The eighth age of man
The seven ages of man are as follows. But are they the only ages of man? Pause for a moment to consider the the clarity of thought, by the way, as well as the elegance of the writing:
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.
– At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
– And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school.
– And then the lover Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.
– Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth.
– And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lin’d, With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances, And so he plays his part.
– The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose well sav’d a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound.
– Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
In the eighth age of man, he gets to watch the first seven around the clock, continuously, 24/7, on TV and the internet, and he always gets to choose the outcome he prefers — just by changing channels. That compression of life into 30, 60, and 90 minute time capsules of choice has contributed perhaps to a trivialization of the seriousness of life and politics today. And the language of the eighth age has become debased as well..
Most importantly, man is a visual creature, and the majority of his reactions come from visual cues. Hence, the new and awesome capability to create convincing and fantastical special effects blurs our sense of what is really real, and how to react to it. Recall the German composer Stockhausen’s comment that 9-11 was “the greatest work of art imaginable for the whole cosmos.” The visual images were art; reality was subsumed and mattered very little. The implications of the eighth age are deeply disturbing.
The original seven ages of man were well grounded in reality; after reading the phrase “oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything” — one wag put matters this way: that’s if you’re lucky enough to get old. By contrast, the eighth age seems rather less suited to being helpful to the survival of the species.