I have a theory that people get nicer over time. My twenties were my era of high assholic-ness. That was when I was the most arrogant and the least aware of other people’s perspectives. I didn’t think it was my job to talk to anyone who didn’t live in New York City, wear a lot of black clothing, had an advanced degree, and own a very sarcastic sense of humor.
Sometimes, when I have insomnia, I think back to my thoughtless behavior from two decades ago and just hate myself.
So, I was kind of glad to read about Malcolm Gladwell’s recount of his own youthful assholic behavior.
Apt. 11d 
I’m probably a bigger asshole than I was in my 20s. I’ve always been fairly aware of other peoples’ perspectives but I’ve recently started asking myself why I should care.
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I think people who have the potential to be nice build reliable networks of friends over time. The nasty, self-involved types grow more isolated over time. You were probably normal for someone of your age and education. If you were really terrible, you wouldn’t have been able to form long-lasting friendships.
(OK, so my theory has a hole. Exceptions to the rule are the nasty, ridiculously wealthy and/or celebrities. I do not understand why anyone puts up with Justin Bieber.)
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I’m much less sure of that. Quite a few retirees and long-term unemployed seem to lose all sense of perspective, I suspect due to isolation and lack of demands on their time. This really comes out in neighborhood mailing lists, for example, but also perhaps through what Rod Dreher recently labeled “Fox Geezer Syndrome”.
Come to think of it, isolation and lack of real-world demands might have explained a lot of my youthful self-absorption as well.
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About half the old people on my street are absurdly hostile to each other. They mostly leave me alone or are really nice to be, probably because I shovel the steps for those that have them.
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Ben and MH are right that some people seem to get meaner as they enter old age. In the case of older women, I suspect that some combination of 1) the “nice” hormones disappearing with menopause and 2) people no longer being nice to them being for being pretty, which tends to produce matching “nice” behavior in response 3) far less peer pressure to be nice.
On the other hand, there are also lots of people who get mellower and nicer as they enter old age. A number of people find that even highly abusive parents get almost tolerable when they’re older, for whatever reason. My grandma doesn’t belong in the same paragraph with those people, but over the four decades I’ve known her, she’s gone from being a tightly wound domestic over-achiever to being surprisingly mellow (if still very active for her age). And that’s on hours a day of FOX for the past decade. My great-grandma (her MIL) was not at all political, but woe betide you if you tied a horse up wrong or left a gate open. If you screwed up, she could make you rue the day into her late 80s (which was when I worked for her with light gardening and housework), but everybody said she used to be much more verbally spectacular when meting out justice to wrongdoers.
I suspect that older people who have no interests but politics have pretty lonely, narrow lives, so I would expect them to be sad and miserable and mean.
Speaking of sad and miserable people–I’m not actually surprised that Robin Williams killed himself. I’m surprised at the people who are surprised.
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I’m reminded of that old saying “what’s down in the well comes up in the bucket”. My small sample of elderly in-laws/parents/relatives has shown that the veneer gets rubbed off and what is underneath emerges. It’s like they lose the ability to hide any nastiness or crankiness. It leaks out.
Too much alone time allows for too much rumination. Somewhat related to Laura’s post above on the benefits of staying engaged and fit, we need people around us to say things like “that’s a stupid idea” or ” you’re acting selfish”.
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Yes to all of that. Neurologically, I think part of it is that the ability to filter is reduced with age. My grandma is just a little less able to keep secrets now, which definitely has an upside! I’ve heard at least one person report that older people become better sources of family information with age.
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