I read the article I mention in the immediately previous post...
...Pax Americana Geriatrica yesterday morning at breakfast. My choice of reading times was mildly unfortunate. My mother and I often read at breakfast. Our breakfast reading is social. One of us usually reads the morning newspaper while the other reads one (or more) of a surprising variety of magazines (from my mother's infamous gossip rags to National Geographic to food magazines, most recently Bon Appetit, to which we landed a free subscription, and always the latest Penzey's Spice Catalog to Harper's, etc.; whatever we happen to have in our house at any given breakfast) scattered across the table top. We look for bits and pieces to share and discuss with one another. This Miller-McCune article provided little fodder, which frustrated my mother because I insisted on reading it through silently without breaks. I found a couple of interesting nuggets that I shared with her, though, so Breakfast Reading wasn't an entire loss, yesterday:

• The first was a factoid stating that in 1935, when Social Security in the U.S. was implemented, the age of implementation, 65, was two years beyond the age of life expectancy, which, at that time, was 63. "Isn't that interesting," I said to my mother, "Social Security was designed to provide economic security only for those lucky few who managed to lived beyond life expectancy...it wasn't designed to help the general elderly...only the special elderly." The article also mentions that life expectancy, today, is 78. "According to the way it was meant to be administered," I continued, "Social Security 'shouldn't' kick in until one is 80." Mom remembered that when Social Security was implemented her mother and father enthusiastically participated as business owners/self-employed. She told me that they contributed "as much as they were allowed" every year until they retired. They retired, when they sold Latchstring Inn, in 1969; my grandmother was 75; my grandfather was 85.
• The second was mention that "youth bulges" in any particular population usually spawn political radicalism and violence, particularly when such "bulges" are not easily absorbed into the economic circumstances of a country. The article speculates, based on research, that the Middle East and North African youth bulges, as they age, will follow the usual pattern: They will become "a source of political stability and economic development." My mother made the obvious comparison to "my" generation, the 1960's and 70's and how "we" "settled down" in the 1980's. I was, frankly, surprised, and pleased, that she made this connection, even though the character of the economic stability "we" created in the 1980's is largely what is undoing our society, now.

    The perspective of the article is decidedly economic and political with only a nod to a sociological perspective. It is also soaked with a surprising cheerleader-like tone regarding the likelihood that the U.S. will come out on top of the heap from both economic and political power perspectives because it is aging more slowly than the other power brokers mentioned in the article. It doesn't address the possibility that this implied political supremacy based on a slower population aging profile may also underlie the U.S.'s current militaristic bullying that is frightening and disgusting much of the rest of the world. There is no mention of possible future contenders: I.e., a South and/or Central American union of states; the possibility that the greener a nation becomes, in the near future, the more likely that it will wield more political power, which bodes well for the EU (in fact, the article doesn't mention, at all, of the possible future political power of the EU); India and/or the possibility of an Asian Union of States, or, for that matter, a much more active union of Middle Eastern and/or African states. The article also asserts that the only possible effect an elder bulge could have on Gross Domestic Product for any country would be to lower it, thus lowering that country's economic strength and political influence. It ignores the ant-like energy we, at least in this country, are currently applying to the idea that elders can remain productive, in a variety of ways, throughout their lives and that, somehow or another, we will find a way to ameliorate our recent discovery that dementia, in a variety of ways, seems to plague many of those who live within the boundaries of expanded life expectancy. There is also no mention that servicing elders and relying on elders to provide unique services is an industry unto itself with GDP implications. As well, although the article clearly states that current global aging is "unprecedented" (which I question...I vaguely recall reading that at the time of the American Revolution the great political powers of the time were in a similar elder bulge situation), it doesn't take into account that the actual age range of the aging bulge is the most notable precedent and, in regard to dealing with a bulge which includes many who live close to and past the century mark, we are completely at sea...we're in the early stages of learning what the facets and implications of advanced age are.
    Despite the article's refusal to consider the sociological ramifications and possibilities of an aging population, the mere existence of the article raises some intriguing questions. Here are just a few:

• What about elder activism, which seems to be proving itself somewhat more effective than youthful activism, albeit in less advertised ways?
• What about the possibility that the older we, as individuals become, the more likely we are to prefer peaceful activism to to violent activism and that, beyond middle age, aging does not imply conservatism?
• What about the possibility that other countries, perhaps because they are aging faster than the U.S., are discovering and will continue to discover ways to incorporate elders into society that will transform their societies into more livable environments that the U.S.?
• What about the unique life perspective that aging confers, a perspective with which I am just beginning to become personally familiar? As more people come into this perspective, how will its burgeoning primacy affect the way Global Power Brokers broke power?
• What about the danger of being The World's Top Power Dog by virtue of economic and military supremacy in a world which is much too populated to put up with political grandstanding and competition, anymore?
• And, you know, what about my mom and the influence her Ancient Self has on me, through our relationship? If it happens that relationships such as my mother's and mine become valued and supported by our societies (assuming that they not only will, but they must), what effect will this have on the assumptions of this article?

    The list could continue and include such concerns as an overpopulated world's vulnerability to plagues and epidemics and what this would do to The Balance of Power; what seems to be the growing world-wide awareness that a society's success might be better measured by the well-being of its individual citizens rather than the well being of its GDP; the dawning realization that the Earth, itself, might be preparing to, in short order, allow this virus that we call humanity to control itself by letting it attempt to live in an environment its created that doesn't, anymore, promote its proliferation? Considering that the elderly are a particularly vulnerable population and we, as a species, are not yet facile at controlling this vulnerability, even though we'd like to be and dream of being so, what other factors immediately threaten the elder bulge and how likely are they to turn all of this elder bulge speculation on its head?
    From my perspective, we continue to be a thinking species that hasn't yet figured out how to accurately and felicitously think ahead. When our futures arrive, they continue to surprise us. This hasn't changed. I think global aging has just begun to surprise us with its implications. I fear that these surprises will be largely disruptive but I hope they are, finally, largely good. In the meantime, it might be wise for us to consider protecting our elders much better than we currently are because, in doing so, we might also protect ourselves.

    A half hour to Mom's reveille.
    Later.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 12:34   email  this post