Key Takeaways
1. Elderhood is not automatic with age, but a cultivated wisdom
"Clearly the prolongation of life that we have wrested from the Lords of Life has not conjured anything like a proportionally grand number of elders among us."
Elderhood is earned, not given. It requires a deep understanding of life's limits and an acceptance of one's place in the greater scheme of things. Unlike the automatic accumulation of years, elderhood is a conscious cultivation of wisdom gained through experience and reflection.
- Characteristics of true elders:
- Embrace the natural order of things
- Understand their role as bearers of cultural memory
- Accept their own mortality and limitations
- Serve as bridges between generations
Elderhood is not about clinging to youth or power, but about developing a profound understanding of life's cycles and sharing that wisdom with younger generations.
2. Modern society lacks true elders, despite an aging population
"We have more old people than ever before, and it seems that there are fewer elders than ever before, and it seems that there could be a causal connection between those two things."
Quantity doesn't equal quality. The modern world has more older people than ever before, but paradoxically, fewer true elders. This discrepancy stems from our society's obsession with youth and its rejection of the wisdom that comes with age.
Factors contributing to the lack of elders:
- Worship of youth and vitality
- Dismissal of traditional knowledge
- Rapid technological change outpacing older generations
- Emphasis on individual achievement over communal wisdom
The result is a society that values the appearance of youth over the substance of experience, leaving us bereft of the guidance and perspective that true elders can provide.
3. The West's obsession with growth hinders the development of elderhood
"Growth untethered to its consequences strikes me as something like artificial intelligence. It is ingenuity unburdened by conscience, utterly unaccountable, sociopathic."
Growth at all costs is the mantra of modern Western society, but this obsession comes at a great price. The relentless pursuit of growth - economic, personal, and technological - leaves little room for the development of elderhood, which requires acceptance of limits and an understanding of cycles.
Consequences of growth obsession:
- Devaluation of wisdom gained through experience
- Disregard for natural limits and sustainability
- Erosion of intergenerational relationships
- Loss of cultural memory and traditions
This fixation on constant growth and improvement prevents us from recognizing the value of elderhood, which often involves a graceful acceptance of decline and an understanding of life's natural rhythms.
4. Ancestral memory and cultural roots are vital for elderhood
"The ripple of unbidden memory, the murmur of a possibility breaking on the shoal of authority and amnesia: this is as much the presence of an ancestry unsought and unbidden, a redemptive consequence of an unwelcome, inconvenient, grief-encrusted memory that is conjured by the particulars of someone else's story."
Roots nourish wisdom. Ancestral memory and cultural heritage are crucial components of elderhood. They provide a foundation of shared experiences and wisdom that can guide future generations.
Importance of ancestral memory:
- Connects individuals to a larger narrative
- Provides context for understanding present challenges
- Offers tested solutions to perennial human problems
- Fosters a sense of belonging and identity
However, modern society often severs these connections, leaving individuals rootless and without the benefit of accumulated wisdom. True elders serve as living links to this ancestral knowledge, bridging past and present.
5. Elderhood requires embracing limits and endings, not eternal youth
"The elder's job in a competence-addicted culture is not to prevail or succeed or win. It is to wane, and then to end, and to be good at it."
Accepting mortality is key. Elderhood isn't about clinging to youth or denying the realities of aging. Instead, it's about embracing the natural limits of life and finding meaning in the process of decline.
Aspects of embracing limits:
- Recognizing the value of experience over potential
- Finding peace with one's mortality
- Sharing wisdom gained through life's challenges
- Modeling graceful aging for younger generations
This acceptance of limits stands in stark contrast to modern society's obsession with eternal youth and unlimited potential. True elders understand that their role is not to compete with the young, but to complement them with hard-earned wisdom.
6. True elders are bridges between past and present, not relics
"Elders are the visitation of time upon the people. By virtue of their willingness to forgo both the follies and the capacities of their younger days, and to be summoned to the feast hall of days, and to answer the summons pilgrim style, seeking the generous host who has included them on the guest list, by practicing with the limits of dexterity and endurance the courtesies age would recognize them by, elders are the mystery days of younger people."
Living links to wisdom. Elders serve as crucial bridges between the past and the present, not as outdated relics to be discarded. They embody lived experience and cultural memory, offering invaluable perspective to younger generations.
Roles of elders as bridges:
- Interpreting past wisdom for current challenges
- Preserving cultural traditions and values
- Offering context for societal changes
- Providing continuity in times of rapid change
True elders don't simply dwell in the past, but actively engage with the present, helping to guide their communities through changing times with the benefit of long-term perspective.
7. The "spells" of the West: universality, eternality, potentiality, and inevitability
"The West as we know it now was born. That was The Truth, at work."
Breaking the enchantment. Jenkinson identifies four "spells" that dominate Western thinking and hinder the development of true elderhood: universality, eternality, potentiality, and inevitability.
The four spells and their effects:
- Universality: Erases cultural differences and unique wisdom
- Eternality: Denies the reality of change and endings
- Potentiality: Overvalues future possibilities over present realities
- Inevitability: Removes human agency and responsibility
These spells create a worldview that is incompatible with the wisdom of elderhood, which embraces specificity, transience, limits, and human responsibility. Recognizing and breaking these spells is crucial for fostering true elderhood.
8. Sacrifice and preservation can hinder true cultural continuity
"Sacrifice is probably the deification of profanation, practiced by a culture whose creation story is one of fallenness or rupture, or sin, whose religious foundation is anarchy."
Letting go to hold on. Paradoxically, attempts to preserve culture through sacrifice or museum-like preservation can actually hinder true cultural continuity. Authentic culture is lived, not enshrined.
Problems with sacrifice and preservation:
- Freezes culture in time, preventing natural evolution
- Creates a false sense of separation between past and present
- Turns living traditions into static artifacts
- Disconnects people from the everyday practice of culture
True cultural continuity, and by extension elderhood, involves a dynamic relationship with tradition, allowing it to evolve and remain relevant while maintaining its core wisdom.
9. Elderhood involves radical hospitality and generosity of speech
"The spirit geometry of the thing is a marvel. Darkness is brought to light by a diet of what it darkened. The spell is articulated, you could say, or broken, by eloquence."
Speak life into being. Elderhood is characterized by a radical hospitality towards all aspects of life, including its challenges and sorrows. This hospitality is expressed through generous, eloquent speech that doesn't shy away from difficult truths.
Aspects of elder speech:
- Acknowledges both joy and sorrow in life
- Speaks truth without bitterness or resentment
- Uses rich, poetic language to convey deep truths
- Offers comfort without denying reality
This generous speech stands in contrast to the often cynical or superficial communication that dominates modern discourse. Elders use language to weave connections and offer perspective, not to divide or dominate.
10. The elder's role is to bear witness and remember, not to prevail
"Elders are redemption, in the form of memory."
Witnesses, not winners. The role of elders is not to triumph over adversity or to prove their superiority, but to bear faithful witness to life's joys and sorrows, and to remember what others forget.
Key aspects of the elder's role:
- Holding cultural memory for the community
- Bearing witness to historical events and changes
- Offering perspective on current challenges
- Reminding younger generations of forgotten wisdom
This role of witness and rememberer is crucial in a society that often values novelty over continuity and instant gratification over long-term perspective. Elders serve as the collective memory of their communities, ensuring that valuable lessons and traditions are not lost.
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FAQ
1. What is Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble by Stephen Jenkinson about?
- Exploration of elderhood’s meaning: The book investigates the concept of elderhood as a vital, yet missing, cultural and spiritual role in modern Western society, especially in North America.
- Cultural critique and history: Jenkinson critiques the modern obsession with youth, growth, and control, tracing the loss of elderhood through historical, linguistic, and spiritual shifts.
- Call for cultural reckoning: The book is a plea for individuals and communities to confront aging, death, and limitation, and to restore elderhood as a communal, relational function rather than a personal achievement.
2. Why should I read Come of Age by Stephen Jenkinson?
- Profound rethinking of aging: The book offers a rare and challenging perspective on what it means to grow old, questioning common assumptions about wisdom, decline, and the value of elders.
- Cultural and spiritual depth: Jenkinson weaves together history, etymology, spirituality, and personal narrative, making the book a rich resource for those seeking deeper meaning in aging and community.
- Urgent contemporary relevance: In a time of ecological crisis and social fragmentation, the book’s call for elderhood is a vital contribution to how we might live wisely and responsibly across generations.
3. What are the key takeaways and concepts from Come of Age by Stephen Jenkinson?
- Elderhood as a cultural function: Elderhood is not simply a result of aging but a role defined by the needs of the times and the willingness to serve community and memory.
- Sacrifice and rupture: The book explores how the concept of sacrifice reflects a broken relationship with the sacred, and how elderhood seeks to heal this rupture.
- Ancestral memory and kinship: Maintaining a living connection to ancestors is essential for belonging and meaning, with elders serving as the living memory of the community.
- Critique of modernity: Modern culture’s focus on growth, novelty, and personal achievement undermines elderhood and ancestral wisdom, leading to cultural amnesia and spiritual homelessness.
4. How does Stephen Jenkinson define "elderhood" in Come of Age?
- Not automatic with age: Elderhood is not simply growing old; it is a state of being that arises from embracing mortality, limitation, and the lessons of life’s latter half.
- Communal and relational role: Elderhood is a social function involving stewardship, wisdom, and service to younger generations, rooted in ancestral and ecological relationships.
- Occasion-driven and grace-filled: Elderhood arises from the needs of the times and requires grace under pressure, with elders mediating between the living, the divine, and the past.
5. How does Come of Age explain the loss of elderhood in modern Western culture?
- Historical and spiritual roots: Jenkinson traces the loss to the Roman Empire’s universalism, Christianity’s abstraction of spirit from matter, and the Scientific Revolution’s focus on control.
- Language and modernism: Modern English, shaped by empire and industrialization, encourages separation and essentialism, undermining relational ways of knowing and the function of elders.
- Obsession with youth and growth: The cultural fetish for prolonging youth and mastery denies the natural limits and endings that give rise to elderhood, resulting in many old people but few true elders.
6. What is the Orphan Wisdom Forensic Audit Method in Come of Age by Stephen Jenkinson?
- Forensic attention to culture: This method involves reading the signs and portents of cultural and personal life, attesting to what was once so, including the presence of absence.
- Place literacy and memory: It emphasizes being "place literate," able to read the subtle signs of history, culture, and environment that shape a place and its people.
- Etymology and divination: The method uses etymology and linguistic history to uncover lost meanings and truths, helping to understand the deep currents behind elderhood’s decline.
7. How does Come of Age describe the relationship between aging and elderhood?
- Aging is not elderhood: Aging is a biological process, but elderhood is a qualitative transformation that requires embracing limitation, mortality, and the lessons of diminishment.
- Paradox of longevity: As people live longer, the cultural function of elderhood diminishes because society denies the limits and endings that elderhood requires.
- Deepening by diminishment: Elderhood involves surrendering mastery and embracing frailty, offering wisdom and sustenance to younger generations through humility and presence.
8. What role does language, especially modern English, play in the themes of Come of Age?
- Language as a vector of modernism: Modern English carries the historical forces of empire and rationalism, shaping Western culture’s worldview and its denial of elderhood.
- Essentialism and separation: The syntax of modern English encourages viewing existence as isolated and essentialist, separating body from soul and past from present.
- Etymology as recovery: Jenkinson uses etymology to challenge the "spell" cast by modern English, aiming to restore a language that can hold the complexity of elderhood.
9. What are the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" in Come of Age and their impact on Western culture?
- Universality: The belief that all humans are essentially the same, eroding cultural diversity and local identities.
- Eternality: The idea that things have always been and will always be as they are now, promoting a static view of time and denying change.
- Potentiality: The fixation on future possibilities, burdening the young with endless striving and devaluing the present and the past.
- Inevitability: The sense that current crises are unavoidable, leading to resignation and passivity rather than engagement and change.
10. How does Come of Age by Stephen Jenkinson address the significance of ancestry and sustenance in elderhood?
- Ancestry as mutual sustenance: Ancestry is a web of mutual sustenance involving ancestors, place, and the living, not just a linear lineage.
- Totem and dodem: The book discusses indigenous concepts like dodem (totem) as “that one who kept the first ancestor alive,” emphasizing interdependence over command.
- Elders as living memory: Elders maintain the connection between past and present, sustaining culture and community through their presence and example.
11. What is the significance of the World Tree and the withering of elderhood in Come of Age?
- World Tree as mutual sustenance: The World Tree symbolizes the binding of heaven and earth, gods and humans, representing reciprocal care and the natural order.
- Withering as cultural loss: The withering of the World Tree reflects the loss of elderhood, memory, and the natural order in modern culture, leading to loneliness and spiritual poverty.
- Elders as antidote: Elders embody the living memory of the World Tree, sustaining culture and community by holding the past and present in balance.
12. What are the most memorable quotes from Come of Age by Stephen Jenkinson and what do they mean?
- “Maybe our sleep is practice for our death, and our lives the dreams our ancestors have.” This quote reflects the book’s meditation on life, death, and ancestral memory, suggesting a deep continuity across generations.
- “Sacrifice is probably the deification of profanation, practiced by a culture whose creation story is one of fallenness or rupture.” This challenges romanticized views of sacrifice, framing it as a symptom of cultural disrepair rather than sacredness.
- “Elderhood is learning the work of blessing, and with greater and greater courtesy, seeking it, and by asking for its bestowal—and by bestowing it thereby.” This highlights elderhood as a practice of grace, blessing, and mutual recognition.
- “You age. You are not aged.” This emphasizes aging as an active process or skill, not a passive condition imposed on one.
- “Never harm a poet. Never love a poet neither. Never be a poet.” A poignant piece of advice reflecting the precarious and challenging role of the poet (and by extension, the elder) in society.
Review Summary
Come of Age receives mixed reviews, with an average rating of 4.21/5. Readers praise Jenkinson's poetic language, profound insights, and thought-provoking ideas about elderhood. Many find the book challenging but rewarding, appreciating its exploration of aging, wisdom, and cultural issues. Some criticize the dense writing style and difficulty in following the author's logic. Several reviewers note the book's importance in addressing crucial societal issues, while others struggle with its complexity and occasional lack of clarity.
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