Juvenescence : A Cultural History of Our Age

Robert Pogue Harrison is Rosina Pierotti Professor in ­Italian Literature at Stanford. His most recent book is Juvenescence: A Cultural History of Our Age.
 (October 2015)

juvenescence 

Pronunciation: /ˌdʒuːvəˈnɛs(ə)ns/ 

NOUN

[MASS NOUN] formal

The state or period of being young:figurative in the juvenescence of the year

More example sentences

• A silhouette portrait of Talbot as a boy of seven, drawn in 1807 by an unknown hand, opens this monumental book about the birth and juvenescence of a medium.
• I believe that the happiest individuals are those who have reclaimed their juvenescence, or the power to grow young.
• Gyllenhaal’s juvenescence is the magic that makes even Graysmith’s most mundane actions sparkle.

Derivatives

juvenescent

Pronunciation: /dʒuːvɪˈnɛs(ə)nt/  

ADJECTIVE

Example sentences

Origin

Early 19th century: from Latin juvenescent- 'reaching the age of youth', from the verbjuvenescere, from juvenis 'young'.

Younger Than That Now

A new book reflects on generation gaps and how they get that way. Scott McLemee takes a look.

December 10, 2014

By

Scott McLemee

...More to the point we are part of the changes, even when we are incapable of recognizing them. (Especially then, in fact.) It’s possible to get some perspective on things -- to challenge, or at least evaluate, what we’ve come to accept and expect from the world – through learning about the past, or formulating questions, or absorbing stories and other cultural expressions of other people.

Harrison coins the expression heterochronicity to point out the reality the present is never pure or self-contained. The people around us are being pushed and pulled by senses of the world (including memories and expectations) that can be profoundly different from our own, and from one another. Heterochronicity is the matrix of generational conflict, butJuvenescence explores it through readings of Antigone andKing Lear rather than the contrasts between boomers and millennials.

The book is somehow both digressive and closely reasoned, and arguably it owes as much to Giambattista Vico or Stephen Jay Gould as it does to Hannah Arendt. The words “cultural history” appearing in the subtitle are not especially helpful in conveying the quality of the book, which would more accurately be called a meditation -- or, better still, ananatomy. (But then that might be even more misleading in the era of Viagra and cosmetic surgery.) It’s odd and brilliant -- clearly the product of thought given time to ripen.

【新書預告】

《我們為何膜拜青春？》
Juvenescence: A Cultural History of Our Age

羅伯特．柏格．哈里森 Robert Pogue Harrison 著
梁永安 譯

這是一個對年輕癡迷的社會，
卻同時正對它自以為崇拜的年輕發起戰爭！

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我們這個社會，可能是人類文明史上「最年輕的」，同時也是最古老的。

從歷史觀點看人類的年紀——
為什麼個人與社會雖會繼續老去，卻又變得更年輕？

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你多大年紀？愈是考慮這個問題，它就愈難回答，因為人類有許多不同的老化方式：生物上、心理上、社會上的，此外還有一個文化年紀（culture age）。如果這樣考慮年齡，我們或許比想像中老很多。

但作者史丹佛大學教授羅伯特．柏格．哈里森（Robert Pogue Harrison）認為，在年紀變得更老的同時，人類的外觀、行為、心智、生活方式，以及最重要的「欲望」上，卻又變得驚人年輕。就此而言，我們可說是活在一個返老還童的時代。

你有沒有看過祖父母在青少年時代的相片？他們是不是看起來非常嚴肅，甚至看起來像大人？現在請你回想自己是他們這個年紀的時候，或者想想現在街上看到的大學生們，形象是不是差很多？祖父母當年的嚴肅、過早的成熟到哪裡了？

本書是一套關於「年紀」的哲學思考。透過生物學、演化學、地質學、歷史學心理學等多重濾鏡檢視人類文明的進程，為「你多大年紀？」這個簡單的問題，提供了年齡框架以外的思考取徑，也利用了文化以及歷史的研究去探討青春這個話題。

哈里森旁徵博引，出入於從各種文化和歷史，追溯人們對於青春以及老化的想法。他自科學借來「幼態持續」（neotony）的觀念（指將幼年生理特徵保持至成年），又把它擴大應用至文化領域，大力論證「青春」是文化的創新動力與天才火花所不可或缺。

另一方面，他又看出戰後席捲西方文化的「返老還童」現象，乃人類文明史前所未有。在歷史、文化方面，我們這個時代遠比過去任何一個時代都要成熟，但同時又愈來愈趨於年輕化，如此兩極化反差的劇烈變動可能會打亂歷史連續性，將人類未來帶入不確定的領域――一個與過去全然斷裂的不可知世界。

今日大大延長的「青春」具有危險性。癡迷於年輕的社會，事實上卻正在對其自以為崇拜的年輕發起戰爭。社會的集體幼兒化（infantilize）欲望破壞了跨世代連續性（intergenerational continuity），也粉碎了世界的相對穩定性，需要「長者」和「機構制度」所體現的智慧加以彌補。哈里森寫道：「『天才』專注於創造屬於未來的新事物，『智慧』專注於繼承過去的遺產，在把它們傳遞下去的過程中予以更新。」

如果，你時常考慮社會為何對青春如此著迷，這是一本你必讀的書。