Young men have a passion for regarding their elders as senile.

Adams’s aphorism points to a recurring generational reflex: the young often protect their confidence and sense of novelty by dismissing older people as mentally diminished. Calling elders “senile” is less a clinical judgment than a rhetorical move—one that clears space for new ideas, authority, and ambition by implying the old have lost relevance. The line also hints at insecurity: if youth must insist that age equals decline, it may be because the persistence of older competence threatens the young’s claim to superiority. Adams, a sharp observer of power and historical change, frames this as a “passion,” suggesting it is emotional and self-serving rather than rational.