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Will Living Longer Mean Growing Wiser?
By Walter
Truett Anderson
Pacific News Service,
July 08, 2002
In the last 200
years, life expectancy worldwide has gone from about 25 years to more than
65. But two questions of the longevity revolution are rarely asked, writes
PNS Associate Editor Walt Truett Anderson. Who is living longer and who
isn't? And does growing older mean growing wiser?
People are living longer, and that is undoubtedly good news -- at least to
those who are living longer. But the longevity revolution, as it's now
being called, is a huge and complex social transition, and we really have
no idea of where it's taking us. It will generate some huge problems --
particularly around the differences of life expectancy in different parts
of the world -- and may bring some pleasant surprises. If the
developmental psychologists are correct, a lot of people who grow older
will also grow up to become more effective, responsible human beings.
The basic numbers are striking: According to a recent article in Science
magazine by a pair of demographers from Duke University and Cambridge
University, life expectancy has more than doubled worldwide over the past
two centuries -- from roughly 25 years to about 65 for men and 70 for
women. In about six decades, the researchers say, reaching 100 will be
about as commonplace as reaching 70 is today.
How far will it go? There's now a debate among the experts, between those
who expect that at some point we will run into natural limits on how long
an individual body and mind can survive and those who doubt that any such
natural limits exist. Some now go so far as to predict an era of
"functional immortality" in which life expectancy becomes, for
all practical purposes, infinite. In this long-range scenario, people will
live forever unless their lives are ended by some sort of accident or by a
conscious decision to die.
The troubling question is: Which people?
In the United States and other wealthier countries, average life
expectancy now is in the high 70s. In Japan and Andorra, it is in the low
80s. But in several African countries, such as Malawi and Zambia, it is
around 37. Even with a major intensification of development and public
health activities internationally, it seems dangerously likely that the
longevity gap will grow rather than close in the years ahead. The picture
is bleak and it's getting more so all the time. In developed countries,
life expectancy is currently increasing by three months a year, while it
remains about the same in the poorest regions.
On the brighter side, one of the most obvious and interesting questions
about the longevity revolution -- one rarely asked -- is whether more old
age will also bring more psychological maturity. Is there any reason to
believe that people who grow older will also grow up -- become deeper,
wiser, more morally responsible, more capable of dealing with the
complexities of modern life?
One person who thinks so is Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan, a leading
scholar in the field of developmental psychology and author of "In
Over Our Heads," a study of how people develop progressively more
complex levels of consciousness -- including different value systems --
over the course of a lifetime. At the end of the book, he asks what might
happen if people are given an additional generation to live. He answers:
"My candidate: a qualitatively new order of consciousness."
Kegan didn't elaborate on that tantalizing suggestion, but it is quite
clear what he was suggesting -- that the longevity revolution might bring
a significant increase in the sum total of human wisdom, something the
world clearly needs. With luck, some of these older and wiser people may
even figure out what to do about the unfortunate millions who don't live
long enough to achieve their potential.
Anderson (waltt@well.com) is a political scientist and author of
"All Connected Now: Life in the First Global Civilization"
(Westview Press, 2001).
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© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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