Juvenescence
Subtitle: a cultural history of our age
By: Robert Pogue Harrison
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 215
ISBN-13: 9780226171999
Subjects: Aging; Neoteny; Anthropological aspects; Maturation (Psychology); Age; Philosophy; Youthfulness
Description: How old are you? The more thought you bring to bear on the question, the harder it is to answer. For we age simultaneously in different ways: biologically, psychologically, socially. And we age within the larger framework of a culture, in the midst of a history that predates us and will outlast us. Looked at through that lens, many aspects of late modernity would suggest that we are older than ever, but Robert Pogue Harrison argues that we are also getting startlingly younger--in looks, mentality, and behavior. We live, he says, in an age of juvenescence. Like all of Robert Pogue Harrison's books, Juvenescence ranges brilliantly across cultures and history, tracing the ways that the spirits of youth and age have inflected each other from antiquity to the present. Drawing on the scientific concept of neotony, or the retention of juvenile characteristics through adulthood, and extending it into the cultural realm, Harrison argues that youth is essential for culture's innovative drive and flashes of genius. At the same time, however, youth--which Harrison sees as more protracted than ever--is a luxury that requires the stability and wisdom of our elders and our institutions.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Anthropos; title: Wisdom and genius; title: Neotenic revolutions; title: Amor mundi; title: Epilogue.