones that do not fade away.

Those who live to a ripe old age feel that, given their long life, they must be in possession of superior memes and wish to ensure their replication in the minds of the youth. It is a longstanding trope that the old are inflexible in their views, while adolescents are exceptionally malleable. The result is a sort of “meme warfare”, with the battle taking place behind the eyes of the young. If the preferred memes fail to take root and germinate, we witness consternation on the part of the gray-haired chieftains.

I do not wish to cast the old in a poor light, however. This inescapable tension is a natural consequence of their proximity to eternity. We all face the fact of our mortality, but if we are in possession of a busy life and healthy body the thought remains distant. If death comes to the young it is much more likely to be swift and violent - most will not see it coming from any great distance. Those who arrive at elderhood, however, have nothing to do but die. Having “completed” the expected stages of life, they are left to contemplate the fact of impending death. It is an axiom of human life that we wish to be masters of our existence, an existence the duration of which is unfailingly felt to be insufficient. Wishing to “rage against the dying of the light”, the thoughts of the old naturally turn to the fashioning of what French philosopher Chantal Delsol called an oeuvre - a life work - capable of binding their finite existence with the eternal world. They wish to become the constellations by which others set their course. This is not an ignoble aspiration.

Such an oeuvre may take many forms. The evangelical woman wishes to ensure that traditional observance will persist so that her life, bound up as it was in this spiritual tradition, will have lasting meaning. To secure existential peace, she requires the cooperation of the young who must continue the rituals. In order to attain their assistance, she must win them over with her memes. If the youth rebuff these overtures and elect to swim in a different meme pool, then she fails in her bid at eternity. She will agonize over the disappearance of her religion (not the faith as a whole, necessarily). The destruction of the past undermines the future - her eternal future. If the youth accept the charge, she can face mortality with confidence, knowing that she will be remembered for what she has pointed to in eternity.

Similarly, the ideological man has taken bold action toward realizing a glorious future for mankind. The society he leaves behind, founded upon the ideals he holds dear, is his oeuvre. His biological death is merely a formality - he truly lives on in the persistence of a state or an institution. Like the religious person, the rejection of his ideals on the part of the young is the annihilation of his eternal future. Death becomes the absolute end, not a relative end. It is the cessation of life, not a mere change in its form. The dread of such ignominy spurs the ancient heroes, like Achilles, to chase glorious deeds. The hero who triumphs will live on in renown, his body consumed by the worms, but his being untainted - liberated and unassailable, even.

Enfeebled and short on time, it is easy to see why the old begin to train their attention upon the young. Here are the strong hands and eager minds ready to ensure the persistence of the life-work. Those elders in possession of a compelling vision may well find it easy to win over an army of helpers; childhood is the first opportunity for them to make their pitch. The process of raising children is in large part the practice of instilling one’s values. These values extend far beyond simple morality or practical advice into the realm of business, politics, and the sacred. Parents inevitably make a case for the preservation of certain institutions or ways of life.  Schools, churches, and institutions (almost invariably directed by elders) further compete for this favor, knowing that their survival depends upon obtaining youthful stewardship.

Many times, the obvious benefit of an institution suffices to garner support. Other times, however, the old must resort to guilt and manipulation to ensure the cooperation of the young. A father might apply tremendous pressure to his eldest son, insisting that he take over the family business despite the fact that his son has designs on a different career. The father feels that the persistence of his firm is indistinguishable from his own immortality. Similarly, parents might shame and berate their daughter for expressing her desire to pursue a career in place of marriage and children. They might evoke the notion of a duty to carry on the family line, implying that any alternative pursuits would be tantamount to rejecting her parent’s gift of life. Usually conflict ensues, and the young must either reject and disappoint their parents in favor of self-realization, or must submit and live a life ruled by a simmering inner conflict - the conflict between their parents’ eternity and the present moment.

Even in cases where the young were originally won over, they may become disillusioned over time with their parents’ systems. A ready example is the cultural upheaval that occured in the 1970s. While it was the high school and college age rebels and free lovers that stole the show, there was also a large-scale insurrection on the part of the middle-aged, those who in their younger years had been funneled into early marriage and “gray flannel suit” style administrative jobs by their G.I. elders. They were expected to provide loyal service to the institutions they were to inherit, and from which they were invited to draw the same assurances of immortality. The “flower power” insurgency on the part of the very young proceeded to stir up the long-repressed objections of the middle-aged. “This is not our oeuvre”, they said. This led to a cascade of divorce, career changes, and the elevation of self-realization as an ideal - the antithesis of G.I. collectivism.

At the root of these reactions is the conflict between the eternal and the temporal. The longing for athanasia easily swallows up the present in favor of limitless time. Youth, by nature, revels in the present. It is vitality in the moment and the vague assurance of a glorious future. With death a far-flung prospect, the young feel no urgency to subordinate their present vitality to eternal symbolism; to sow seeds in another’s garden, never enjoying the fruit. The old assuage their fear of fragmentation by assembling their life’s pieces into a symbol of eternity. The young embrace fragmentation, jealously guarding the now from the predations of limitless time. Just as the old refuse to serve as pawns of fate, the young protest against being made the pawns of the old. Each individual receives a blank page on which to write their story. Upon running out of space, the temptation of the old is to snatch at the paper of the young and to write the same story. One side argues for being and the other for becoming.

If the essence of youth is vitality, the crux of experience is wisdom. While eternity can be a predator, youthful rebellion against limitless time often entails a rejection of the wisdom attained through experience. Wisdom is not identical with knowledge, which is available to all who care to study. To be wise is to understand the grand patterns of life. These only reveal themselves to those who have lived. The young place themselves in grave danger when they spurn the wisdom of the old.

Consider the situation before the scientific revolution. For over a thousand years prior, the great axial traditions had encouraged humanity to exit the cave, rejecting shadows in favor of the “real world”. The human mind and its inner workings became an object of study, and its many errors and self-deceptions became apparent to those who undertook the investigation. The prospect of self transformation emerged and along with it appeared the concept of an ideal condition for both mankind and the world: we were fundamentally unlike the rest of this world, capable of grasping the truth beneath flux and altering ourselves for the better. The axial sages underscored that we do not belong here. This world is an illusion through which we must pass if we are to enter the promised land.

This interior revolution triggered substantial spiritual growth, granting humanity a third-person perspective from which to analyze our thoughts and increase their correspondence with what is real. The pursuit of ever increasing actuality creates the experience of meaning. We use this concept of meaning to point to the world beyond the shadows, granting it concrete form in our oeuvre.

The effect of such insight was to make the world profoundly anthropocentric, our quest for eternity positioned at the forefront. With the advent of the Enlightenment and the scientific method, however, the existence of the “real world” was put in doubt. The physical sciences explained more and more phenomena by means of physical causality, including the phenomena of man. Understanding the properties of matter was just as useful in the study of how a human being functions as it was in comprehending animals and inorganic material. The application of measurement to matter yielded results at all levels, and the world revealed itself to be “governed” by material laws.

Soon, the grand axial patterns fell into disrepute, culminating in the debunking of the geocentric universe. Humanity, who had once played a starring role in the cosmos, was quickly relegated to the same status as any other object. We were more complex, but not better. This world was, in fact, our home and it was only through our ignorance of physical causation that we could conclude anything else.

Because of this turnabout, humanity has become young. Our existence no longer stands in relation to eternity; we are unbound, free to fashion our lives in nearly any way we wish within the expansive possibility of the now. Do not forget, however, that it does not mean anything and will quickly pass away. We are no longer caretakers of the oeuvres of long dead men. The eternal no longer tramples the temporal.

Despite our best efforts at enjoying our freedom, I think many would agree that this was a pyrrhic victory. Doubtless we have improved our lives tremendously by reclaiming our paper and pen from the ancients who wished to write on our behalf. We have, however, also forfeited wisdom. Although the Enlightenment thinkers were right to lampoon institutions founded purely on a bedrock of mythic literalism in service to unjust dominance hierarchies, they threw the baby out with the bathwater. It was an error to make the universal insights found in mythical stories contingent upon the literal truth of the story, but eschewing myth and religion in its entirety has left us bereft of wisdom, suspicious of any claim that there are good and bad ways to live. We may enjoy life, but only in nonsensical fragments. We have declared that God is dead: now it’s everyone for themselves.

Just as children might fantasize about liberation from their parents’ restrictions, they will quickly fall into sadness and terror in the absence of their adult wisdom. In many ways, this is where we have landed. Progress has become our lodestar in the absence of cosmic meaning. While a commitment to positive change has generated mind boggling improvements, we collectively mourn the loss of the “enchanted” universe of old, in which we stood as temporary symbols of that which never dies. In the ancient and medieval times, every aspect of life was infused with the eternal, to the point that no one could doubt their existential place in the universe. Ancient wisdom reminds us that human life is imperfectible, that there is always a counter force to the good. Progress disappoints because we never win the war. One enemy is vanquished, but another quickly takes its place after the brief victory dance. Many of these adversaries spring from our minds, and we must do battle with our own inventions. Life becomes mere fragmented becoming, an endless game of whack-a-mole that signifies nothing.

The tension between the old and the young is that of being vs becoming. Both of these are inevitable and necessary, and each requires their advocate if we are to prosper. It would be a grave danger if either side were to achieve total victory, for we humans live with one foot in each world, and cannot stand on one side only. This tension, however, is ultimately creative. To summarize in a maxim: everything is becoming and will change form, yet the same patterns repeat. The elders urge us to notice the pattern and the young remind us of its underlying impermanence. Everything must change, but we may set the tempo.

NOTES

[1] “A Letter to a Rising Generation”, Cornelia Comer, Atlantic Monthly February 1911