Grow or get old? Stay forever young or plunge into old age as new freedom? Here are the questions that we will ask ourselves more and more often, are the philosophers Eric Deshavann and Pierre-Henri Tavoo believe. Their thoughts and analysis are in a conversation about different eras of our lives.

According to Eric Deshavann and Pierre-Henri Tavoo, how we comprehend our relationship with time, two scenarios prevail today.

The first, optimistic, speaks of the “disappearance of age”, about the most important thing – to everyone to remain himself, no matter how many years it ran on his “counter”. The second, more pessimistic approach declares the “Generations War”, in which the old and young are called to fight against each other, just as this happens in a caste society.

But philosophers believe that the truth is beyond these two scenarios and is to rethink the very idea of ​​adulthood, starting to consider maturity not as a final state, but as a process.

In the face of such a confusion of opinions and concepts, philosophers offer each person – as well as political institutions – to look at the problem of different periods of life otherwise. Review childhood, not to succumb to the dictate of “eternal youth”, to accept maturity and, finally, continue to live with interest in old age – these are the space of freedom that they invite us to explore. Naturally, everything is in order.

In a new way to determine childhood

Psychologies: Why is it necessary to revise the ideas about the first era in life?

Pierre-Henri Tavoo: Consider this frequent phenomenon: parents want their child to develop ahead of, as they say, “not by years”, but with difficulty putting up with the fact that he is growing up and moving away. We seem to want the development of the child to be as early as possible, and growing up – as later as possible.

Modern education constantly fluctuates between two poles: on the one hand, they look at the child as a special creature in a special world – in the world of innocence, imagination, game. On the other hand, from the very beginning he is perceived as an adult, which has a critical mind and complete independence. In both cases, he, in fact, does not need to grow: he is either an eternal child or an adult.

How do you define childhood?

Eric Deshavann: We are starting from the following question: “What can be considered the opposite of the child?"And they came to the conclusion that the antipost of a child is not an adult and not young, but one who does not want to grow, for example, Peter Pen. And the child just wants to grow in the world. It is necessary not to protect the child himself, but this is his desire to grow.

Meanwhile, all modern legislation prevents him from gaining responsibility. In the same, the whole problem of the child who really wanted … But are the parents of the “desired baby” that they also passionately wanted a teenager or adult? Therefore, the question of how and why to grow up is again acutely rises in adolescence.

The philosophy of childhood

Jean-Jacques Russo (1712-1778) is considered the "inventor of childhood" as a separate full-fledged pore of life. The child is a “creature acting and thinking”, which needs to allocate a special place and which has the right to weakness. Russo distinguishes three phases. The first is purely sensual when the child lives, but does not realize the report in this. The second occurs with the advent of speech, which speaks of openness to the "other" and, therefore, about self -awareness. Finally, the third phase corresponds to the exit from the age of weakness and approximation to adolescence.

About this: “Emil, or on education” (1762), in the collection “Works”, amber tale, 2001.

Disagree with the dictate of "eternal youth"

You describe the cult of youth that has gripped society. Where is this rampant hobby?

P.-A. T.: Youth for https://farmakeioellinika24.com/viagra-generic-online-asfaleia/ the modern world is the age-symbol erected to the pedestal. This is the age of freedom, open opportunities, when a person has not yet been ossified in any one role, when it seems that all the doors are open. This is how today’s humanism describes a person: he is capable of self-improvement, not limited by one state.

For us, freedom is an opportunity to consciously act within our final existence, and therefore youth today is an embodied ideal. The main thing for most contemporaries is the idea that it is the young people will change and how they will transform the world.

Probably because youth is perceived as something pure, unspoiled.

E. D.: Yes. And in comparison with the ideal freedom of youth, entry into adult life can be experienced as a deprivation of it, disappointment. An adult causes antipathy: after all, he parted with freedom, closing in his professional and family role. Through an adult, the image of the inherent existence of social norms in captivity is supported, which prevent a person from being himself. All these are unpleasant consequences of the cult of youth.

In addition, it is already obvious to young people that becoming an adult is not so easy. Their adolescence lasts endlessly, and the point here is not so much in their desire to always remain young as that it is difficult to match the image of an adult, it requires considerable effort.

Adult life today begins later and is accompanied by greater uncertainty (due to the instability of a family that threatens unemployment. ), but our desire for self -realization and ambitions goes off scale. And all these contradictions cause us constant anxiety.

Today, everyone, regardless of age, may feel that he is still far from maturity: “I do not have enough culture, character, I have to do so much”, etc.D. The crisis is not that no one wants to grow up, but that it is difficult to become adults.

The philosophy of youth

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) appreciates the “age of opportunities” and describes the maturity of the adult as a little death. Youth is the age when we destroy the conventions inherited from childhood. Sartre openly calls the young to the rebellion: "Do not blush because you want to get the moon, we need it".

About this: AND.-P. Sartre "Genesis and Nothing" (1943), Terra, 2002.

Accept your maturity

Family, work, financial independence – does this no longer mean being an adult?

P.-A. T.: The novelty today is that you can enter adulthood without becoming an adult. Previously, the father of the family, soldier, citizen was considered adults. These meanings have disappeared, erased. The maturity is now seen not as a accomplishment, but as a constant development. This is a horizon. And the nature of the horizon is such that it is impossible to reach it ..

You mention Zinedine Zidane, who at the age of 35 reached the ideal of the maturity that has outlined himself, being a teenager ..

P.-A. T.: When Zidane left the sport, another great football player Michelle Platini said: “He has to notice that, having stopped playing, you begin to grow up”. It turns out that athletes are unlikely teenagers who immediately become young pensioners. They jump through an adult age. Maybe that’s why they admire them.

Freud said that a person becomes an adult when he learns to love and work, and I would add: when he learns to do both at the same time. This is difficult, because an adult is most often "one who does not have time".

But our era does not refuse the ideal of maturity. Just his criteria became very individual. Ask friends: when they became adults? Each line will have its own: the first child, the first salary. There are no more generally accepted rituals, but there is a stage that becomes part of a personal fate.

And yet there is an ideal of maturity?

E. D.: Firstly, this is an experience that helps to cope with what you have not encountered before. Secondly, responsibility, when you are responsible not only for your actions, but also for others that you give, without expecting anything in return. This is a form of parenthood, even if you have no children … and, finally, the identity of yourself.

We need a synthesis of these three dimensions: experience as attitude to the world, responsibility as attitude to others and authenticity as a relationship to oneself. The purpose of man is a kind of higher consent, reconciliation with himself, with others and with the world. This very difficult task, the solution of which was once the lot of the sages, now becomes our common lot.

The philosophy of maturity

According to George Hegel (1770-1831), a person reached the time of maturity when he abandoned his dreams and decided to accept reality. Taking reality means taking a step towards wisdom and fulfill the necessary condition in order to be happy. Entrance to adult age is thereby correlating with the moment of reconciliation with the world. This reconciliation occurs through painful mourning by what Hegel calls the "moral idea of ​​the world".

About this: G.IN.F. Hegel "Phenomenology of the Spirit" (1807), Science, 2006.

Live in an old age

You say, in life there is a moment when there is a feeling of a kind of stability. At this moment, old age begins?

P.-A. T.: The beginning of old age is not the end of "ripening", this is the time when maturity becomes deeper and wider. You can often hear that in our world with its cult of "effectiveness" it has become pointless. This is wrong. Look at the famous athletes who admire the whole world: football player Zinedine Zidan, boxer Mohammed Ali … They are pensioners!

People who live “the rest of life” and do not compete with anyone … This status is very important in our consumption society, this is a condition for preserving social ties and confidence. In our opinion, one of the successful models of this age is a model of traditional societies, where, old, a person becomes great as he is approaching the understanding of the meaning of the past.

Psychoanalyst Jean-Bertran Pontalis claims that mental health is the ability to return to himself, a nore, a teenage, self-adolescence.

E. D.: This is close to the position of Victor Hugo: “One of the privileges of old age is to have, in addition to your age, all the others.”. The retirement age paradoxically becomes the age of possibilities: you can travel, return to a student bench, live another life. But she also has a limit. Then the “second” old age comes, with its arrival everything slows down, the horizon is narrowing.

Having lost autonomy and the opportunity to develop, a person risks losing himself. For others, this is an extra reason not to cease to see a person in it. We all hope to die “on the run”, but our duty is to be prepared for the impossibility of an independent life, both our loved ones.

Old age is not a disease, and you should not think that it is enough for her to care and treatment. The old person needs to be accompanied – this is a complex, important task of society. Today, age is not a social role, but often an existential crisis. And each such crisis needs to help a person to comprehend and survive in a new way.

The philosophy of old age

According to Michelle Monten (1533-1592), old age is the time of leisure, entertainment, the disappearance of the cargo of worries and duties. The old man whose future is compressed, knows the price of every moment. In old age, “we experience our human destiny as something integral, and not only one of it, cut its part”. At this age, you can "legally enjoy the fact that you live".

About this: M. Montaen "Experiments" (1595), Eksmo, 2007.

About experts

Pierre-Henri Tavooo and Eric Deshavann – Teachers of the University of the Sorbonne, where they conduct classes at the college of philosophy together. They are the authors of the book "Philosophie des Ages de la vie", Grasset, 2007).