For some time, Carl Gustav Jung has had a phrase about aging that keeps appearing over and over again: that those who grow old should know that their lives no longer grow or expand, that “an internal and complex process forces them to limit their lives.” It sounds like a breakfast cup (if breakfast cup makers had a specific disdain for the elderly) and a bogus self-help phrase promoted under a famous signature. but no For once, it’s yours.
Unusually, there is no guarantee that it came from rust. Whatever affection we may have for the old Swiss, it is still true that he was for almost all purposes a charlatan of extraordinary insight; But charlatans after all. An occult scholar whose theories are tested by experimental evidence is often unable to pay.
And this is a good example of its limitations: for decades psychology has returned to the idea (that, over the years, social life has shrunk) and agreed with everything except what is important: and it is not age that narrows life, it is the time we believe we have passed.
What exactly did Jung say? The phrase comes from ‘Die Lebenswende’, an essay which Jung presented in 1930 and which, after thorough revision, he published in ‘Silenproblem der Gegenwert’.‘ In 1931. He was 54 years old and for a long time, there was one image that haunted him: life was like a sun sign in the sky.
That is, between the ages of 35 and 40, human life will reach its peak, at noon. From then on, the afternoon begins and it is still meaningless to live like the morning. As I saw it, what was happening was that the sun (forgive me for prolonging the metaphor) stopped “shedding its light” on the world and gathered its rays to illuminate itself. It has elements: it is not understood as a fall, but as a moment to face who we really are.
Interestingly, Jung wasn’t just talking about old people and retirees. He was talking about the forties. At 54, he may not have recovered from his midlife crisis.
The problem is that the idea has aged badly (heh). In 1961, while studying data on adults aged 50 to 90 in Kansas City, Ellen Cumming and William Henry developed the so-called ‘dissociation theory’. From then on ‘aging’ will be understood as a mutual and inevitable withdrawal between individual and society. Some have called it the “dress rehearsal of death”.
In other words, there is a decline in Cummings and Henry. And the fact that the theory has been highly criticized. Today, for all practical purposes, it is considered disrespectful. Above all, because we realized that the elderly are not sadder than the young.
Laura Carstensen explains it. This Stanford psychologist realized that the world was full of people with very real losses who, contrary to stereotypes, showed relatively high emotional well-being.
For him, the key (what he calls socio-emotional selectivity) lies elsewhere: in that we all keep track, in one way or another, of what we keep. When we believe it is too much, we prioritize exploration, growth and investment; When we think we have little left, we prioritize feeling good, taking care of ourselves, and protecting ourselves.
But isn’t it simply getting old? well no The classic example that’s often given is if you ask a 20-year-old who they’d like to spend the next twenty minutes with, their answers are very broad (and usually revolve around “exploration”). If you ask him to imagine that he is moving, his reaction quickly goes into the second mode.
So yes, Jung got it right about what happens, but not why it happens. And that, when faced with it, is fundamental.
Picture | Xataka’s modified ETH-library
In Xataka | These are the contents of the philosophy which will no longer be binding (and thus we can relieve it).
