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How will Americans of a certain age explain 1968 to their grandchildren? “Well, sir, a famous person was assassinated. And then another one. No, not those two. That was the shooting from ten years ago. And then the racists won the presidential election in five states. There were riots that some cities never recovered from. The Democrats held their convention, and the police rioted. Vietnam? That's what the protests were like, and a president who'd been running for the presidency since he was a Texas road worker resigned without a fight. Elvis' comeback was quite an inspiration, but still.”
After all this happened, why didn't America collapse immediately? Watergate and OPEC-induced inflation should have infuriated people. Why did national life become so chilly that 49 states voted to re-elect Reagan and make the 2024 Chicago convention meaningless?
In 1968, the average age of an American was 26. Now? 38. That's not a dramatic age change by global standards. During the Cultural Revolution, when students were chastising their elders for not being loyal enough to Maoist doctrine, China's average age was an incredibly low 18. That figure is now closer to 40.
In France, in 1968, when the Republic was faltering, the average age was 10 years lower than it is today. In Germany, the average age is higher than it was in the heyday of the Baader-Meinhof government, and in Italy, it is higher than it was in the leaden days when the far left and the far right killed people. Even in Britain, a less flashpoint country, there was still a generation of industrial militants then. Then laws were passed that crippled the trade unions. But it also helps that half the population is now over 40 years old.
Old people may vote for radical proposals, but street politics? That's a 20-something game.
The world should strive for higher birth rates. For financial reasons, for cultural vitality. But there's one thing to be said about an aging society, and it's not said enough: it makes basic order easier to maintain. Older people may vote for radical proposals like Brexit and rant about it online, but street politics? Dynamically expressing discontent? That's a 20-something game. The glut of young people, especially prime-age men (sources tell me that testosterone declines after 40), can become too much for even authoritarian states to contain.
This is often a good thing. I'm glad that average people in Poland in the 1980s were young enough to mobilize against a decrepit regime. But where democracy is established and fundamental rights are guaranteed, I'd rather mobilize less than more. Thank you. The fastest known cure for what Tom Wolfe called “radical sickness” is to live in a place where the state has lost control over events.
In retrospect, it was an encouraging moment when Elon Musk predicted a civil war in the UK. If a vicious but contained riot seemed to an intelligent person like a harbinger of social collapse, it was because he, or we, were too new to reality. The siege of the Houses of Parliament was a frightening event. But chronic social unrest has been worse in the past. When Musk was a child, European countries were facing paramilitary insurrections. The miners' strike had forced the UK government to ask, “Who will govern?” Big cities were losing population as crime rose.
What about now? “Activism” has become something of a bourgeois ritual, the same as mid-career retraining as a therapist. “Radical” is a synonym for “good” in journalism, and few people remember the last time extremism hurt people. I don't blame this naivety; it's precious. But blame the demographic decline. Society has been too old to run wild for a while now.
The most prescient advice I ever received was this: At 33, you feel 21. At 36, you feel 50. In your mid-30s, there is some inner decline based on biological changes (the age at which athletes tend to retire). It is not an unpleasant experience, and it doesn't have to be. There is less energy, certainly. But there is less anger. And if that is enough to depress the individual, imagine the collective societal impact. How tempting it would be to reverse the 1960s slogan, “Never trust anyone over 30.”
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