Aging & Wisdom Quote by Logan P. Smith

Logan P. Smith slips the knife in with a smile: age needs a villain, and youth is the handiest one. By calling “denunciation” a “necessary part of the hygiene of older people,” he turns moralizing into maintenance, as if complaining about “kids these days” were as routine as brushing your teeth. The joke lands because it reframes what older generations often present as civic concern - standards are slipping, manners are gone - as self-care. Not enlightenment, not duty: a little daily grumble to keep the system running.

The sly genius is the bodily metaphor. “Greatly assists the circulation of the blood” makes the rant feel invigorating, almost aerobic. Smith implies that intergenerational scolding isn’t primarily about correcting the young; it’s about animating the old, giving them a brief rush of righteousness, purpose, and solidarity with their peers. Criticism becomes a social tonic: you bond by sharing the same target.

The subtext is less anti-elder than anti-posture. Smith is puncturing the ancient habit of disguising discomfort with change as principle. Youth here functions as a moving screen onto which older people project anxiety: about relevance, about control, about the creeping recognition that the world is no longer calibrated to their reflexes. The line also carries a warning: when denunciation becomes “hygiene,” it turns automatic, a ritual that cleanses the speaker more than it clarifies anything. The young aren’t uniquely corrupt; they’re just conveniently alive in a way the old can no longer be.