Theme of the Month: What's the relationship between age and wisdom these days?

Oscar Wilde said with age comes wisdom, but are we getting stupider? What’s the relationship between age and wisdom these days? We’ve all heard the phrase, ‘the more you learn the less you actually know’. Indeed, it feels like we have all the information we could want at our fingertips nowadays, yet arguably, we’re having more basic conversations than ever before.

Does humility play a part? There’s a phrase attributed to Socrates, ‘I know that I know nothing’, as in, only wise people can recognise their true ignorance. There’s also an argument that each generation is smarter than the last: if true, this makes Gen Z the smartest and most clued up of us all — which is perhaps reflected in their rejection of certain conventions that came before, and being the most activist generation in decades.

A few of the ideas and thoughts that our writers will explore this month…