Karl Jaspers, Man in the Modern Age, tr. Eden and Cedar Paul (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951), pt. I., 3. The Tension Between the Technical Mass-Order and Human Life, pp. 50-51:
In becoming a mere function, life forfeits its historical particularity, to the extreme of a levelling of the various ages of life. Youth as the period of highest vital efficiency and of erotic exaltation becomes the desired type of life in general. Where the human being is regarded only as a function, he must be young; and if youth is over, he will still strive to show its semblance. Add to this that, for primary reasons, age no longer counts. The individual's life is experienced only momentarily, its temporal extension being a chance duration, not remembered and cherished as the upbuilding of irrevocable decisions upon the foundation of biological phases. Since a human being no longer has any specific age, he is always simultaneously at the beginning and the end; he can do now this, now that, and now the other; everything seems at any moment possible, and yet nothing truly real. The individual is no more than one instance among millions; why then should he think his doings of any importance? What happens, happens quickly and is soon forgotten. People therefore tend to behave as if they were all of the same age. Children become like grown-ups as soon as they possibly can, and join in grown-up conversations on their own initiative. When the old pretend to be young, of course the young have no reverence for their elders. These latter, instead of (as they should) keeping the young at a distance and setting them a standard, assume the airs of an invincible vitality, such as beseems youth but is unbecoming to age. Genuine youth wants to maintain its disparity, and not to be mingled without distinction among elders. Age wants form and realisation and the continuity of its destiny.
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