Life begins at 40: the biological and cultural roots of the midlife crisis | The Royal Society

Summary

演讲者在皇家学会的演讲中探讨了中年危机这一概念，感谢了支持其研究的机构和个人。他从心理学和生物学角度分析了中年危机的成因，提到了社会科学家和心理学家对中年危机的不同解释，并以1970年代电视剧《Reginald Perrin》中的角色为例，展示了中年危机的表现。演讲者进一步讨论了社会和文化因素如何塑造了中年危机，指出标准化的生活历程和对物质享受的追求对个人的影响，强调中年危机是一个受历史、文化、社会经济条件和政治偶然性影响的社会文化现象。

Takeaways

• 🙌 演讲者在皇家学会发表演讲，表达了对被邀请的荣幸以及对听众的感谢。
• 📚 演讲者感谢了三家机构：Wellcome Trust、埃克塞特大学和其家庭，它们在其研究生涯和个人生活中发挥了重要作用。
• 🧬 演讲提到了历史上对中年危机的不同解释，包括心理分析和生物学角度。
• 🕊️ 演讲者讨论了中年危机的社会文化背景，强调了20世纪中叶标准化生活过程对中年危机的影响。
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 演讲指出，随着生活周期的变化，如结婚年龄的降低和生育模式的改变，中年人在生活压力上经历了显著的变化。
• 📉 演讲者提到了年龄焦虑的增长，这是由于社会对人生里程碑的期望所引起的。
• 🍰 演讲探讨了“生活从40岁开始”这一短语的起源和它如何与中年危机和个人期望相联系。
• 💡 演讲者提出，中年危机不仅仅是生物学现象，更是社会和文化现象，受历史变化、文化背景和经济条件的影响。
• 🌐 演讲强调了二战后，人们对物质充裕的追求，以及这种追求如何影响个人的幸福感和生活满意度。
• 🔍 演讲者通过Reginald Perrin的例子，展示了个体如何在社会压力和个人期望之间挣扎，并探讨了中年危机的深层次原因。
• 🌟 演讲以对中年危机的深刻理解结束，强调了个人、社会和文化因素在形成中年危机中的作用。

Q & A

演讲者在演讲开始时感谢了哪些机构？

演讲者首先感谢了Wellcome Trust，因为它资助了演讲者从早期阶段开始的大部分研究；其次感谢了Exeter大学，演讲者在那里工作了20多年，认为这是一个促进学术成长和尝试新想法的好地方；最后感谢了他的家庭，特别是他的妻子Siobhan和三个孩子Kiera、Rhythm和Connell。

为什么演讲者认为在皇家学会讨论中年危机这个话题有些奇怪？

皇家学会是一个以世界领先的科学研究而闻名的机构，而中年危机通常被视为一个更偏向于心理学和社会学的话题，因此在这样的科学背景下讨论它可能看起来有些不寻常。

演讲者提到了哪些与中年危机有关的历史人物？

演讲者提到了John Wilkins、John Desmond Bernal和Peter Medawar这三位历史人物。John Wilkins是自然哲学家和皇家学会的创始人之一；John Desmond Bernal是著名的爱尔兰科学家，以他在晶体学和分子生物学方面的工作而知名；Peter Medawar则因他对免疫耐受性的研究获得了1960年的诺贝尔奖。

中年危机一词最早是由谁提出的？

中年危机一词最早是由加拿大的社会科学家和精神分析学家Elliot Jaques在1965年的一篇文章中提出的。

在20世纪60年代和70年代，人们如何解释中年危机？

在20世纪60年代和70年代，人们对中年危机的解释主要有两种：心理学解释和生物学解释。心理学解释认为中年危机是一种身份危机，类似于青少年危机；生物学解释则关注于随着年龄增长，人的生理机能逐渐下降，如肌肉质量减少、活力下降等。

演讲者如何描述Reginald Perrin在电视剧中的行为？

Reginald Perrin在电视剧中表现出了中年危机的典型行为，包括对工作和家庭生活的不满，尝试与秘书发生婚外情，以及最终决定放弃旧生活，通过制造自己死亡的假象来开始新生活。

为什么说中年危机与社会和文化条件有关？

中年危机不仅仅是个人的心理和生理现象，它也是由社会和文化条件塑造的。例如，20世纪中叶标准化的生活过程、对年龄的焦虑、经济压力以及对更长生命周期的期望都可能导致中年危机的出现。

演讲者提到了“生活从40岁开始”这个短语的起源是什么？

“生活从40岁开始”这个短语最早由Theodore Parsons的妻子Matilda Parsons在1917年使用，她是一位教育者和身体锻炼的倡导者，她用这个短语来鼓励中年女性保持身心健康。

为什么说中年危机是一个社会和文化现象？

中年危机是一个社会和文化现象，因为它是由历史变化、文化背景和社会经济条件共同塑造的。例如，生活过程的标准化、对年龄的意识、经济压力和对物质享受的追求都对中年危机的形成有影响。

演讲者如何解释Reginald Perrin的行为背后的社会压力？

演讲者认为Reginald Perrin的行为不仅仅是个人的心理危机，也是50、60和70年代社会压力的产物。这些压力包括对标准化生活过程的期望、对年龄的焦虑、经济压力以及对更长生命周期的期望。

演讲者提到了哪些因素导致了中年危机的产生？

演讲者提到了多个因素导致了中年危机的产生，包括社会生活过程的标准化、对年龄的焦虑、经济压力、对更长生命周期的期望、以及对物质享受的追求等。

Outlines

00:00

🎙️ 演讲开场与感谢

演讲者在皇家学会的演讲开场，感谢了邀请他的人和之前的发言者John。演讲者表达了对到场人数的惊讶，并感谢了听众的到来。他提到了站在巨人肩膀上的重要性，并感谢了三家机构：Wellcome Trust、Exeter大学和自己的家庭。Wellcome Trust资助了他的研究生涯，Exeter大学为他提供了成长的环境，而家庭则是他生活的支持。他还提到了讲座命名的三位科学家John Wilkins、John Desmond Bernal和Peter Medawar，他们对科学和社会的贡献，并引入了中危危机的话题。

05:02

📺 电视剧《Reginald Perrin》与中年危机

演讲者通过描述1970年代的电视剧《Reginald Perrin》中的角色Reginald Perrin来引入中年危机的概念。Perrin是一位46岁的中年男性，感到生活乏味和不满，开始表现出冲动和不稳定的行为，包括假装自杀以获得新身份。演讲者提到中年危机通常发生在35至45岁之间的男性身上，表现为对生活的不满和寻求变化。此外，介绍了加拿大社会科学家和心理分析师Elliot Jaques，他首次提出中年危机的概念，并描述了中年危机的心理特征。

10:03

🧬 生物学视角下的中年危机

演讲者探讨了中年危机的生物学解释，包括Peter Medawar对衰老的兴趣和对生物退化的认识。提到了随着年龄增长，人们可能会感受到身体活力的下降，如头发变白、肌肉减少等，这些生理变化可能导致心理危机。此外，还讨论了女性在更年期后可能面临的中年危机，这与她们的生殖功能和生物学变化有关。

15:05

🔍 社会文化条件与中年危机

演讲者提出，要理解中年危机，需要超越个体层面，考虑社会和文化条件。他讨论了20世纪中叶标准化生命历程的出现，以及它如何给中年人带来压力。演讲者指出，生命里程碑的社会规定，如结婚、养育孩子和退休的时间，都可能改变人们对生命历程的理解和期望。

20:07

🏡 生活周期变化与中年压力

演讲者继续讨论了生活周期变化如何影响中年压力，包括年龄意识的增强、与邻居比较的压力、被称为“三明治一代”的中年人面临的财务压力，以及所谓的“空巢综合症”。这些因素共同作用，导致中年人在40至50岁时开始重新评估自己的生活，这可能导致婚姻危机和对长期伴侣关系的重新考虑。

25:09

🤔 婚姻危机与社会稳定性

演讲者探讨了中年危机与婚姻危机之间的联系，指出社会对离婚率上升的担忧，以及人们如何将中年危机视为威胁婚姻和家庭稳定的一个因素。提到了二战后离婚率的变化，以及社会对稳定婚姻的期望，认为这是社会稳定的关键。

30:09

🌟 '40岁人生开始'的起源与影响

演讲者追溯了'40岁人生开始'这一短语的起源，讨论了它如何被用来鼓励中年人寻找新的幸福和满足感。提到了Matilda Parsons首次使用这一短语，以及Walter Pitkin如何通过他的书《40岁人生开始》推广这一概念。这些作品提供了自我帮助的建议，鼓励中年人通过改善物质生活、休闲和生活艺术来寻找幸福。

35:09

🌱 美国梦与个人更新

演讲者讨论了'40岁人生开始'的概念如何与美国梦联系在一起，以及它如何被视为个人和社会更新的一种方式。提到了James Truslow Adams对美国梦的描述，以及它如何被Pitkin的观点所呼应，即通过个人更新来实现更广泛的社会和经济目标。

40:10

💔 美国梦的破灭与中年危机

演讲者反思了二战后美国梦的破灭，以及它如何影响了中年人的心态和行为。提到了Edmund Bergler的著作，他描述了中年人在面对生活压力和失败感时，如何寻求通过消费和个人满足来寻找幸福。这种心态被认为是导致像Reginald Perrin这样的中年人经历危机的原因之一。

45:11

📚 结论：中年危机的社会文化根源

演讲者总结了中年危机不仅仅是一个生物学现象，更是一个由历史、文化、社会经济条件和政治偶然性共同塑造的社会文化现象。他强调了理解中年危机的社会文化背景的重要性，并指出我们所有人都受到这些因素的影响。

Keywords

💡皇家学会

皇家学会是一个著名的科学研究机构，以其世界领先的科学研究而闻名。演讲者在皇家学会发表讲座，体现了该机构对知识生产的重要性。

💡Wellcome Trust

Wellcome Trust是一家提供大量研究资金的机构，支持了演讲者的研究事业，从早期阶段到建立研究中心，对演讲者的职业发展有重大贡献。

💡埃克塞特大学

演讲者在埃克塞特大学工作了二十多年，认为这是一个成长为学者、发展新想法的绝佳地方。大学的高级管理层对他的支持和鼓励是他职业发展的关键。

💡中年危机

中年危机是指人在中年阶段面临的一种身份和心理危机，通常表现为对生命和成就的怀疑和不满。演讲者通过讲述中年危机的历史和社会背景，探讨了其心理和生物学方面的原因。

💡伊莱特·杰克斯

伊莱特·杰克斯是一位加拿大社会科学家和精神分析学家，他在1965年首次提出了中年危机的概念，描述了中年人在达到生命巅峰后，面对死亡的加速到来所引发的焦虑和危机。

💡标准化生命历程

标准化生命历程指的是在20世纪中期，随着预期寿命的增加和社会规范的变化，人们经历了更加明确的生命阶段和过渡期。这种标准化导致了中年人对未能达到预期目标的焦虑和不满。

💡40岁生命开始

40岁生命开始这一概念最早由Matilda Parsons在1917年提出，后来由Walter Pitkin在1930年代普及，强调人在40岁后依然可以追求自我实现和幸福。

💡经济衰退

经济衰退指的是20世纪30年代全球经济的低迷，对个人和社会的影响深远。在这一背景下，关于中年危机的讨论往往涉及到经济压力和个人自我实现的矛盾。

💡心理分析

心理分析是研究和治疗心理问题的方法，强调个人在不同生命阶段的心理发展和冲突。演讲中多次提到心理分析在理解中年危机和提供婚姻咨询中的重要作用。

💡物质享乐

物质享乐指的是通过消费和享受物质财富来追求幸福。这一概念在演讲中被用来解释中年人通过购买和享乐来掩盖其心理和生物学上的危机。

Highlights

演讲者在皇家学会的演讲中表达了对被邀请的感激之情，并感谢了参与的听众。

演讲者感谢了Wellcome Trust对其研究事业的资助，以及对创建健康文化和环境中心的支持。

演讲者对Exeter大学20多年的工作经历表示感激，尤其是对高级管理层的支持。

演讲者感谢了家人对其职业生涯的支持，尤其是妻子Siobhan和三个孩子。

演讲者讨论了中年危机这一主题，并将其与三位著名科学家John Wilkins、John Desmond Bernal和Peter Medawar的工作联系起来。

中年危机一词最早由加拿大社会科学家和精神分析学家Elliot Jaques在1965年提出。

中年危机被描述为在生命的巅峰时期，意识到死亡不可避免而产生的焦虑和抑郁。

Jaques提出中年危机是掩盖对死亡的恐惧和对青春的执着的一种狂躁行为。

演讲者提到了中年危机的两种主要解释：心理学角度和生物学角度。

心理学角度将中年危机视为一种身份危机，类似于青少年危机。

生物学角度则关注衰老过程中的身体变化，如肌肉质量下降和活力减少。

演讲者探讨了社会和文化条件如何使中年危机成为可能，而不仅仅是个体现象。

20世纪中叶标准化的生活过程创造了特定的中年压力，如年龄焦虑和对里程碑的期望。

演讲者分析了“生活从40岁开始”这一短语的历史和意义，以及它如何影响中年危机的理解。

演讲者认为中年危机是由历史变化、文化背景、社会经济条件和政治偶然性共同塑造的现象。

通过分析Reginald Perrin的例子，演讲者展示了中年危机如何在社会和文化压力下显现。

演讲者提出中年危机不仅仅是生物学现象，更是社会和文化现象，受到历史和文化的影响。

演讲结束时，演讲者强调了理解中年危机的社会文化背景的重要性。

Transcripts

thank you John for those very kind words

it's an absolute pleasure to be here

tonight it's an honor to be speaking at

the Royal Society so thank you very much

for inviting me I have to say that I had

not expected so many people to be here

so thank you very much for coming as

well we know particularly at the Royal

Society that in terms of knowledge

production we always stand on the

shoulders of giants there are always

people who have gone before us but there

are people who walk beside us on whom we

depend as well and before I start I want

to thank three institutions the first is

the Wellcome Trust the Wellcome Trust

has funded a large proportion of my

research and my research career from the

very early stages converting from a

doctor into a an early career researcher

throughout various larger program grant

strategic awards and more recently the

trust has supported the creation of the

Welcome Center for cultures and

environments of Health in many ways for

me this was the fulfillment of a dream

although at times the responsibilities

and demands seemed more like a nightmare

but it's a fantastic opportunity and I'm

deeply grateful for the trust for the

funding and it's nice that Simon Chaplin

is here as well so thank you for coming

I'm also a deeply fortunate that I have

worked at the University of Exeter for

over 20 years we know from the tag line

the Dexter is probably the best

university in the world

and for me it has been fantastic a place

to grow as an academic a place to

develop to try out new ideas the senior

management at the University Steve Smith

the vice chancellor Janice Kay the

Provost Nick told that before he left

and now Neil gal that senior group

leading the University have been

fantastic they have supported and

encouraged me and been prepared to take

a risk or two to support one or two of

my more grandiose ideas I also want to

thank Andrew Thorp who is the Dean of

the College of Humanities has been

fantastic a scholar and friend for many

many years

the final institution but I want to

thank is the institution that is my

family I didn't get where I am today

without my wife Siobhan

wonderfully loyal faithful tolerant of

my own crises throughout our marriage

our three children Kiera rhythm and

Connell the best children these together

are the why and the how of my life so

thank you it may seem strange to be

standing in the Royal Society giving a

lecture about a subject like the midlife

crisis this is an institution renowned

for its world leading scientific

research but I hope that what I have to

say will do justice to the three figures

after whom this lecture is named John

Wilkins of course a natural philosopher

a polymath one of the founders of the

society

John Desmond Bernal an Irish scientist

renowned for his work in x-ray

crystallographer crystallography in

molecular biology but also a very

committed and prolific historian of

science interested in the relationship

between science and society Peter

Medawar really most famous for his work

on immunological tolerance for which he

received the Nobel Prize in 1960 what is

less well known about Medawar work he

was also interested in aging aging as an

unsolved biological problem as he put it

in his inaugural lecture in 1951 and one

of the terms that Medawar used

to describe the aging process was

senescence and that concept of

senescence had been popularized by an

American psychologist Grandville Stanley

Hall in the early 20th century and it

came to be one of the key ways in which

midlife and middle-age was defined

during the early 20th century middle-age

came to represent the period between

adolescence and senescence and that's

why many people refer to it as middle

essence middle-aged as middle essence so

although it's a strange subject to be

talking about at the Royal Society I

hope that it will do justice to these

three figures here after whom the

lecture is named let me take you back

and some of you will remember this let

me take you back to the late 1970s so an

iconic sitcom television series on BBC

the fallen rise of Reginald Perrin

starring Leonard Rossiter and the

television series was based on a novel

by the English comic writer David nobs

Reggie Perrin Reginald Isle Anthony

Perrin our IP was 46 years old married

to his wife Elizabeth living in a near

Georgian house in the Surrey suburbs

they had two children both growing up

leaving their parents living in a house

that was perhaps not quite well no

longer a home Reggie commuted every

weekday up to Waterloo station walked

across the bridge went to work at

sunshine deserts as a middle manager as

a bureaucrat and at the start of the

novel Reggie is depressed

he's disillusioned and distressed

disaffected disillusioned with his life

disillusioned with his wife

disillusioned with his work and he

begins to behave rather randomly he

starts sending off aggressive memos to

his colleagues he tries to have an

affair with his secretary he begins to

get more irascible and one day while his

his wife is out he decides that he's

going to collect all his childhood

mementos the memories of his youth and

burn them

as if he's trying to eradicate his past

eradicate his identity

Reggie decides that he can no longer

live like this he decides there's only

two ways he can either disappear in some

way or he can kill himself so he drives

a van down to a Dorset Beach takes off

his clothes leaves them on the beach and

walks out into the sea naked he doesn't

drown himself he walks back up puts

another set of clothes on so that he

leaves his old clothes on the beach so

people think that he's drowned himself

puts on a new set of clothes puts on a

week and takes on a new identity and he

becomes eventually Martin well born now

I don't want to tell you for those of

you I mean some of you will remember the

television series the book is fantastic

in many many ways it takes place only

over a week or two I don't want to give

away the ending what I want to say is

that what Reggie Peron was suffering

from at the age of forty something was

what we would now call and was indeed

called then a midlife crisis a man

usually a man not exclusively and in

this period largely understood to be a

male problem a man between the age of

about 35 and 45 in that deadline decade

realizing that his life was going

nowhere disaffected and disillusioned

would go off the rails the midlife

crisis now the term had been first

introduced about a decade earlier by a

Canadian social scientists and

psychoanalyst Elliot Jax Jax had come

over from Toronto in the second world

war had stayed he was one of the

founding members of the Tavistock

Institute for human relations he was

social scientists but also psychoanalyst

he'd been analyzed himself by Melanie

Klein and had a practice as a

psychoanalyst and what she described was

pretty much what Reggie parind

experienced and his point in death in

the midlife crisis a short article

published in 1965 he pointed out that

the paradox is that of entering the

prime of life the stage of fulfillment

but at the same time the prime and

fulfillment are dated death lies beyond

so the picture that Jack's created was

off this

this man usually at the peak of a

binomial curve of life and when you get

to that peak all you can see is the

downward curve to death and that's the

moment when anxiety a depressive crisis

was triggered he then went on to explain

what happened to middle-aged men or what

kind of behavior they began to exhibit

and what he said was that in order to

cover up this crisis they developed a

set of manic behaviors to try and

convince themselves that they were still

young so the compulsive attempts to

remain young the hypochondriacal concern

over health and appearance the emergence

of sexual promiscuity in order to prove

youth and potency the hollowness lack of

genuine enjoyment of life these he said

are familiar patterns and they are all

attempts at a race against time

so the midlife man the man in the

deadline decade sees death accelerating

towards him and he tries to deny that or

cover it up by claiming or pretending

that he's younger than he is leading to

these kinds of behaviors at the time

both in the 60s and when Reggie Peron

was having his crisis in the 70s there

were two principal explanations for the

midlife crisis

the first was psychological the kind of

analysis an explanation that Eliot

Jack's put forward and that is that the

midlife crisis was an identity crisis a

crisis a depressive identity crisis very

similar to the adolescent crisis the

adolescent crisis he thought was a

schizoid crisis the midlife crisis a

depressive crisis hey axe was not the

only person or certainly not the first

person to think about the stages the

critical phases of life in this way Carl

Jung in the 1930s had written about his

own crisis at the age of 37 and

particularly Eric Erickson an American

developmental psychologist had talked

about life particularly in terms of the

ages or the stages of

he described life in terms of eight

stages each of which had its own

particular conflict the stage that

correlated with the period that Jax was

talking about he thought was focused on

a conflict between creativity on the one

hand and stagnation on the other and it

was that that created the crisis so

there were others as well thinking

largely from a psycho analytical point

of view about how we understood

middle-age and midlife one of the

important points to make about this kind

of approach to middle age and midlife

was that it was not just theoretical

this wasn't just a theory of how we

developed eating it was also

incorporated into practice and

psychoanalytical models of Aging became

absolutely key to the work of marriage

guidance counselors for example working

for the national marriage guidance

council or couples therapist working at

the Tavistock clinic for example most of

that was built on an understanding of

individual development across the life

course through the stages through middle

age and through the various crisis

points that they could produce so the

first explanation for regi parents

crisis is that he was suffering from

some identity crisis around the age of

forty forty-five but there were another

set of explanations and these were

biological the first biological

explanation really revolved around some

of the work that Peter Medawar was

interested in old age natural death from

the unsolved problem of biology he was

interested particularly in the

evolutionary and biological dimensions

of Aging and in in that sense the

downward curve of life was not

necessarily only an awareness of

approaching death it was something else

it was an awareness that as we get older

we get grayer or Balder all we develop

middle-age spread or our muscle mass

declines our vigor our vitality

deteriorates and it was that sense of

deteriorating vigor that fueled the cry

in some kind of waste now it's not

unrelated to the fear of death that Jax

described but very much linked to that

declining biological vitality that

people wanted there was of course

another way and there has been another

way in which midlife crises have been

linked to biology and that is

particularly in women in relation to

reproductive life and here the argument

was and most of the literature certainly

in this period was on men but there was

some literature on women in these cases

women were understood to go through a

crisis act through during after

menopause as their reproductive

functions supposedly disappeared or in

some ways through the emptiness process

so the a woman's midlife crisis which

had tied very very clearly to her

reproductive capacity the term

biological clock or the talkee the clock

is ticking in fact was used by an

American journalist Richard Cohen in

1978 but the notion that in women their

transitions and their crises might be

governed by their biology or reduced to

their biology was very commonplace the

bats weren't surprised you to know that

some men blamed their own midlife crises

on the menopause their wife's menopause

as well so let me go back to Reginald

Perrin and reflect for a moment

Reggie parry in the late 70s having a

crisis trying to change his life in key

ways recognizing that he perhaps hadn't

achieved what he wanted and that he was

disaffected and disillusioned we can see

that pairing we could explain that in

terms of his own psychological angst

he's got to a stage an age in his life

where everything looks as if it's going

downhill and only death awaits we can

also get a sense from his book that

physically he's declining physically he

no he no longer feels to be himself to

be the man that he was so we could see

it very much as an individual story of a

man with psychological and biological

problems what I want to suggest for the

rest of the talk

is that this is not the only way in

which we can understand the midlife

crisis in fact I want to zoom out to

take it away from the individual and

think about the social and cultural

conditions that make the midlife crisis

possible not only as a concept in the

60s 70s and 80s but also as a set of

experience what happened to enable the

midlife crisis to emerge not in an

individual case but much more widely in

terms of the socio-economic and the

cultural conditions and I want to do

that in two ways in the first instance I

want to think about the standardized

life course that emerged in the middle

decades of the 20th century that created

particular stresses on people at

middle-age secondly I want to reflect on

the meaning and the history of the

phrase life begins at 40 and at the end

I want to argue that it's those two

components that k2 played a key role in

the emergence of the midlife crisis not

just Reggie parens but ours as well so

let me start reflecting for a moment on

the standardized life course there's no

doubt of course that our life cycles

individually and collectively are

governed by our biology but Bernice no

Garson was a very prominent psychologist

in America who wrote extensively on

middle-aged and midlife and the

transitions between very life stages are

various life stages and she pointed out

of course that the timetable the

milestones of life were not merely

biological they were also also socially

prescribed so there was a socially

prescribed timetable she said for the

ordering of major life events a time in

the life span when men and women are

expected to marry a time to raise

children a time to retire so the rhythm

of our life the stages of a laugh the

ages of our life the transitions of our

life was socially prescribed not just

biological and of course if they're

socially prescribed it means that they

can change our understandings and

experience can change our expectations

can change our expectations of the life

course the life course the life cycle

did change dramatically across the early

decades of the twenty

century by the 1950s and 1960s couples

were living longer if you were born at

the end of 19th century early 20th

century in this country we might expect

to live until we were 14 50 60 by the

1950s 40s 50s we might expect to live

until well into our 70s or perhaps

eighties so life expectancy had

increased giving us that longer life

cycle and in principle also a longer

period of adulthood or middle age at the

same time we were marrying earlier by 19

in 1911 only about 24% of women were

married by the age of 24 by the early

50s that had risen to 52% and in fact if

you look at some of the surveys of men

and women's attitudes about marriage

during this period most women would say

that the ideal age to marry is between

20 and 24 men ideal age slightly later

but not that much different at the same

time during the early decades of the

20th century it became more commonplace

to have fewer children and to cluster

them together earlier in the marriage so

let's say a couple were married at the

age of 20 or 21 by 24 or 25 they would

have had their two or three children and

they would be then bringing up those

children the children would leave home

so there was a much longer period of

life after the childbearing period in a

sense in this period still that was more

important for women who tended to be in

the workplace less by and large and

looking after the children more men's

rhythm the rhythm of men's life was

slightly different dictated not so much

by the rhythms of the family but by the

rhythms of occupational patterns by the

1950s and 60s men tended to work for a

fixed number of years often in the same

job until retirement so you can see the

male life course in some ways also

socially prescribed

from the moment of starting work to the

moment of retirement set by the

government by the state or by private

industries one of the consequences of

this this teasing out of the life course

the the clustering of major life events

in very similar ways across populations

meant that people began to experience

much more clearly defined stages and

transitions in the life course so you

could begin to identify a period of

middle age between 30 and 50 40 and 60

and we could begin to identify those

critical stages of transition between

those life phases now the point I want

to make from this is that there are a

number of consequences that emerged from

this modern standardized homogenized

life course and they linked directly to

the emergence of the midlife crisis the

first impact was the growth of age

anxiety or age consciousness if there

were standard life courses standard

milestones against which we could

measure ourselves we became much more

conscious or anxious about whether we

succeeding or failing against those

milestones so a much greater sense of

where we should be at certain points in

our life and of course that expectation

that we would leave home get married

have children get a job retire our

expectations were raised but at the same

time if we didn't match up to those

expectations if we didn't meet those

milestones follow that timetable we

could be dissatisfied with our

achievements and this led the notion the

phrase keeping up with the Joneses

started in a comic strip in America

about 1913 but it became in those early

decades of the 20th century through the

30s and 40s a key way of us measuring

ourselves against others a driver in

some ways of envy and jealousy a driver

of emulation a driver to increase our

consumption to keep up with the journey

the Joneses we were much more aware of

our place in the world and particularly

where we were failing while we were

becoming more aware we were also

becoming subject in this period two very

different stresses this is the

generation in the fifties and sixties

70s

Reggie parents generation that could

perhaps describe themselves as the first

Sandwich Generation if we think about

the patterns of marriage and child

rearing and aging if you imagine that we

have that couple ideally marrying at

twenty have their children by twenty

five by the time they're 40 45 Reggie

parents age their children will be going

through the troubled years of

adolescence their parents would be aging

through retirement needing more care and

you find in this period the middle aged

between the age of 30 and 50 40 and 60

becoming sandwiched between the troubles

of their adolescent children and the

troubles of their parents so you hit the

midlife crisis exactly when your

children are going through an adolescent

crisis middle age was also challenged

for many people by financial pressures

at this time and again this was a

feature of the changing life cycle in

1891 we could expect to inherit at the

age of about 37 now I have to say that

this is a middle-class Western story

this is not true of everybody

although the longer history of the

midlife crisis suggests that the crisis

has been democratized in many ways but

if you were lucky enough to inherit in

the late 19th century you could expect

to inherit at the age of 37 by the 1940s

you would expect to inherit not until

you were 56 that meant that you

inherited it's always nice to get money

don't get me wrong but if you inherited

you inherited after you'd had children

after their children have grown up and

after they left home at times when you

might not need it as much as you had

when you were middle-aged bringing up

children that created us

set of financial pressures on couples

trying to bring up children the final

point I want to make in terms of midlife

pressures and it applies you know the

empty nest is is as it was first

introduced the empty nest in in about

1913 it was applied largely to women in

a rather derogatory way that their only

function in society was to have children

and once those children had left they

were of no value but in some ways it

describes a very key feature of the

extended life course that by the 1950s

given the fact that women and men are

marrying earlier having their children

earlier a woman could live for a further

52 years after the birth of their last

child and many years after menopause one

of the things that created in people's

minds was the question is this all there

is do I really want to live like this

with this person for the next 40 or 50

years and a number of the psychologists

in this period pointed out that the

extended life course that continued

pressures of middle age through middle

age meant that many people when they got

to the age of 40 45 began what Robert

Lee and Marjorie Kassabian

referred to in the in the spouse Kappa

don't if you can see weathering the

marriage crisis during middle essence is

the subtitle of the book what they

pointed out that the multiple stresses

during middle age that sense of

recognizing that you were not achieving

what you should have according to the

standardized timetable of the life

course meant that people began to

reappraise their lives to reckon the

achievements against the goals the

satisfactions versus values the kind of

evaluation of his life that Reggie Peron

went through and they began to realize

of course that they hadn't achieved that

they were disappointed and as a result

hit crisis point and Margaret Mead I've

quoted here as an anthropologist in a

very interesting book male and female in

1949

published in 1949 pointed out that in a

world in which people may

reorient their whole lives at 40 or 50

that's a world in which marriage for

life becomes much more difficult

Margaret Mead solution and the solution

of some science fiction writers was that

we should introduce the possibility of

multiple serial marriages she suggested

- but many writers at the time suggested

possibly three one for youthful passion

one for Parenthood and one for

companionship in later life that there

were very different demands across that

extended life course at different stages

of your life there was no reason why it

shouldn't be the same person who

fulfilled those sequentially but there

was no reason why it should is what

Margaret Mead was saying Margaret Mead

also appeared in a lot of BBC television

programs on marriage and divorce in this

period now one of the consequences one

of the reasons why this was important

socially and culturally was because

people were concerned in this period

about the levels of divorce and they

linked marriage midlife crisis to a

marriage crisis claiming that partly it

was the behavior of middle-aged men that

was threatening marriages leading to

family breakdown separation and divorce

and this was regarded as problematic for

social stability in the post-war period

before the Second World War fewer than

7,000 couples were divorced there was a

big boost after the Second World War

during the late forties to 50 linked

largely to well explained in terms of

hasty marriages during the war the

difficulties that soldiers had

readjusting to civilian life the fact

that during separation both husbands and

wives for example had had affairs those

challenges led to a high level of

breakdown after the Second World War

there was a little bit of a plateau and

then arise through the late 60s 70s and

80s now I don't to say that the midlife

crisis the challenges that people faced

in middle age were the only reasons for

that one of the reasons for the big rise

after 1970 there's a change in the

divorce law the divorce reform act of

her was introduced in 1969 removed the

marital offence and replaced it with the

notion of irretrievable breakdown

making it much easier for some people

to get a divorce but debates about the

midlife crisis in this period and still

I think link it very closely to concerns

about the stability of marriage which

was regarded by many as essential for

social stability let me pause for a

moment then and think again about Reggie

yes

distraught yes going through a period of

psychological angst yes fading

biologically but also in some ways a

victim of very striking demographic

changes across the twentieth century or

very different expectations of the

milestones of life the expectations

about when people would get married have

children get a job retire and so forth

created a set of pressures on Reggie

Peron and his wife and his children that

proved for him too much in some ways

what I've sketched out is what Reggie

Peron was escaping from the stick that

pushed him to behave in these ways was

the social pressures created by the

extended standardized life course but

what did he hope to achieve by it if

that was what he wanted to escape from

where was he expecting to go what were

the benefits of changing his life in

this kind of way and I want to reflect

on that not just the push out of the

mess that he felt he was in but the pull

towards a better life I want to explore

that just by thinking about the phrase

life begins at 40 and where that came

from

and how that played in to the

expectations and the aspirations not

just of Reggie Peron but also many of us

as well

the phrase life begins at 40 was first

used well as far as we know in 1917 by

mrs. Theodore Parsons Matilda Parsons

who was the widow of an army officer but

had already had her career as well

teaching particularly young

women and girls and young women and

older women how to keep fit scientific

bodybuilding is what she referred to it

as and partly it was keeping physically

fit in order to keep the mind fit and

this phrase I loved she was interviewed

in 1917 for the newspaper it was four

days after America entered the First

World War and in the interview she said

very similar set of ideas to what Eliot

Jack's introduced much later in the

sixties it's a paradox of life she said

that we do not begin to live until we

begin to die death begins at 30 that is

deterioration of the muscle cells set in

most old age is premature and attention

to diet and exercise would enable men

and women to live a great deal longer

than they do today

the best part of a woman's life begins

at 40

that was her phrase now there's a

particular context to what mrs. Parsons

was saying and again this is as part of

your argument unless we understand the

social and cultural context we don't

fully recognize the meaning of that kind

of term Theodore parson mrs. Parsons

directed her comments at what she

referred to as the adipose woman of 40

she was addressing middle-aged women who

she felt had let themselves go and the

reason why this was important to mrs.

Parsons was because of the war effort

men were away fighting women were needed

to bring up children to do the work to

support the communities economically

while their men were away so it became

crucial to her that women retain their

fitness physically and mentally as they

aged that notion it's really interesting

that as the notion life begins at 40

became popular the the the first part of

that sentence the best part of a woman's

life begins at 40 got lost in some kind

of translation

it became simply life begins at 40 and

it was popularized in a whole variety of

ways during the 1920s and 1930s the most

common way

or the most popular book was Walter

Pickens book entitled life begins at 40

Pitkin was an American journalist

working at Columbia University in the

taken miss notion that life begins at 40

to write a self-help book and you can

see from the cover of the book through

this book's inspiring and helpful advice

thousands of men and women fearful of

middle age have lost their anxieties and

found new ways to make life richer

happier and more worth living this was

the the the blurb on the book to try and

sell it and the notion both Pickens book

and that phrase life begins at 40 were

used in other areas life begins at 40

was a film in 1935 starring Will Rogers

that was based on the book and there

were some skits there were some satires

as well of this great film in the late

1930s entitled life begins at 8:30 so

the idea that life could begin rather

than end at midlife at middle age became

a key part of self-help literature and

advice to middle-aged couples during the

30s 40s and 50s so what did Pitkin

advise people in order to find these new

ways of being happy in fact it was

pretty bland and mundane he pointed out

that happiness comes most easily after

40 firstly by realizing that a great

many years lie between 40 and 70 now

that quite you know that might seem

fairly banal and I think it probably is

but it's it's a it's a twisting on its

head of the concerns of midlife midlife

Reggie parens looking back and saying I

haven't achieved anything I've got

nothing left to look forward to what

Pitkin is saying is yes you have even at

the age of 40 you're going to have 20 30

40 years of your life still make the

most of it and the way you made the most

of it according to Pitkin was that you

pursue self fulfillment through material

improvement leisure and what he called

the art of living much less work more

leisure more play

this process of self-fulfillment would

make those last 30 or 40 years

worthwhile no longer the downward curve

no longer the acceleration towards death

but in fact a fulfilling middle-aged and

older age and this notion became widely

adopted in two particular ways one is

that it was taken as a strategy for

personal renewal this is a way in which

we could refresh and renew ourselves

when we were getting jaded and faded in

middle age begin to realize that there

were things to look forward to that it

was possible to reshape to Ramola life

in more positive ways but the key part

of this and again thinking about this in

social and cultural historical terms the

key part of this it's this this story

that Pitkin was telling was not just

about individuals of discovering

themselves it was also a lesson a

message for populations certainly in

America and Britain during a period of

economic depression during a period of

recession increasingly concerned about

the specter of a second world war during

a period of doom and gloom that if we

reinvigorated ourselves there was hope

for optimism and pickins argument was

that if people as they got older the

middle-aged and the elderly work less

and had more leisure there would be more

job opportunities for younger people

which would boost the economy equally if

people in middle age and older age spent

their money buying things enjoying

themselves purchasing leisure for

example and pleasure that would also

boost the economy so part of the appeal

of pickins work was that it struck a

chord in individuals like Reggie Peron

who were struggling with their own

problems but it also meant something to

a Western world struggling with the

effects of economic recession because it

promised a way out of them and in some

ways a pick in writing in the 30s the

1930s were a strangely paradoxical

period a period of

morbid gloom in some kind of ways

because of the recession and because of

the fear of another global war but it

was also a period of incredible optimism

it was the period when the American

Dream was conceived and the American

Dream first appeared in the work of

James Truslow Adams in 1931 the year

before Pitkin published life begins at

40 and it's in the epilogue to this

fantastic overview the epic of America

and in that epilogue he tries to sketch

out the future to move away from some of

the doom and gloom of the interwar

period to say life globally as well as

individually doesn't have to go down

towards death and destruction it can go

the other way and for Adams the American

Dream was not a dream simply of

motorcars and high wages so it's not

just a material dream but a dream of a

social order in which each man and woman

shall be able to attain to the fullest

statue of which they're innately capable

and be recognized by others for what

they are regardless of the fortuitous

circumstances of birth or position so

this was Adams dream and it was a dream

in a sense that resonated very clearly

with what Pitkin was saying we didn't

have to be depressed at midlife and the

middle of the 20th century either we

could look forward with some hope for

this to happen

Adams argued we needed to develop a new

scale and basis for values for Adams

looking forward to the to achieving the

American dream

that meant collectivity trust love

working together to make a better world

so here was this period of economic

recession Pitkin saying yes life can

begin at 40 Adams saying in fact there

is an American dream that we should work

towards in some ways of course what

happened was the opposite those hopes

and those dreams were dashed

they were dashed by the second

World War they were dashed by the

catastrophe of global conflict and they

were dashed in many ways by what

happened afterwards in terms of the Cold

War that sense of optimism that could

create security or the sense of security

that could create optimism they were

dashed during the Second World War and

afterwards what was left of pickins

mantra and Adams dream was simply a

dream of material Plenty the values the

scale the basis of values that dream of

social order that was democratic and

egalitarian Equal Opportunities

occupationally and educationally that

was shattered by experiences in the

second world what was left was the dream

of motorcars and high wages people were

left feeling that they could not achieve

those other

grandiose aspirations that Pitkin and

Adams had set out instead what they

tended to do was search for happiness

and a hurry this is a wonderful book by

Edmund burglar the revolt of the

middle-aged man

published in in 1958 that Edmund burglar

was an American psychoanalyst who had a

very extensive clinic and he drew on his

clinical experience to write about a

whole variety of challenges relating to

marriage middle age and midlife in

particular in relation to men he has a

lovely book published in 1948 saying

divorce won't help if anybody is

interested and his argument in fact in

that book and in this book is that

before a couple run to the divorce

lawyer they should go and see a

psychiatrist that this is about the

challenges within themselves and their

relationships so what he says is that is

that during the 40s and 50s the collapse

of the American Dream in many ways and

you can trace it through American

post-war literature as well in

particular the collapse of the dream

left people struggling and they

translated those struggles or those

aspirations into a dream of material

Plenty into consumption seduced by the

pleasure of consuming material goods but

also the pleasure the anticipation of

consuming our

the people this was the emergence if you

like of a form of narcissistic self

fulfillment that drove some of the

behavior that you see in in Reggie Peron

so burglar four burglar people were

looking for happiness in a hurry and he

has this beautiful passage which

describes very very clearly the thought

processes that he attributes to people

like Reggie Perry in this mindset

stressed by life circumstances feeling

that they had failed feeling that

although they were looking down to death

everybody was telling them that life

begins at fourteen things should be

getting better at that moment they were

anxious and backed more depressed than

they would have been otherwise and this

is the this is the mindset if you like

of a Reggie Peron

I want happiness love approval

admiration sex youth all this is denied

me in this stale marriage to an elderly

sickly complaining nagging wife let's

get rid of her start Life all over again

with another woman sure I'll provide for

my first wife and children sure I'm

sorry the first marriage didn't work out

but self defense comes first I just have

to save myself so what is left of those

aspirations in the midst of midlife

middle-age stress the argument that life

should be getting better not worse that

optimism that we could achieve the

American dreams that was dashed what was

left was a sense of selfish narcissistic

belief that we would do something some

happiness ourselves and this burglar

suggested was why people like Reggie

Peron had crises pushed from their

marriages pushed from their

relationships disappointed in their

lives but seduced by a dream that was no

longer achievable except through the

selfish pursuit of pleasure

let me reflect then to finish on where

we've been

Reggie Peron in some ways spoke for a

generation

he was an everyman if you like and his

wife and children every day victims of

the kinds of pressures that people and

families were under in the 50s 60s and

70s we can certainly understand his

behavior that random impulsive

destructive behavior as the product of

psychological despair I've hit my peak

I've reached my prime but it no longer

means anything because all I look

forward to is the downward curve of life

and death as that sense of an identity

crisis that is captured very very neatly

by David knobs but also you can see it

in other literary and cinematic forms as

well in the fifties sixties and

seventies all we can read it in

biological terms we can say that pairing

is aging he's losing his virility he's

losing his hair he's losing muscle mass

and energy and that leads him into a

crisis of despair as well linked to

death but not entirely the same we can

see this in individual terms this is a

man behaving strangely

what I want to suggest though is that we

cannot understand Reggie unless we cast

our lens wider than that unless we zoom

out to see the social and the cultural

conditions in which Reggie Peron was

living and in which we continue to live

in some ways so there are perhaps two

conclusions that I want to make the

first is that we are aged Reggie us we

are aged not just by our minds and

bodies but we are also aged by history

by the cultural values the attitudes

that beliefs the norms the practices

that we have inherited from the past

some ways Reggie Perry in the late

seventies

went off the rails because of what had

happened in the 1950s and 60s

both in terms of the life course end in

terms of the seduction of materialism

the second point is this that in that

context when we are saying that we're

aged by history and culture within that

context the midlife crisis is no longer

the biological the natural phenomenon

the inevitable phenomenon of aging it is

immediately a social and a cultural

phenomenon the midlife crisis that

Reggie suffered from that we perhaps

continue to suffer from is a set of

experiences that is generated by

historical change shaped by cultural

contexts and social economic conditions

and determined also by political

contingencies thank you

[Applause]