To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent - that is to triumph over old age.
For an entire populace, change, growth, and spontaneity were dangerous. Acting upon a personal desire, whispering a hidden longing, revealing your true feelings - all the human actions we think of as essential to a character - had be censored by the self lest they be punished by the state.
It is in the nature of the New Yorker to be as topical as possible, on a level that is often small in scale and playful in intention.