Against plastic surgery: Why I never trust an old person without wrinkles

“Our earth in 1969 / Is not the planet I call mine,” W.H. Auden declares at the outset of his late poem "Doggerel by a Senior Citizen." While acutely aware of the youth revolt then transforming the culture around him, Auden makes it clear that he is perfectly happy being stuck in the past:

Then Speech was mannerly, an Art,
Like learning not to belch or fart:
I cannot settle which is worse,
The Anti-Novel or Free Verse.

Nor are those Ph.D’s my kith,
Who dig the symbol and the myth:
I count myself a man of letters
Who writes, or hopes to, for his betters.

Dare any call Permissiveness
An educational success?
Saner those class-rooms which I sat in,
Compelled to study Greek and Latin.

Though I suspect the term is crap,
There is a Generation Gap,
Who is to blame? Those, old or young,
Who will not learn their Mother-Tongue.

These verses display a quality seldom found among today’s aging cultural figures: a complete lack of interest in courting the approval of the young. Auden was 62 when he wrote the poem; how many sexagenarians in 2026 would willingly describe themselves as "senior citizens"?

Even as counterfeit youthfulness fails to convince actual young people, it can offer them a useful warning signal.

Nor did the legendary poet make much effort to conceal the fact of his age. By then his face had become famously craggy and weathered, prompting him to quip that it resembled "a wedding cake left out in the rain."

Perpetual maidenhood

As it happens, it was a wedding cake that helped launch pop star Madonna to worldwide fame. At the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards, the then-relatively unknown 26-year-old emerged from a 17-foot-tall, three-tiered prop cake in bridal white to perform "Like a Virgin."

Today, Madonna is five years older than Auden was when he wrote "Doggerel." It goes without saying that as a celebrity of a certain age, she has availed herself of the surgical remedies available to those with sufficient means. And she has achieved the familiar effect: She does not look old, exactly, though neither would anyone mistake her for young. Nor does she look particularly like Madonna.

In keeping with this perpetually "youthful" image, Madge continues to perform in the same kind of skimpy stage lingerie she wore in her 20s. Perhaps aware that the effect of such outfits is now more nostalgic than erotic, she has increasingly devoted herself to courting her sizeable gay male fan base. Yet even here she appears reluctant to surrender her claim on youth culture, recently "taking over" the gay hookup app Grindr to promote her latest album.

Withered wisdom

Whatever one thinks of her music, Madonna long ago secured her place in the cultural pantheon. She has nothing left to prove. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that she doesn’t have something to teach. You don't survive five decades in the public eye — weathering shifts in fashion, technology, and taste that bring lesser stars crashing back to earth — without learning a few things. But imparting the wisdom that comes with age and accomplishment would require shedding the past-its-sell-by-date "boy toy" packaging.

Many of us who aren’t famous must contend with this dilemma too. Even as a child, I cringed at the efforts of some adults to be “relatable” to me, abdicating their natural authority as if it would gain them back a few lost years.

Now, as a teacher slowly approaching my own Auden/Madonna crossroads, I hate to admit that I’ve at times found myself tempted to play the “cool” adult. Experience has taught me, however, that this pose has diminishing returns — especially in the classroom.

It also indicates a deeper moral and spiritual rot, as the late historian Christopher Lasch reminds us in his 1979 book “The Culture of Narcissism.”

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Cult of youth

Lasch’s thesis — which remains all too relevant almost half a century later — is that our modern “cult of youth” is emblematic of the nihilism and anxious obsession with the present that has overtaken so many. As he writes:

In a society that dreads old age and death, aging holds a special terror for those who fear dependence and whose self-esteem requires the admiration usually reserved for youth, beauty, celebrity, or charm. The usual defenses against the ravages of age — identification with ethical or artistic values beyond one’s immediate interests, intellectual curiosity, the consoling emotional warmth derived from happy relationships in the past — can do nothing for the narcissist.

It's not that fillers and facelifts can’t be used with subtlety and restraint — although this rarely seems to be the case. It’s that even the most imperceptible plastic surgery suggests surrender to this nihilistic worldview. The passage of time doesn’t lead us to some greater meaning; it can only offer us decay. Where these fragile vessels take us is either unknowable or irrelevant; the important thing is to keep the paint fresh.

God's design

This approach to physical decline may be dominant, but there remains another way. For every Madonna, we have the counter example of women like Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, and Meryl Streep, who embrace their age with elegance. The cliché rings true: Real physical attractiveness begins with inner confidence and manifests outwardly from within.

Even as counterfeit youthfulness fails to convince actual young people, it can offer them a useful warning signal. “Don’t look to me for guidance,” it seems to say. “I’m as clueless as you are.” When I need advice, when I need someone to help me view the everyday grind from a broader perspective, wrinkles and gray hair offer a certain guarantee.

They also offer me hope, especially as my own glances in the mirror become more fraught — hope that I, too, will find the serenity to resist the course of nature and the grace to accept God’s design.