The Overtones And Undertones Of Ageism

Age alone is not a good predictor of health status and that older people provide substantive economic contributions as both consumers and producers. Spending by people aged fifty and older amounted to $7.6 trillion in 2018, which accounted for 56 cents of every dollar spent. It is time to retire the outdated ageist mentality that older people are a drag on the economy and that their growing numbers signal the coming of a destructive wave that will lead to economic ruin. During the pandemic, the repercussions of age and ability segregation became crystalline. Because we devalue older people, we also fail to acknowledge the contributions of those who look after them with a living wage and proper resources. The response to the pandemic represented the accumulation of centuries of devolving attitudes toward aging and older people. And by we, I mean the global we. All these factors have shaped our understanding of what it means to age and to be old. All these factors influenced our collective response to a global crisis. Every dimension and manifestation of ageism was on full display. As we have learned through our tour of history, the term elderly had reverent beginnings in ancient times and morphed over centuries to take on derogatory connotations of presumed frailty and vulnerability.

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

The term elderly is now regarded as an inappropriate and dehumanizing catchall that minimizes the diversity and individuality inherent within the population of older people. Studies show people prefer the term older adult or older person over elderly, senior citizen, or senior, which homogenize an entire population. An infodemic, a term describing the perils of misinformation spread by the press, social media, and public announcements by officials, exacerbated ageist rhetoric, including discussions about the morality of rationing care for the old as if they were more expendable than other age groups.[4] It is not uncommon for discrimination to flourish during times of scarcity when those other people are perceived as a threat to deplete limited resources. Precisely which news items are fed to people on social media platforms is a function of algorithms based on each user’s preferences and attitudes. These algorithms amplify confirmation bias as they present material that supports an existing point of view rather than challenges it.[5] Ignoring, or not being exposed to, dissenting information forms polarization based on misinformation and skewed information. Ageism is perpetuated by a cyclical pattern in which discrimination is continually reinforced. Individual species don’t survive. An ecosystem where the elderly parasitizes the young cannot survive. So the ecosystem throws out a virus and makes the whole system more livable. No one is arguing that old people should die or be denied treatment, but we shouldn’t trade millions of lives to try saving the very old and frail from a virus.

Living On The Edge Of The World

It’s like an elephant jumping off a cliff to avoid a mouse. Quarantine the elderly, not the ones working, and let the young live again. The trending and antagonizing commentary on social media demonstrated how generalizations toward age groups provoked ongoing generational tension. News outlets reported concerning stories of Millennials and Generation Z flouting ordinances and disregarding safety measures with accompanying images of packed bars and overflowing beaches. As with ageism, oversimplified stereotypes about generations fail to capture any relevant information about individual variation or diversity of experiences. Younger people went grocery shopping for neighbors, visited relatives through windows and plastic sheeting, and made cards or wrote letters to people isolated by lockdown, often strangers, to convey solidarity and support. Ageism was evident in the evolving debate on mask wearing, which became politicized in a divisive way around individual freedom rather than unifying around collective responsibility. In 2020, as the pandemic raged, a deeply divided America was navigating a presidential election. With nerves on edge, the climate around campaigning was volatile. That’s a you problem, one of the older actors sarcastically said. This despicable approach to mobilizing young voters did succeed at marginalizing and stereotyping older people and further pitted generations against one another. I continue to have great difficulty understanding how anyone believes that promoting generational contempt is a winning progressively oriented strategy to secure votes.

Carry That Weight

It is absolutely absurd to assume that all older people lean to the conservative right and all younger people to the liberal left. This manner of binary thinking pigeonholes people and reinforces age and generational bias. The confluence of political divisiveness and pandemic age shaming worsened the already burgeoning problem of social isolation as older people were singled out to quarantine away from the rest of the world. The Great Barrington Declaration provides an example of how positive ageism and ableism can nonetheless promote othering and separateness. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable. Again, while well intended, the measures suggested essentially a hierarchical system of value and access based on age and medical vulnerability. Not to mention the reference to retired people as a monolithic group. The overtones and undertones of ageism and ableism erected more barricades for older people to be seen and heard, pushing the risk of social isolation to new heights. The voices of older people have been stifled for decades. Ageism has obstructed the individual agency of older people to the point that we believe others are within their right telling older people what they can and cannot do. Our caring nature tips over into infantilizing behaviors quashing individual choice and limiting personal freedoms. Determining that it would be too risky for an older person to work in their garden since they could possibly trip or fall is a basic example. This overly controlling protective behavior closes off a chance to enjoy life. Such an approach infantilizes older people as incapable of weighing risk versus reward, which is ironic given that they are the people with the most life experience.