There are people possessing of wisdom and there are people possessing of strength; and often these are not the same people.

There are plenty of young guys who have very strong personalities from being in the military or playing football, who don't know very much. And then there are any number of older people who have not much of any kind of strength left, but have a lifetime of wisdom and experience.

In many cases, there is no contact between the two, and that creates a negative outcome. The wisdom is lost and does not reach the doers, while actions that do take place are foolish. A much better outcome is to have wisdom being relevant to the world and to its actions. And this  means that the people of action need to always be close to people of wisdom in order to guide their actions toward more informed outcomes.

One error of gerontocratic societies such as China has been that of suppressing the youth. That is no more the rightful stance to take than is silencing the old people: there are plenty of ingenious and innovative things that can come from the youth, and the world benefits from them; and there are also any number of older people who are completely corrupt. More valid than either direction is one in which the old and the young have an ongoing interaction in a mutually respectful framework, with both the old age and the youth recognizing the value in the other and treating each other accordingly. One possesses more wisdom; the other possesses more dynamism, energy and charm. If the energy is adequately informed adequately by wisdom, it takes much better directions than it does if it is not.

This interaction is likely to reduce the risk of groupthink - of people thinking the same with each other to the point that their perspective no longer reflects reality. There are errors that are specific to old people (such as a hidebound embrace of tradition to the exclusion of innovation); and there are errors that are specific to young people (such as failing to recognize what other people have learned through life). One ruinous groupthink we've seen in recent years (though one unrelated to the issue of old age and youth) has been political correctness - a product of cold mean-spirited harpies in academia deciding that they speak for all women without other women having voted for them to do so, from which position they decided it rightful to maliciously attack all women who wouldn't submit to their party line. Both youth and old age, when left to their own devices, develop groupthink; and it is through constant interchange among one another that this problem is reduced.

But for right decisions to be made and put into effect, the person of action has to have the input from the people of wisdom; and this can take place at all levels of society. Some people will be more strong than they are wise, and some people will be more wise than they are strong. Putting the two together will result in more informed action. And that stands to benefit everyone.