Can A 20 Year Old Be Wise?

MayCaesar

Argument Topic: Conflation of concepts

Being successful at political activism does not imply being wise. What pieces of great wisdom have Greta Thunberg or Alexey Navalny produced that will be quoted for generations to come? One is a school dropout who makes non-scientific claims she picked up from various extremists and whose speeches are raw emotions with no substance (this is one of those cases where comparison with Hitler actually makes sense, and I am afraid that uncle Adolf wins this one), another one is a pretty typical Russian nationalist whose main opposition to Putin lays in his belief that Putin does not go far enough when it comes to expanding the Russian empire. What displays of wisdom am I missing?

As for the question itself, wisdom is a relative term. A 20 year old person can absolutely be extremely wise. That said, the same person at 30 years old is going to be far wiser still assuming nothing happens in their life that dramatically changes their approach to interpreting and learning from their experiences. In most cases, 20 year old people believe that they know almost everything there is to know about the world, and when they hit 30, they look back at their 20's version and are seriously embarrassed. I remember myself around the age of 20... I thought that everyone around me was a fool, and I alone had the access to the secrets of the Universe. Now I am in my early 30-s, and I do not think that I know much of anything. Am I wiser than I was 10+ years ago? Sure, and by far. Have I reached the pinnacle of wisdom across my whole life? No, not even close.