Against Gerontocracy

And For Political Leadership That Blends the Wisdom of Experience with the Freshness of Youth

Niall Ferguson’s controversial first post for The Free Press in June of last year, provocatively titled “We’re All Soviets Now” and arguing that our sclerotic political system and aging political leaders recalled the Soviet Union near the point of collapse, caused quite a commotion.¹ At the time, the two oldest candidates in US history were competing to preside over America’s gerontocracy, until the more elderly one was forced to drop out due to conspicuous age-related decline. Even so, the impaired individual who came out on top, thanks to his gift for a kind of simulated vitality (an elusive genius that is difficult to put into old-fashioned words), will become the oldest president in US history if he survives until the end of his second term. (If so, will he try for a third?)

Photo by Carmel Rossen on Unsplash

Separately, The Economist recently published a short graphic report noting that the average age of world leaders has risen steadily over the years. This is most dramatically the case in non-democracies, whose leaders don’t have to submit to the will of the people or accept the results of democratic elections. While the point remained implicit, the United States was seen as an outlier for democracies in having a markedly older than average cohort of leaders in all three branches of government, reflecting what many observers already perceive about the creaky state of American democracy.²

*****

It is partly in this context that I read the superb book Why We Die–The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality by the Nobel Prize winning chemist Venki Ramakrishnan not long ago. I couldn’t help but be struck by two facts in reading it. First was the massive flow of funds now going into scientific research into aging. Much of this cash comes from tech oligarchs hoping to stave off the grim reaper and remain alive (in some form) as long as possible. Some are even investing big time in “cryogenics”, and plan to freeze their brains until the computer codes of eternal life have been cracked and they can achieve their ambition to live forever. For the record, Ramakrishnan notes that the scientific basis for such a hope does not exist, and (presumably) never will.

The second fact struck me with even greater force: the ethics of pursuing lifespan extension—not to mention Godlike eternal life—are getting short shrift. These questions should be front and center. Ironically, my father, who died in 1995, was a German-born medical scientist who studied aging during the latter part of his career. A humanities-minded scientist forced by his own father into the apolitical field of medicine out of concern for the hyper-politicization of the “liberal arts” in Nazi Germany (you had to be on board with the ideology), he became interested in gerontology near the end of his own life and career. (Some things are personal.) It turns out he was working in the field long before it had become fashionable and, true to family form, before there was any money in it. His final professional hurrah was the slender 1991 volume he edited titled Life Span Extension–Consequences and Open Questions, which explored these very questions. Since I had a small hand in its production (I helped translate the essay Perspectives on Senescence and Death by a Franciscan monk from France), my memory of it is somewhat sharper than it otherwise might be. It also means I still have a signed copy of an obscure book long out of print.³

*****

On Behalf of Whose Interests?

Hands down, the most penetrating piece in that volume was and remains by the philosopher Peter Singer—a rising star at the time and perhaps the preeminent figure in the field of ethics today. I have read and reread Singer’s essay several times since, and can confirm that it still packs a punch. Titled “Research into Aging: Should it be Guided by the Interests of Present Individuals, Future Individuals, or the Species?,⁴ Singer begins with a thought experiment, positing the existence of a drug that can extend the average human lifespan from 75 to 150 years. He takes pains to point out that the drug promises to “slow the process of aging” (presumably a more realistic proposition) rather than to extend the duration of being young (more of a fantasy). This means that the drug will expand the number of “pretty good, if somewhat below average” years in middle and late-middle age rather than prolong the boundless vibrancy and vitality of youth. It also means that the drug’s promise differs from Jonathan Swift’s skewering of eternal life as portrayed in Gulliver’s Travels, where the so-called Struldbruggs in the nation of Luggnagg live forever, unforgettably, as decrepit elderly people. Nice.

To cut to the chase, Singer discounts the third category—that of the human species as a whole—as irrelevant to his calculus. For one, “(H)ow is one to quantify the benefits of the freshness of youth as against the benefits of the wisdom of accumulated experience?” It’s a familiar trade-off, with the zest and enthusiasm of the young on one side balanced by the calm reflection and resistance to zealous overreaction of those who have seen this roadshow before. More decisively, however, the species as an abstract entity can not be said to have concrete interests in the same way that its individual members do.

Next, after careful consideration, Singer comes down on the side of it being clearly in the interest of “present individuals” (people alive today) to see their lives extended—especially if this means a longer span of pretty good years. While the finitude of life may be part of what makes it worth living, there really is no ethical or other basis to oppose extending it, in part because most present individuals would plainly want to. On a related note, research into aging has long confirmed the fact that the passage of time is an imperfect, and often inaccurate measure of physiological age. People really can be young or old, biologically speaking at the cellular level (as Ramakrishnan spends a good deal of time delving into in his book) in relation to their chronological age. So whatever else is true, age as a number (say, 35, 50, or 75) really does mean very little, if not nothing.

I have to confess that I was troubled at first by Singer’s decisive, if not quite full-throated conclusion with respect to present individuals when I reread his essay several years ago. This was probably because my mother, who had died (at 94) a short time before, had lived the final 5 or 6 years of her life (like so many people do these days) in a state of deepening dementia. In the end she recognized nobody and could do nothing by herself. In better days she had been one of the liveliest and most independent and original spirits one could meet. She didn’t deserve to depart in that way. Nobody does. I still feel the same way today. In no way can those final years be argued to have been in anyone’s interest, least of all her own.⁵ Feeling strongly about the issue at the time, I wrote an email to Singer out of the blue, to see if he remembered and, if so, to clarify whether he continued to agree with that component of his conclusion. To my surprise, he wrote right back, and said that he did. On both counts. But he was also careful to emphasize that this conclusion was based on the assumption that the span of extended years had to be, on balance, pretty good. It had to be plainly worthwhile extra time, not years spent in Struldbruggian infirmity (of which my mother and many others may be sad but characteristic examples). Otherwise, no.

Not being a naysayer, I accept Singer’s argument. Besides, a de facto experiment in lifespan extension is already underway, at least among the more comfortable classes of our era, and I don’t plan to try and stop it. Compared to roughly a century ago, the average human lifespan has more or less doubled.⁶ Not only that, I know many present individuals who remain physically vital and mentally lucid deep into their 90s and beyond, living incontestably worthwhile lives as chronologically older people. Besides, who am I, at 62 and hopefully counting, to disagree? There are many buried questions about what constitutes a life worth living, and how far and at what cost we are willing to go to extend it, and these will be among the most consequential we face—for both ethical and practical reasons—the longer we live.

Singer concludes with a nuanced argument about the interests of future individuals, which he insists need to be considered equally in the calculus alongside those of individuals alive today. And these turn out to be pivotal to his overarching conclusion. Why? Because extending the lifespans of present individuals has a cost that, while difficult to measure, is felt primarily by future individuals. It’s nearly a wash when it comes to the interests of future individuals who actually come into existence (they live longer lives that are, on the whole, not quite as good as they would have been had the span of their lives been shorter and more weighted to youth). But the greatest harm is suffered by those individuals who—as a consequence of the extended lifespans now and in the future—will never have the opportunity to be born. This is partly because people will procreate later in life (as the rich in today’s world already do), delaying the arrival of new people, in a never-ending chain of postponement. But it is also due to factors akin to resource exhaustion and dealing with radioactive waste, with the interests of present individuals given clear preference over the interests of individuals to come. What about them? Singer argues, rightly I believe, that future individuals ought to matter to us about as much we ourselves do. His final two sentences are worth quoting in full: “Perhaps what we should do is be guided by concern for what will lead to the greatest total amount of happiness, or welfare, over time. On this basis, we should recommend against any further development of the anti-aging drug.”

To make a long story short, in light of the complicated mix of interests of present and of future individuals, we ought to think carefully about the wisdom of trying to extend the span of our lives artificially today. And on balance, Singer argues, we probably shouldn’t. Simple enough.

It is a truism that democratic politics ought to seek to represent the interests of all the people, not just the few. (And as those familiar with his broader work know, Singer believes the relevant interests in play are not just those of people). Whether one agrees or not with his conclusions, the behavior of technology magnates and their enabling politicians in our neo-Gilded Age takes on a more selfish and even sinister character in the light of Singer’s argument. Whatever the current opportunity costs associated with spending on yachts instead of schools, or on hyper-expensive diets to keep oneself “young” rather than on children’s hospitals, school lunches, or charitable contributions to scientific foundations (a close examination of these tradeoffs would surely reveal different shades of gray), it turns out current costs are not the only ones to consider. It’s not only discrimination and deepening inequality in geographic space broadly understood here and now, the discrimination clearly spans across time, too. It’s as though the leaves on a tree were trying to hang on through the fall, and preventing the sprouting of new spring buds in doing so. How is this democratic?

*****

Relevance to Politics?

Here, the balance between “the freshness of youth” and “the wisdom of accumulated experience” seems particularly germane. Are older individuals less well suited to represent the interests of all individuals, young and old, present and future? What about older presidents? To conduct a brief thought experiment of our own: Can we in the United States say with confidence that our best presidents, historically speaking, have been the youngest, the oldest, or those in-between? Teddy Roosevelt and JFK come to mind for the first category, both in their early 40s when they came to power. On the older side, Eisenhower, at 66, had concerns about being too old to run for a second term but went ahead to win and do fine. James Buchanan, considered by many historians as among the worst presidents ever (for having done nothing to stop the Civil War), was perceived as being quite old (in his late 60s) at the time. To take recent bipartisan examples, both Reagan (late 70s) and Biden (early 80s) showed worrisome signs of age-related decline while still in office. Our best presidents may well have been in-between. Lincoln was 52 when first elected, strong of mind and body yet known as “Old Abe” for good reason. George Washington was 57. I think a good case can be made that both of these presidents—often considered interchangeably as our top two—were wise, strong, and farsighted. Among other things, they understood the relationship between past, present, and future. Importantly, they took pains to include as an integral component of their political calculations the likely impact of their decisions and actions on the interests of future individuals (such as those of us who happen to be alive today), and not as an afterthought either.

Photo by Conner Baker on Unsplash

But let’s drop the pseudo-science and call it a draw. Like many things, a middle ground representing a mix of factors and a balance of competing interests is probably best. In choosing our presidents, for example, we might seek an optimal blend of youthfulness and age: qualities that combine the freshness of youth with the wisdom of experience, the energy of the young with the crystallized intelligence of the older among us, the ability to think about things in a new way with that of perceiving the world in broader, long-term, multifarious perspective.

Beyond that, I think we can also acknowledge that, whatever their chronological age, our presidents ought to be at the top of their game while serving in that highest of high offices. We expect at least as much from our top professional athletes—the best of the best in the NFL, the NBA, or even the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Coincidentally, during his recent podcast conversation with then candidate Trump, Joe Rogan discusses in passing the devastating injuries suffered by top UFC fighters who remained in the “cage” past their prime, and how logically speaking such injuries might have been expected.⁷ Why were these champions unwilling to acknowledge their time was up when everyone else seemed to know? Why were they forced to learn the hard way? Of course, I was also quietly asking myself why Rogan didn’t make the obvious connection to the larger and more consequential political competition.

*****

I have to confess it feels almost preposterous to consider the once and future president in terms of any interests other than his own. The interests of those outside the tight inner circle of family, friends, and loyalists seem downright irrelevant to his calculus. The interests of the American people writ large, old or young, red state or blue, blah blah blah. The interests of our fellow present individual humans who happen to live outside our borders, who are they and who the hell cares? As for the interests of those individuals not yet born or who might never be as a consequence of a political decision made off the cuff or a policy designed in a particular way, patently absurd. (The non-human community doesn’t even merit a mention.)

But whatever else one might say about him, one can say this. For good or ill, the individual in question, charged once again with representing all of our interests in that highest of offices, is no longer at the top of his game. Those among his contemporaries who have had the ambiguous honor of watching his career and personal development over the last half century, and with pathologically rapt attention for the past 10 years, know this to be true. He is not as fresh or sharp or even canny as he was at his best, and he has—why is it needless to say?—absorbed little if any wisdom from experience. Even before he has returned to office, this fact is more than notable.

As for what happens after that, I fear it can almost be expected.

1. Niall Ferguson: We’re All Soviets Now

2. https://www.economist.com/interactive/the-world-ahead/2024/11/18/world-leaders-are-getting-older-except-in-democracies.

3. https://www.amazon.com/Life-Span-Extension-Consequences-Questions/dp/0826174507

4. https://catalog.nlm.nih.gov/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma999453773406676&context=L&vid=01NLM_INST:01NLM_INST&lang=en&search_scope=MyInstitution&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=LibraryCatalog&query=lds56,contains,Risk,AND&mode=advanced&offset=60

5. It may be manifestly in the interests of the elder-care health industrial complex to keep people alive as long as possible, no matter their physical or mental condition, as long as those decrepit people (or their families) are able to pay for it, but that is a separate ethical discussion.

6. https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

7. Begin listening at 1 hour 58 minutes for the passage in question.