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awareness. Fewer things shock or surprise. Disappointed hopes and broken dreams, accumulated mistakes and misfortunes, and the struggle to meet the economic and emotional demands of daily life can take their toll in diminished ambition, insensitivity, fatigue, and cynicism—not in everyone, to be sure, but in many people growing older.* As a general matter, a society’s aspiration, hope, freshness, boldness, and openness depend for their continual renewal on the spirit of youth, of those to whom the world itself is new and full of promise.
3. The Aging of Society Even as the ravages of aging on the lives of individuals were diminished, society as a whole would age. The average age of the population would, of course, increase, and, as we have seen, the birthrate and the inflow of the young would likely decrease. The consequences of these trends are very difficult to forecast, and would depend to a great extent on the character of the technique employed to retard aging. If the delay of senescence made it more acute when it did come, then the costs of caring for the aged would not be reduced but only put off, and perhaps increased. The trend we have already seen in our society, whereby a greater share of private and public resources goes to pay for the needs of the aged and a lesser share for the needs of the young, would continue and grow. But society’s institutions could likely adapt themselves to this new dynamic (though of course the fact that we can adjust to something does not in itself settle the question of whether that something is good or bad). More important is the change in societal attitudes, and in the culture’s view of itself. Even if age-retardation actually decreased the overall cost of caring for the old, which is not unimaginable, it would still increase the age of society, affecting its views and priorities. The nation might commit less of its intellectual energy and social resources to the cause of initiating the young, and more to the cause of accommodating the old. * As Aristotle noted in his remarkable portrait of the old, the young, and those in their prime, the old often “aspire to nothing great and exalted and crave the mere necessities and comforts of existence.” (Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book II, Ch. 13, 1389b22, trans. L. Cooper, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1960, p. 135.)