VERY interesting, and I think of myself, a 56-year-old history professor. My father died at 86, still totally with it and living independently. But when he was 84, he commented that his father had died at that age. When I turned 56, I thought, wait a minute, I'm 2/3 done. What do I want to do with the rest of my time? Thanks to some of the vagaries of my job, not necessary what I really want to do, but I still have opportunities.
As for the court, a couple of points. One is that the life appointment began in 1789, when lives were much shorter. Another is that Mr. Madison did not view the judiciary as co-equal, according to Jack Rakove, and no living historian knows more about Madison. Part of the issue is not lifetime appointments, but rather that those appointees have more power than they should or than the framers intended. But until and unless there is a change, Democrats had better realize the importance of the judiciary. It obviously didn't matter to anyone to the left who didn't vote for Al Gore or Hillary Clinton, or for that matter a Democratic Senate candidate.
Jim, love your thoughts today. They resonate. Especially about the Ezekiel Emanuel article. Sam and I are always disagreeing about that one! I take your position, which is keep going, doing what you love, and try to make a difference.
Thank you for the wonderful article and personal stories! Your father sounds like a special, amazing person. About western ideas of aging: I think you inspired a lot of interior soul-searching with the insights on aging. Remember the slogan from my generation, "never trust anyone over 30." That perspective changes a little through time!
Age brings a kind of patience, a kind of perspective, that makes older people great teachers. It is said that baby boomers are remaking every age that we pass through. We can see the volunteerism, energy, and love of life that my generation exhibits, as we experience the Wheel of Time.
Getting older is not at all a negative, we feel instead the rightness of how the Wheel of Time, the natural progression of life, informs the human experience.
By the way, the average life expectancy in ancient Egypt was 25. Perspective about how we look at aging is important.
here is something to ponder, about life experiences through time:
“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.”
Holmes was actually left for dead, having been shot through the neck, during Antietam, one of the most intense battles of the Civil War. The medics eventually found him and brought him back to the hospital where even he expected to die. He managed to scrawl out a note bearing his name and address in the event his body needed to be identified and shipped home.
It would be nice if, along with term limits, norms were set in stone as to when a president could appoint a justice and when appointments would have to wait for the subsequent president to take office.
I recall reading somewhere that the lifetime appointment idea began in an era when the average lifespan was significantly shorter than it is today. Whether that was a factor or not is immaterial, however - Fallows is spot on about the reasons we need to abolish the lifetime tenure on the Court.
And not just the Court - we need term limits in Congress as well. A long time ago I read that term limits on elected members of Congress would shift the power in D.C. toward unelected bureaucrats. I certainly understand the rationale behind this notion, but I don't think that this is an unsurmountable problem. As with lifetime Court appointments, a bit of creative thinking and most important, a public service motivation, would help to bring about workable solutions. There are some extremely bright people of all ages who can work together to create these new policies.
I'm a recently retired teacher who was invited last summer by a former administrator to help him with a new school he was assuming control of. I'm not sorry I made the choice to leave my retirement home for a year and return to the classroom, and I'm doing the best work I think I've ever done. But I do think that there are any number of younger folks who could do at least as good a job. So while the work is fulfilling for me, I can't help wondering if it's the best thing for the kids. At any rate, I've "term-limited" myself out of this job next June anyway.
One last point: I taught overseas for the last 6 years before my retirement, and one fact stood out: certain countries would not allow older teachers in the classroom. For Turkey, the cutoff is 65 years old. Most international schools in China (and several other SE Asian nations) won't even interview anyone over 60 - or near 60, since most contracts are for 2 - 3 years. So it seems this business of working until we die is unique to the US, or at least to Western democracies. In most other parts of the world, public policy explicitly demands retirement at a certain age.
The one caveat/clarification I'd add is to your final point, "public policy explicitly demands retirement at a certain age." I think that has one implication if "retirement" is understood as "withdrawal from active work or life engagement." That's an implication from 1950s-style "Now I can kick back and play horseshoes" imagery.
If it is read as: "You can't hold this specific job in perpetuity. You have to give someone else a chance," then I agree that it makes sense.
One correction to Mr. Williams comment: Speaker Pelosi only announced her intention to run for re-election as a member of Congress. Given that she promised her fellow Democrats that she wouldn't speak another term as Speaker, it may be harder for her go back on that.
I'd like to present the selfish view of why these older officeholders should consider retirement early rather than trying to last forever in office--to preserve elements of their ideas. and approaches beyond their lifetime
In the case of Supreme Court Justices, if they retire while a 'friendly President and Senate' are in office, they end up with the ability to influence the choice of their successor. For example, Justice Kennedy was able to steer consideration to Kavanaugh, his former law clerk. In the Senate, Senator Feinstein, while generally liberal, has some views that conflict with the general attitudes of California voters. As far as I can see, she is not allied with nor helping any potential successor. So, when she leaves office, her views and approach to legislation will die. If she truly believes that legacy not die with her, she should be promoting a mentee, and leave office when the mentee can stand on their own.
A terrific and timely piece, Jim. I’d add only that the pace of change — far greater than it used to be — is another argument to abolish lifetime tenure (unless, of course, you’re a strict originalist). Please do, at some point, turn your attention to the rotten boroughs of universities with life tenure for faculty members. It is the principal cause for the cost of post-secondary education rising even faster than the cost of healthcare (think septuagenarian faculty members taking up paid spots and not teaching much), probably discourages lots of qualified young people from a teaching career, and arguably promotes intellectual rot in the places where we should least tolerate it. Moreover, in many states, including mine, the problem is magnified by tenure in public school systems and a labor agreement in public higher education that effectively lodges the management of our universities in the hands of the faculties — foxes guarding henhouses.
Universities certainly face a number of issues. The lack of openings for young academics is a pressing problem.
I would respectfully suggest that the greatest factors driving the skyrocketing cost of tuition are threefold.
First is the widespread disinvestment in public universities by state legislatures who have decided that higher ed should be a self-sustaining business, rather than a public good which will provide returns to the state in the form of better-educated, higher earning residents. This has caused schools to raise prices and make many decisions that are more about mercenary, rather than academic, considerations. We can see this in a variety of policies, from the focus on research that leads to patents, to the trimming away of important but unprofitable programs (especially in the Humanities), and the large-scale use of adjunct "temps" to teach undergraduate classes.
Second is the huge administrative bloat over the past few decades, where schools have greatly enlarged the number of highly-paid, non-teaching staff members who mostly seem to be involved in begging rich people to make donations, a process often called "development" or "advancement." As teaching positions, programs, and whole academic departments are cut in the name of "efficiency," these admin jobs continue to multiply.
Finally, there has been the widely-discussed "arms race" of amenities, designed to attract the elusive rich and foreign students who will actually pay the full sticker price for their education. After all, many worthy students qualify for financial aid, and in-state students all pay a lower rate. So attracting these "deep pockets" students is key to bringing in the cash.
I agree with you that it would make sense for tenured faculty to have a retirement age. But it seems like there are more tenured professors dying and retiring than there are tenure-track openings being offered. The concept that a student will be working with experts in his or her field is being lost in a rush to offer goodies to high-price customers while providing an ever less personal and cheaper service to the masses.
To add to Andrew's comments: I think the first factor is well placed in the order--it is by far the most important. State legislatures have been cutting university funding since the 80s. The increasing tuition and student debt loads that result are discouraging enrollment. Regional public universities (e.g., CUNY, the Cal. States, public HSBUs), which drive the lion's share of student (and arguably US) economic and social mobility, have been especially hard hit. Their traditional missions of service to lower- and middle-income students are in peril, as well as the economic and cultural benefits they bring to their communities. Even if the state legislators doing the cutting weren't interested in the schools' missions, you have to wonder at their behavior, which runs so contrary to community business interests and, to boot, and threatens a major tax revenue source.
Thanks Jim, I liked this article. What a shame the Ruth Bader Ginsburg "bet on mortality" gesture wound up the way it did. At least in the case of the NFL (Tom Brady? Aaron Rodgers?) there is an open terrain for youngsters and oldsters. The academic world is certainly closed, as you point out. In the business world I find there is often (especially nowadays) a preference for middle-aged managers rather than older types who have seen more business cycles. Board directorships tend to have an age limitation. But as you point out, the worst case is the US Supreme Court.
Tom, thanks. Yes, the positive side of the merciless winner-or-loser nature of sports is that people simply cannot coast or hang on very long. There's always someone younger and faster and better.
As a structural matter, academia is probably the most acute case. (This is the theme of half the novels set in academia, and the show last year 'The Chair.') And, as with a gerontocracy in politics, it has extra effects because there is a limited number of hotly-competed-over places. But, again, you understand the reasons academic tenure emerged in the first place. And the balance between protection (for the tenured) and opportunity (for the others) can eventually be adjusted, with Acts of Congress or big national-politics fight.
In the business world (and all other worlds, including culture and entertainment), there's a constant push for the fresh and the new. But at least there is some space for people inventing new roles for themselves, even in later years. Or that is what we all hope.
Other examples: Nancy Pelosi, age 81, just announced her intention to run for Speaker again. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is 87 and apparently intends to run again in 2024. Questions of diminished capacity aside--Pelosi, at least, seems mentally vigorous--these senior members of Congress occupy seats that could be available to a new generation. And they hold up the promotion of their younger colleagues to leadership positions. Younger members leave Congress for many reasons, but frustration from limited opportunities to advance to positions of greater influence must be among the deciding factors. There are no constitutional age limits for members of Congress, but your points above about the broad sense of duty apply.
Bruce, thanks. Yes, you point out a particular stranglehold on the political opportunity-pipeline in California. As you're aware, it's complicated there, in that two of the state's most veteran figures — Nancy Pelosi, and Jerry Brown — arguably have become better at their jobs the longer they did them. Brown was clearly a more successful governor in his 70s and 80s than he had been the first time around , in his 30s and 40s. But it was probably good that even he hit a term limit, after a total of four terms! And the case of Dianne Feinstein is obviously cautionary. She did no one a favor by ever her previous decision to run.
The US Senate as a whole is super-saturated with people who have political machinery at their back (eg Sen Grassley) and can stay in as long as they choose, but who aren't helping their state or the country by doing so.
I don't have an answer but agree with you that this is a problem — an institution (Congress) that in theory is protected from the sclerotic effects of long-term tenure, but in practice is bogged down and clogged up.
I agree with you about Feinstein, but not about Pelosi. (see my other post below.) Youth for youth's sake can be overrated. I also think the situation on Capitol Hill is far different from the Supreme Court. I don't have the numbers, but I'm sure there are young people breaking into Congress and even the Senate all the time (in fact, see: Ocasio-Cortez who beat a much older Democrat in the primary, Hawley elected at 41 (ugh), Moulton (elected in his 30s), Ossoff (34) and Ayanna Pressley (also beat a considerably older Dem in the primary).
In Massachusetts during the most recent congressional election, a grandson of RFK, Joseph Kennedy III, challenged our Senator Markey. Markey, now 75, has decades of valuable experience, especially on climate change, and still seems to be quite up to the job. Kennedy 41, was unimpressive in the debates, and unimpressive generally.
I'm definitely not against youth. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who until Cawthorn came along was the youngest person in Congress, is impressive. So is Ossoff.
Good points on the California, NY, and MA variants on this principle. Elected politics may at the moment be bi-modal: Some very "senior" people, in some cases for good reasons (Markey, Jerry Brown) and some cases not. And then some very fresh faces — as different in their potential and principle as Ossoff and Cawthorn (or Gaetz).
Pelosi has absorbed a lot of wisdom over the years. I'm fine with her running for Speaker again. She was challenged a handful of years ago by one of the Mass delegation, Seth Moulton. I can't imagine that he could have done anywhere near as good a job as she has done, and I have a lot of admiration for her, even though I differ with her on an issue that I feel very strongly about, but in opposition to the Democratic leadership--immigration--because too much of it is keeping the working class down, and because the US is one of the worst places in the world to put more people, because we have the greatest per capita
greenhouse emissions and resource use among the major industrialized nations.
As noted above, I think Pelosi has been formidable in her job.
The particular issue where I disagree with her is stock trading by members of Congress. I think it's an obvious scandal that should be outlawed. But that's a different topic.
VERY interesting, and I think of myself, a 56-year-old history professor. My father died at 86, still totally with it and living independently. But when he was 84, he commented that his father had died at that age. When I turned 56, I thought, wait a minute, I'm 2/3 done. What do I want to do with the rest of my time? Thanks to some of the vagaries of my job, not necessary what I really want to do, but I still have opportunities.
As for the court, a couple of points. One is that the life appointment began in 1789, when lives were much shorter. Another is that Mr. Madison did not view the judiciary as co-equal, according to Jack Rakove, and no living historian knows more about Madison. Part of the issue is not lifetime appointments, but rather that those appointees have more power than they should or than the framers intended. But until and unless there is a change, Democrats had better realize the importance of the judiciary. It obviously didn't matter to anyone to the left who didn't vote for Al Gore or Hillary Clinton, or for that matter a Democratic Senate candidate.
Jim, love your thoughts today. They resonate. Especially about the Ezekiel Emanuel article. Sam and I are always disagreeing about that one! I take your position, which is keep going, doing what you love, and try to make a difference.
Thank you Debbie! I appreciate what you and Sam have done on these themes (and others).
Thank you for the wonderful article and personal stories! Your father sounds like a special, amazing person. About western ideas of aging: I think you inspired a lot of interior soul-searching with the insights on aging. Remember the slogan from my generation, "never trust anyone over 30." That perspective changes a little through time!
Age brings a kind of patience, a kind of perspective, that makes older people great teachers. It is said that baby boomers are remaking every age that we pass through. We can see the volunteerism, energy, and love of life that my generation exhibits, as we experience the Wheel of Time.
Getting older is not at all a negative, we feel instead the rightness of how the Wheel of Time, the natural progression of life, informs the human experience.
By the way, the average life expectancy in ancient Egypt was 25. Perspective about how we look at aging is important.
here is something to ponder, about life experiences through time:
“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.”
― Dalai Lama XIV
Thank you once again.
Thank you, Mr. Fallows, for another spot-on article at exactly the right moment. I am so glad for this blog.
Thank you! I appreciate your attention and support.
Holmes was actually left for dead, having been shot through the neck, during Antietam, one of the most intense battles of the Civil War. The medics eventually found him and brought him back to the hospital where even he expected to die. He managed to scrawl out a note bearing his name and address in the event his body needed to be identified and shipped home.
It would be nice if, along with term limits, norms were set in stone as to when a president could appoint a justice and when appointments would have to wait for the subsequent president to take office.
I recall reading somewhere that the lifetime appointment idea began in an era when the average lifespan was significantly shorter than it is today. Whether that was a factor or not is immaterial, however - Fallows is spot on about the reasons we need to abolish the lifetime tenure on the Court.
And not just the Court - we need term limits in Congress as well. A long time ago I read that term limits on elected members of Congress would shift the power in D.C. toward unelected bureaucrats. I certainly understand the rationale behind this notion, but I don't think that this is an unsurmountable problem. As with lifetime Court appointments, a bit of creative thinking and most important, a public service motivation, would help to bring about workable solutions. There are some extremely bright people of all ages who can work together to create these new policies.
I'm a recently retired teacher who was invited last summer by a former administrator to help him with a new school he was assuming control of. I'm not sorry I made the choice to leave my retirement home for a year and return to the classroom, and I'm doing the best work I think I've ever done. But I do think that there are any number of younger folks who could do at least as good a job. So while the work is fulfilling for me, I can't help wondering if it's the best thing for the kids. At any rate, I've "term-limited" myself out of this job next June anyway.
One last point: I taught overseas for the last 6 years before my retirement, and one fact stood out: certain countries would not allow older teachers in the classroom. For Turkey, the cutoff is 65 years old. Most international schools in China (and several other SE Asian nations) won't even interview anyone over 60 - or near 60, since most contracts are for 2 - 3 years. So it seems this business of working until we die is unique to the US, or at least to Western democracies. In most other parts of the world, public policy explicitly demands retirement at a certain age.
And I think that's a good thing - for all of us.
Thank you.
The one caveat/clarification I'd add is to your final point, "public policy explicitly demands retirement at a certain age." I think that has one implication if "retirement" is understood as "withdrawal from active work or life engagement." That's an implication from 1950s-style "Now I can kick back and play horseshoes" imagery.
If it is read as: "You can't hold this specific job in perpetuity. You have to give someone else a chance," then I agree that it makes sense.
One correction to Mr. Williams comment: Speaker Pelosi only announced her intention to run for re-election as a member of Congress. Given that she promised her fellow Democrats that she wouldn't speak another term as Speaker, it may be harder for her go back on that.
I'd like to present the selfish view of why these older officeholders should consider retirement early rather than trying to last forever in office--to preserve elements of their ideas. and approaches beyond their lifetime
In the case of Supreme Court Justices, if they retire while a 'friendly President and Senate' are in office, they end up with the ability to influence the choice of their successor. For example, Justice Kennedy was able to steer consideration to Kavanaugh, his former law clerk. In the Senate, Senator Feinstein, while generally liberal, has some views that conflict with the general attitudes of California voters. As far as I can see, she is not allied with nor helping any potential successor. So, when she leaves office, her views and approach to legislation will die. If she truly believes that legacy not die with her, she should be promoting a mentee, and leave office when the mentee can stand on their own.
Thanks, good points; I agree.
A terrific and timely piece, Jim. I’d add only that the pace of change — far greater than it used to be — is another argument to abolish lifetime tenure (unless, of course, you’re a strict originalist). Please do, at some point, turn your attention to the rotten boroughs of universities with life tenure for faculty members. It is the principal cause for the cost of post-secondary education rising even faster than the cost of healthcare (think septuagenarian faculty members taking up paid spots and not teaching much), probably discourages lots of qualified young people from a teaching career, and arguably promotes intellectual rot in the places where we should least tolerate it. Moreover, in many states, including mine, the problem is magnified by tenure in public school systems and a labor agreement in public higher education that effectively lodges the management of our universities in the hands of the faculties — foxes guarding henhouses.
Eliot, thank you — for further discussion.
Universities certainly face a number of issues. The lack of openings for young academics is a pressing problem.
I would respectfully suggest that the greatest factors driving the skyrocketing cost of tuition are threefold.
First is the widespread disinvestment in public universities by state legislatures who have decided that higher ed should be a self-sustaining business, rather than a public good which will provide returns to the state in the form of better-educated, higher earning residents. This has caused schools to raise prices and make many decisions that are more about mercenary, rather than academic, considerations. We can see this in a variety of policies, from the focus on research that leads to patents, to the trimming away of important but unprofitable programs (especially in the Humanities), and the large-scale use of adjunct "temps" to teach undergraduate classes.
Second is the huge administrative bloat over the past few decades, where schools have greatly enlarged the number of highly-paid, non-teaching staff members who mostly seem to be involved in begging rich people to make donations, a process often called "development" or "advancement." As teaching positions, programs, and whole academic departments are cut in the name of "efficiency," these admin jobs continue to multiply.
Finally, there has been the widely-discussed "arms race" of amenities, designed to attract the elusive rich and foreign students who will actually pay the full sticker price for their education. After all, many worthy students qualify for financial aid, and in-state students all pay a lower rate. So attracting these "deep pockets" students is key to bringing in the cash.
I agree with you that it would make sense for tenured faculty to have a retirement age. But it seems like there are more tenured professors dying and retiring than there are tenure-track openings being offered. The concept that a student will be working with experts in his or her field is being lost in a rush to offer goodies to high-price customers while providing an ever less personal and cheaper service to the masses.
To add to Andrew's comments: I think the first factor is well placed in the order--it is by far the most important. State legislatures have been cutting university funding since the 80s. The increasing tuition and student debt loads that result are discouraging enrollment. Regional public universities (e.g., CUNY, the Cal. States, public HSBUs), which drive the lion's share of student (and arguably US) economic and social mobility, have been especially hard hit. Their traditional missions of service to lower- and middle-income students are in peril, as well as the economic and cultural benefits they bring to their communities. Even if the state legislators doing the cutting weren't interested in the schools' missions, you have to wonder at their behavior, which runs so contrary to community business interests and, to boot, and threatens a major tax revenue source.
Andrew, thank you. I really appreciate the depth and detail. This rings true; more for me to learn on these fronts.
Thanks Jim, I liked this article. What a shame the Ruth Bader Ginsburg "bet on mortality" gesture wound up the way it did. At least in the case of the NFL (Tom Brady? Aaron Rodgers?) there is an open terrain for youngsters and oldsters. The academic world is certainly closed, as you point out. In the business world I find there is often (especially nowadays) a preference for middle-aged managers rather than older types who have seen more business cycles. Board directorships tend to have an age limitation. But as you point out, the worst case is the US Supreme Court.
Tom, thanks. Yes, the positive side of the merciless winner-or-loser nature of sports is that people simply cannot coast or hang on very long. There's always someone younger and faster and better.
As a structural matter, academia is probably the most acute case. (This is the theme of half the novels set in academia, and the show last year 'The Chair.') And, as with a gerontocracy in politics, it has extra effects because there is a limited number of hotly-competed-over places. But, again, you understand the reasons academic tenure emerged in the first place. And the balance between protection (for the tenured) and opportunity (for the others) can eventually be adjusted, with Acts of Congress or big national-politics fight.
In the business world (and all other worlds, including culture and entertainment), there's a constant push for the fresh and the new. But at least there is some space for people inventing new roles for themselves, even in later years. Or that is what we all hope.
Other examples: Nancy Pelosi, age 81, just announced her intention to run for Speaker again. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is 87 and apparently intends to run again in 2024. Questions of diminished capacity aside--Pelosi, at least, seems mentally vigorous--these senior members of Congress occupy seats that could be available to a new generation. And they hold up the promotion of their younger colleagues to leadership positions. Younger members leave Congress for many reasons, but frustration from limited opportunities to advance to positions of greater influence must be among the deciding factors. There are no constitutional age limits for members of Congress, but your points above about the broad sense of duty apply.
Bruce, thanks. Yes, you point out a particular stranglehold on the political opportunity-pipeline in California. As you're aware, it's complicated there, in that two of the state's most veteran figures — Nancy Pelosi, and Jerry Brown — arguably have become better at their jobs the longer they did them. Brown was clearly a more successful governor in his 70s and 80s than he had been the first time around , in his 30s and 40s. But it was probably good that even he hit a term limit, after a total of four terms! And the case of Dianne Feinstein is obviously cautionary. She did no one a favor by ever her previous decision to run.
The US Senate as a whole is super-saturated with people who have political machinery at their back (eg Sen Grassley) and can stay in as long as they choose, but who aren't helping their state or the country by doing so.
I don't have an answer but agree with you that this is a problem — an institution (Congress) that in theory is protected from the sclerotic effects of long-term tenure, but in practice is bogged down and clogged up.
I agree with you about Feinstein, but not about Pelosi. (see my other post below.) Youth for youth's sake can be overrated. I also think the situation on Capitol Hill is far different from the Supreme Court. I don't have the numbers, but I'm sure there are young people breaking into Congress and even the Senate all the time (in fact, see: Ocasio-Cortez who beat a much older Democrat in the primary, Hawley elected at 41 (ugh), Moulton (elected in his 30s), Ossoff (34) and Ayanna Pressley (also beat a considerably older Dem in the primary).
In Massachusetts during the most recent congressional election, a grandson of RFK, Joseph Kennedy III, challenged our Senator Markey. Markey, now 75, has decades of valuable experience, especially on climate change, and still seems to be quite up to the job. Kennedy 41, was unimpressive in the debates, and unimpressive generally.
I'm definitely not against youth. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who until Cawthorn came along was the youngest person in Congress, is impressive. So is Ossoff.
Good points on the California, NY, and MA variants on this principle. Elected politics may at the moment be bi-modal: Some very "senior" people, in some cases for good reasons (Markey, Jerry Brown) and some cases not. And then some very fresh faces — as different in their potential and principle as Ossoff and Cawthorn (or Gaetz).
Pelosi has absorbed a lot of wisdom over the years. I'm fine with her running for Speaker again. She was challenged a handful of years ago by one of the Mass delegation, Seth Moulton. I can't imagine that he could have done anywhere near as good a job as she has done, and I have a lot of admiration for her, even though I differ with her on an issue that I feel very strongly about, but in opposition to the Democratic leadership--immigration--because too much of it is keeping the working class down, and because the US is one of the worst places in the world to put more people, because we have the greatest per capita
greenhouse emissions and resource use among the major industrialized nations.
As noted above, I think Pelosi has been formidable in her job.
The particular issue where I disagree with her is stock trading by members of Congress. I think it's an obvious scandal that should be outlawed. But that's a different topic.
I'd forgotten about that, and I agree with you about it.