Aging & Wisdom Quote by M. H. Abrams

Abrams isn’t praising novelty so much as disarming the reflex to moralize it. The opening move - “young people, especially, seize it” - frames cultural change as generational physiology: not decadence, not betrayal, just appetite. “You can’t complain about that” is the quiet scold aimed at anxious gatekeepers who mistake their own discomfort for judgment. A major critic is telling other grown-ups: don’t confuse surprise with decline.

The second half pivots from tolerance to historical sense. “I think its heyday has passed” carries the seasoned critic’s trademark demurral: he’s willing to concede the arc of fashion without declaring a corpse. That’s the subtextual tightrope. Abrams refuses both the booster’s hype and the reactionary’s obituary. The phrase “startlingly new” acknowledges how movements arrive: not as careful amendments to tradition, but as shocks - modernism, the new criticism, poststructuralism, whatever “it” is in the moment. Abrams’ genius is keeping the referent vague enough to apply broadly while staying rooted in a recognizable cultural cycle.

Most revealing is the last clause: “it’s had an effect and will continue to have an effect.” That’s not nostalgia; it’s an argument about afterlives. Even when the trend cools, its techniques, taboos, and permission structures linger. The remark doubles as a defense of criticism itself: the job isn’t to crown the latest thing or denounce it, but to track what it changes - in taste, language, institutions - long after the crowd moves on.