I Hope This Column Ages Poorly

There are few epithets more smugly dismissive than the declaration that something — a novel, a TV show, a political movement, a prediction, an opinion — did not “age well.”

The criticism is a double condemnation; just being factually wrong is not enough. The thing in question, when held up to some contemporary standard, however construed, must not only be wrong — it must be so egregiously wrong as to constitute an embarrassment, even an ethical lapse. Implicit in the censure is the critic’s amazement that it was ever considered correct or acceptable at all.

Not all errors, however famous, merit this critique. When, for example, the Yale economist Irving Fisher asserted shortly before the market crash of 1929 that stocks had seemed to reach “a permanently high plateau,” he was wrong, for sure. But to say that the statement aged poorly would be pointless; it barely had a chance to age at all before its shortcomings became apparent.

In its typical use, the “aging poorly” gripe supplants yesterday’s wisdom with today’s — and is oblivious to the possibility that we may add something new to that wisdom tomorrow.

TV shows are a frequent target. In a hilarious and well-constructed bit, a comedian recently explained how Looney Tunes cartoons have “not aged well,” considering how frequently disability, racism, sexism and violence are played for laughs. Pepé Le Pew holds women against their will. Other characters scheme to murder one another. Speech impediments are mocked. And as for Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny: “This hunter wants to kill the bunny — except for when the bunny puts on women’s clothes! And now he does not want to kill the bunny, no. He is sexually attracted to the bunny!” The comedian decides that turning on “Bluey” and learning about empathy “is probably a better use of our Saturday morning.”

Writing in early 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, a Washington Post journalist looked back on once popular shows like “The West Wing” and found that, with the benefit of hindsight, some of the romantic relationships no longer appeared sweet or cute but rather inappropriate or, in a popular pejorative of the time, problematic. It was a thorough and persuasive case, and it ended with a perfect distillation of the aging poorly logic: “These days, almost everything made before 2018 feels as if it needs some kind of disclaimer.”

Except lots of stuff was made before 2018. To determine that almost all of it requires some sort of disavowal is to privilege the present over all other times, to assume that current standards necessarily improve upon those of the past, and to discount the reassessment that inevitably comes later. “The rest of ‘The West Wing,’ which ended its run in 2006, is still a really good show,” the writer said. “But our culture has undergone a seismic shift.”

True. But there will be many more seismic shifts; there already have been. Whatever is deemed to have aged poorly at one moment may appear healthier in another. Today’s disclaimers will then require their own disclaimers tomorrow — so how many do we want?

“The Catcher in the Rye,” J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel of teenage alienation, has ridden a carousel of conflicting opinions over the decades. After being hailed early on as a classic and becoming a staple of high school English classes, it was eventually scorned in middle age.

Contributors to a New York Times forum on the novel 15 years ago called it “horribly dated,” arguing that its protagonist, Holden Caulfield, was “a throwback, the troubled teen of another time,” and even asking, “Who needs him?” Shortly after the book’s 50th anniversary, The Washington Post said that the novel was “aging gracelessly,” with a critic calling it “mawkish” and “outright squishy” and confessing that he “damn near puked” upon reading it again.

But this month, on the novel’s 75th anniversary, the reassessments are more favorable. “Holden’s moral rigor is refreshing in a cultural moment marked by an unsettling mix of cynicism and heedlessness,” The Atlantic declared. Here, too, the novel is reconsidered through current — and possibly fleeting — cultural concerns. “‘Catcher’ at 75 offers something of a guide away from the manosphere and its bluster: a case against nihilism and a vision of a gentler sort of manhood, even if achieving it means living on the edge of a cultural cliff.”

So, did “Catcher in the Rye” deteriorate in middle age only to blossom in assisted living? Or is the aging construct just phony from the start? (Ever the contrarian, The New Republic hated the book at the beginning, and in a 2014 essay revisiting it, still did.)

Critics gonna criticize, of course, and I’m glad they are there to rethink, reaffirm or rebuke at will. (For my part, I laughed my head off at Looney Tunes, enjoyed “The West Wing” and remain ambivalent about “The Catcher in the Rye.”) But to point out that time — that most relentless revisionist — seems to have ravaged a work only ensures that your critique will never be the last word, just the latest one.

Strident pronouncements that something has not aged well are bound to age poorly themselves. Even Irving Fisher, the overly exuberant economist, went on to become one of the architects of modern financial markets, his work growing highly influential, for better or worse, long after his death. Time has a way of changing its mind, again and again.

Elements of our culture certainly grow outdated — as language, standards and styles evolve — but that is an inevitability, not a value judgment. (Cervantes may feel dated at times, but we would not say, I hope and pray, that his writings have aged poorly.) And things that do appear shabby, or even ugly, with time still have much to teach us. To dismiss them is to conclude that there is little to learn from the past, that even a work that captures an earlier era is no longer useful — merely because it does not reflect the verities of our own.

You may as well say that history ages poorly, too, or demand warning signs outside museums.

To think, or write, or film, or act, or speak, or in any way create while fearful of aging poorly would paralyze the artist and undermine the art. To never age poorly, you’d have to try to never age at all. (Just ask Dorian Gray, the original looksmaxxer, how that works out.) Or you’d have to pack an argument, idea or vision so full of caveats and just-in-cases that it becomes meaningless at any age.

I can only hope this column ages poorly. It would be in awfully good company.

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