I just saw a flashing screen of a poll on MSNBC in which respondents were asked if John McCain is too old, and Barack Obama is too young, to serve as President. Around 80% of the respondents answered "No" to both questions. I have to disagree. When the question is, "Is John McCain too old to serve", I must state unequivically that indeed, he is.
As both a professional Cognitive Psychologist, and a woman of John's age, I have too much information to accept either the politically correct, anti-agism "good speak", or the unquestioning assumption that a man in his 70's is senile. But, there are serious considerations that will accrue to electing someone for the highest stress job on the planet. He will be starting that job during a period of universally acknowledged, age related, mental and physical decline. This is not trivial.
First, a bit of background.
There are generally acknowledged to be two kinds of intelligence. Fluid intelligence is exhibited during youth and young adulthood as the skill we bring to learning and developing the mechanisms to cope with novelty. A decline in fluid intelligence can be seen around the age of 50 in all adults. Our ability to learn, and to respond appropriately to new situations, is decreased.
Crystallized intelligence is the result of experiences we have had, and the efficient processing and storage of accumulated information throughout a lifetime. This form of intelligence can be measured as knowledge, and seems to be linked to education, physical health, and general cognitive competence.
Lacking biological causes, the human intellect functions at a reasonable level all during a life, but the flexibility to respond to new situations, the quick learning skills accessible prior to the age of 50, are not available to us in our 70's.
It's is much more than difficulty accessing a word that you know, or misplacing the car keys, now and then. It is a slipping away of the quickness, the immediate linking of old with new, the recognition of the complete novelty of a situation. It is the increasing reliance on one's old techniques for dealing with the world, rather than openess to the new.
John McCain has frequently been accused of trying to resolve his own deamons by refighting the Viet Nam War. He frequently refers to the profound dissatisfaction he still feels because we did not "win" that war. He seems to be linking the war in Iraq, in his own mind, with that other pointless conflict, and determined to "win" this time.
I don't see this as a failure of imagination on John McCain's part. I see it as an elderly man, using his crystallline intelligence to deal with a new situation. He has lost the fluidity to react to Iraq as different, and novel. He is relying on old knowledge because, as we get to this age (his, and mine) it is much easier to fall back on what we think we know, than it is to admit that it is getting harder to react in new ways to new events.
Now, stop for a moment and consider. With the ever changing issues and problems that we face in a world that seems to erupt with new dangers everyday, do we want a President who by the fact of his age, is less able to respond quickly, with new and imaginative solutions?
John McCain's age is an issue. Inspite of the octegenerian who is still writing symphonies, or books and columns that we enjoy and appreciate, novelty is missing from these efforts. Not because they are growing senile, but because as we age we are less able to produce novel ideas and solutions to novel problems, relying as we do on the accumulated information and experience that comprises our cognitive functioning.
Now. Where did I put my purse? <g>