Age, wisdom and youth: let's talk about ageism

Hello everyone! You know, one thing that I like about blogging is the way I have very interesting conversations with my readers and sometimes through these long conversations, I stumble upon topics which I find are very interesting. Today's topic is the lack of correlation between age and wisdom.  To put it another way, we're talking about ageism, more specifically, discriminating against young people on the presumption that they are childish, immature and lack the wisdom of older folks. Is that fair? I don't think so. The comment from my reader Yoda which triggered this was, imagine yourself in their shoes going "Wah, this kid study a bit thinks he knows it all". Now imagine yourself talking to a 23 year old fresh out of university telling you what to do and his great ideas - honestly ask yourself, would your initial reaction be the same, and would you disengage from the conversation and rely on your defense mechanism?"

Are young graduates capable of great ideas?

So let's deal with that since I found that I had a lot to say about the issue. Firstly, I do acknowledge and recognize that there is that kind of ageism prevalent, particularly in Asian societies where one is expected to show respect to one's elders. I simply do not believe that age per se brings you wisdom - there are plenty of examples of young people who have achieved great things even before they are teenagers and there are even more examples of the opposite: old people who find themselves at the bottom of the food chain at the age of 55, being unable to offer little more than menial skills to do the most mundane, physical work that no one else wants to do. Barack Obama is 55 years old: would a 55 year old housewife who has never held a job in her life have as much wisdom to offer as Obama? Clearly not. Pardon me for stating the obvious: we're all individuals and you simply cannot lump all 'older people' into a monolithic entity. I don't believe that all old people are equal, so they don't deserve the same amount of respect.

But by the same token, not all young people are the same - so you can't stuff all young people into the same category either. There are plenty of examples of young people who have achieved great things before they have even turned 18. A large part of my life has been dominated by my love of gymnastics - I competed for many years in a sport that was for very young people. Romanian superstar Nadia Comaneci won the 1976 Montreal Olympics at that age 14, Gymnast Gabby Douglas of America was not much older at 16 when she dominated the 2012 London Olympics. To become Olympic champion in their mid-teens, these gymnasts had to train, perform and compete like adults from an extremely young age - whilst their peers were playing with dolls, they were already competing like champions. Here's a video clip of another great American Olympic gold medalist Shannon Miller competing as a young 11 year old kid:

Likewise, my involvement in the world of media and music has opened my eyes to plenty of child stars who have become household names before they were even old enough to fully grasp the enormity of their fame. Macaulay Culkin (best known as the kid from Home Alone) started acting from the age of just four and was already a well-established child actor way before he was even considered for the role of Kevin in Home Alone (which he did at the age of ten). Miley Cyrus was already pumping out hits as Hannah Montana from the age of 14 and by the time she was 18, she had two albums that had topped the US charts already. And as annoying as it is, I cannot ignore Justin Bieber who rose to fame at the age of 15 and by the age of 16, his first album had already reached number one not just in the US but in many countries around the world. Yes Bieber is so annoying but he's also massively successful.

Now what do people like Gabby Douglas, Macaulay Culkin, Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montanna have in common? Well, they found huge fame and success by their mid-teens but more importantly, they did so without completing their formal education. Now I am going to tell you a story that I'm sure you'll be able to relate to: years ago, I think it was when I was 9 or 10 years old, my parents were renovating the kitchen and were trying to decide between two sets of tiles for the walls. I looked at the two sets of tiles and said, "that one is awful but this one is really nice". My mother simply laughed off my contribution and said, "when you are working, earning money and you can pay for the renovation, then you get to choose the tiles, okay?" Clearly, as a child, my opinion was not valid because I was not able to contribute to the cost of the new tiles in the kitchen and thus my opinion about the tiles was ignored.

Oh think of the poor Singaporean man: by that token, he is treated like a child for so long because he has to complete his formal education before he can earn a living. When you throw his NS obligations into the equation, that means he usually retains this 'child' status way into his mid-20s. I suppose that is why my reader suggested that I may treat the words of a naive fresh graduate with some cynicism because well, the fresh graduate has yet to taste the harsh reality of the working world right? Well, it depends. You see, if a graduate has only studied and has reached the end of his formal education without even having had a single day's work experience, yeah then something has gone terribly wrong and even if that graduate has great academic results, he will really struggle with the transition from student life to working life. But if the graduate has had a rather wide range of interests and experiences, having proven himself in various fields beyond the academics, then why should his ideas be dismissed on the basis of his age per se?

I do feel quite strongly about this: by all means, if the young graduate has said something stupid, then attack, criticize, even mock the person for having said something stupid. But wait for the person to say his piece before passing judgement, do not write anyone off before you have actually listened carefully to what they have to say. I recently wrote a piece on how I was quite frustrated with some Singaporeans who hated my blog because I am an ex-Singaporean who lives in London writing about issues affecting Singaporean society. I say, disagree with what I have written by all means, criticize me if you think I had misrepresented something in your country - but to attack me on the basis of my nationality or the fact that I live in London? That is not reasonable. Well I am a reasonable person - as a gatekeeper, I am prepared to give the young graduate the chance to prove to me that they have great ideas. I'll never deny them that opportunity on the basis of their age because who knows? Perhaps this young graduate has already done something amazing in his/her teenager years. Let's hear what he has to say before jumping to any conclusions.

Are you jumping to the wrong conclusion for an arbitrary reason?

But what about this 'defence mechanism' that my reader raised? I think it is very much an East Asian thing whereby older people expect to be offered respect unconditionally by those who are younger than them regardless of the circumstances, if that doesn't happen, then the older person will 'lose face' and the younger person is deemed disrespectful or rude. Now I can see where this mindset has come from - several centuries ago, when people died from common illnesses like the flu or chicken pox, you had to be very wise in order to stay alive and avoid death, to live to a ripe old age. If you fell and had a bad cut today, you go to the nearest A&E and get stitches, no big deal but back in those days, you risk death by tetanus or gangrene. If you want pork chops today, you just go to the nearest supermarket but several centuries ago, you had to go hunting for wild boar in the forest. So if someone has successfully outwitted death by staying alive into their 60s a few centuries ago, they are probably wiser than the ones they have managed to outlive. But in this modern day and age, you don't need to be a very wise sage to stay alive and avoid death, even pretty stupid people manage to stay alive these days - yet this mindset about respecting our elders hasn't gone away. Go figure - how do these stupid people stay alive despite their best effort to harm themselves?

In Asian society, you're supposed to show respect to your elders and give them 'face'. I think this is an especially toxic feature of East Asian society. I'm going to give you two examples from Korea: the first is a terrible accident which affected one of my favourite Youtube vloggers Simon & Martina. They were walking home one evening with their friends when a drunk driver crashed into one of their friends, nearly killing her. That drunk driver was an older man who was with younger colleagues at the time who felt that it was very unsafe for him to drive home when he was drunk, but they felt too afraid to criticize their elder or tell him what to do. They could have so easily avoided that terrible accident by simply saying, "Hyungnim, please allow me to call you a taxi, you shouldn't drive now, you've had a lot to drink tonight." But no, Korean culture doesn't allow them to criticize even a terrible decision by an older person like that and the consequences were tragic. Simon recounts the very tragic event in the video below, please watch it.

The other case where this kind of unconditional respect for elders led to mass fatalities was in 1997 - when Korean Air flight 801 crashed in Guam, resulting in 228 deaths (of a total of 254 passengers). The details are here on Wikipedia, but I'll jump to a theory that the air crash investigators have come up with - it boiled down to pilot error. The captain made a series of mistakes which led to the crash, but that is what co-pilots are for: to double check just in case the captain makes an error. But in the case of a Korean work environment, younger Koreans find it hard to criticize or disagree with their older colleagues because they are Hyungs (an elder male) and so it was deduced that even if the co-pilot at the time did suspect that the captain had made a grave error of judgement, he was culturally reluctant to say, "Hyunghim, may I say something please, something is wrong, this doesn't look right." The flight investigators found it hard to believe that the co-pilot didn't spot the error the captain had made, but such is Korean culture for you. You don't question or criticize your elders even if they are making a fatal error - which in my opinion, is pretty darn stupid. Would you rather be offended or dead? Duh. 228 people died as a result of this, let that sink in for a moment.

Okay, I had used two quite extreme examples to show my disdain for this concept of unconditional respect for one's elders. But my point is simple: nobody should be beyond reproach and by the same token, nobody should be dismissed on some arbitrary reason like their age. Even though I am 40 and tend not to experience ageism because I am older now, I experience a different kind of discrimination at work. In the world of banking, you could get a job with one of the big banks or you could work for a small to medium sized company - I happen to work for the latter. We are fixed income specialists and very good at what we do, but as the sales and marketing guy in the company, I do have a hard time flogging our products because many investors prefer to go with a big name that is instantly recognizable, even if our products offer much higher rates of return and are in no way inferior. We build our fixed income products in the very same way our bigger competitors do, it's just that we don't have the kind of brand identity that they have.

You'll be amazed how irrational some investors are.

Oh it's got nothing to do with, "oh my money will be safer if I invest with a bigger brand name." Remember how Lehman Brothers collapsed overnight back in 2008? They were a big name then. Let me bring this down to earth for those of you less familiar with the banking industry. Imagine if you wanted to buy a pair of trainers, so you go to the sports shop and you look at the wide array of trainers on sale there. If you wanted a pair with a famous brand name like Nike, Adidas, Reebok, New Balance or Puma, then you'll pay more. But look at the label in the shoe or on the box, your trainers are probably made somewhere like China or Vietnam. If you were to buy a same pair of trainers say with a Chinese brand but of similar design, you would pay a lot less. Yet so many people would gladly discriminate against the no-name brand of shoes and pay the extra to have a pair of Nike trainers just out of some misguided notion that they're getting a superior product, when really, they're paying for Nike's expensive worldwide marketing campaign. 

Let's run with another example of why consumers are so irrational and discriminate against no-name brands. The soft drinks industry is dominated by a few big brands: Coke, Pepsi, Fanta, Sprite, Mountain Dew, Dr Pepper - those are all produced by Coke or Pepsi with exception of Dr Pepper. I am very fond of the British brand Rubicon, they do more interesting soft drinks like mango, lychee and guava flavoured soft drinks. But it is nearly impossible to try to get Rubicon at a bar or in a restaurant because they would only stock the soft drinks from the major brands - why? It is a case of supply and demand: most consumers will only drink the major brands so the restaurant or bar has little incentive to stock a brand like Rubicon when few people would order it. And people like Coke know this: in my local supermarket, they stock Coke and Pepsi drinks alongside their own home-brand cola drinks. Quite honestly, I can't taste the difference but Coke and Pepsi drinks cost approximately three times more (£0.60 vs £1.70 - £2.00 for a 2 liter bottle). It's just sugar (or artificial sweeteners), flavouring and carbonated water at the end of the day - you'r not paying three times more for the flavour, but you're buying into a lifestyle image, you're paying for their fancy advertising campaigns that builds that strong brand identity. How much did they pay Taylor Swift for this 'kitten' ad?

So yeah, I can definitely empathize with victims of ageism: I get really frustrated when investors choose to go with a famous brand name fixed income product for no better reason than a misguided notion that a famous brand name is always better, like the shopper who pays three times more to buy diet coke instead of a home-brand equivalent diet cola drink, you're simply not getting a better deal at all. If consumers and investors were totally rational, then no I wouldn't have a job as a sales, marketing and distribution consultant and shoppers wouldn't be paying three times more for a bottle of diet coke at my local supermarket.  I think you should say no to Rubicon drinks if you think they taste awful, but don't say no to them just because you haven't heard of them. That being said, I know exactly what it feels like to be discriminated against for some arbitrary reason like one's age; by all means say no to my fixed income products if you think they are bad, but don't say no to them just because you have are not familiar with the company.

So yes, with all that in mind, I would not make any assumptions on a 23 year old graduate with great ideas for the very same reason I wouldn't automatically offer unconditional respect to someone who is older than me. Like any other kind of bigotry or discrimination, ageism is dumb and we should all judge everyone as an individual regardless of their background. Let me know what you think about this topic, leave a comment below please. Many thanks for reading.