There is a growing debate over whether positions of power should be held by older people as a consequence of their longer life, which, according to a lot of people, leads to more experience and a more developed leadership ability. I personally disagree and in this essay I will explain my prospective.
One of the major arguments against this belief is that, simply by looking at history, we can notice how the vast majority of vile and profoundly immoral historical events were the result of the actions of old men which many people believed were highly experienced because of their age and therefore had all the rights to be in the positions that they were. Young people were generally never given the chance of being in charge of a country and therefore we cannot precisely assess whether they wouldn’t have done the same things as their older counterparts. However, it is notable that many groups of political opposition against authoritarian and dictatorial regimes where formed of mostly young people.
Another powerful argument that goes against the thought that older people should be favored to be in positions of leadership is that they very probably may not be alive to feel the consequences of their actions and therefore they might not care to provide a sustainable future for the generations to come. During history this had often dire and profound results: older people in charge of a country decided to declare war to another country ignoring the terrible implications of this on young people that were forced to abandon their families and their daily lives to fight for people who didn’t care about them.
To summarize my points, I strongly oppose the idea that older people are in any shape or form more qualified that young people to lead a country just because of their age. This is due to the fact that we cannot find and evidence of this looking at historical events and that they might not be able to truly feel the consequences of their political actions.