Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age by Susan Jacoby

First of all, I want to make it clear that it is sheer coincidence that I am criticizing another atheist today; this makes two-in-a-row, and I realize that looks bad. As I have said many times, I love the atheists for keeping us honest and forcing us (okay: me) to cut the perpetual starry-eyed routine. However, I have just read a very good book by an atheist, but I'm afraid her atheism has compromised the book, so I have to say so.



Susan Jacoby's fascinating NEVER SAY DIE: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age, is one of those books I have been waiting for, and didn't quite realize it until I found myself hungrily turning pages and consuming it all in one afternoon. Interestingly, I finished it right after my doctor-visit and a lecture (not the first) about my cholesterol.



Do I see the numbers? Yes.



My weight and glucose are way down... but that damn LDL number creeps up and up. "If diet and exercise are not enough..." echo those damn TV ads from evillll BigPharma. Yes, they mean ME, now.



My 35-40 lb weight loss over the past 18 months, coupled with my devoted Swamp Rabbit Trail hiking, was supposed to magically make my cholesterol number go down and... (stares uncomprehendingly at the printed lab results that announce my HDL/LDL) well, it didn't work. I am pleased I am no longer a diabetes risk, but... well, shit, it's always something.



And that is a very good description of aging, "it's always something"... in this hard-nosed book that debunks and deconstructs the various Hallmark-greeting-card myths of aging, Jacoby plows right in. As one of those dedicated atheist-rationalists that takes no prisoners, she decimates several of the major aging myths, and not a few of the minor ones. For example, if you are an asshole in your youth, there is no reason to think you will age gracefully into a nice person with appropriate old-age "wisdom" -- and vice versa. As evidence, she offers (on one hand) Henry Kissinger, who is ancient but still defending genocide with aplomb. On the other hand, she offers Jimmy Carter, who continues to contribute to and enrich our world in so many ways. Certainly, these are excellent examples, and she has no argument from me. My grandmother always said old age simply made you "more of what you are"--and Jacoby seems to agree.



Jacoby is careful to use the terms "young old" (which would be me) and "old old"--which are people in their 80s-90s. She believes the "young old" are used for propaganda purposes, so that (basically young and middle-aged) people can point to them/us with relieved sighs and reassure themselves they can "stay active" while growing old and spry. By contrast, nobody puts the "old old" in TV commercials and nobody seems very glad to see them. They are carefully segregated from the rest of us. She writes at length about the problem of loneliness in old people, as their friends and loved ones die off all around them.



One thing I found disturbing in Jacoby's book, is the casual way she accepts this. She does NOT accept other states-of-affairs as unchanging (in fact, she tells us she intends to go out as an "angry old lady"), without thorough questioning--so why is this particular fact just offered as a given? Perhaps because she simply states that she would not change her life for her aging mother, just as her mother had not changed her lifestyle for her aging mother. However, she does note that her grandmother DID take care of her great-grandmother. Somewhere along the way, "we" (there's that famous punchline: "Whatcha mean We?") stopped doing that. We did? (Did someone mention economic class?) Actually, lots of people didn't. The professional classes, the educated class to which Jacoby belongs, people who have book contracts and write regular columns for the Washington Post, did that first. People with important careers found that they could not (would not) be bothered with aging relatives. That was a deliberate choice that Jacoby made, but it is in no way a given.



"Old old" people are more segregated than ever, and that is because advanced capitalism demands total mobility from everyone, so we end up moving all over the world to get and keep jobs. Of course old people are warehoused, who else is going to look after them? (A possible good side effect of the economy tanking, might be that fewer people are forced to move around so much, and old people might actually be able to stay in real homes.)



One of Jacoby's chapters is alarmingly titled, Women: Eventually the Only Sex. Women overwhemingly overpopulate the "old old" ... social and political concerns about aging are basically about the future of women and how we will live in our final decades; as we all know, the guys check out earlier. Jacoby echoes my own feelings in how modern feminism, profoundly uncomfortable with aging, does not see the economic debates over Social Security and Medicaid to be directly concerned with women, even though WE are primarily who these programs are about... young feminists are preoccupied with sex, reproduction and other youthful pursuits, and it is unlikely we will get them to understand that this is THEIR future too. And that reminds me of another thing I disliked in the book, Jacoby's request that we lay off older men who prefer younger women, using some half-baked pseudo-Darwinian excuse about how men are visual and require more and more to turn them on as they age. Excuse me, but so? It takes me more and more too. If I can refrain (as most women do) from pinching boys on the ass and/or asking them to get married, I think most older men can show some restraint as well. The fact that they don't is because men don't need to exercise restraint... RESTRAINT is not masculine, after all. I am not sure why feminist Jacoby found it necessary to cut men slack in this one area in which they decidedly DON'T NEED ANY, but ... (yeesh)



From Jacoby's website, a summary of the book:

The author offers powerful evidence that America has always been a “youth culture” and that the plight of the neglected old dates from the early years of the republic. Today, it is urgent to distinguish between marketing hype and realistic hope about what lies ahead for more than 70 million Americans who will be over 65 in just twenty years. This wide-ranging reappraisal examines the explosion of Alzheimer’s cases, the uncertain economic future of aging boomers in a shaky economy, the predicament of women who make up an overwhelming majority of the oldest—and poorest—old; and the absence of control over dying in a society that devotes a huge proportion of its health care resources to medical intervention in the last year of life—even when there is no hope that the person will ever recover.

One amazing fact she offers is that even among Catholics, a majority support assisted suicide.



Since I am giving this book a (mostly) good review, where do I think Jacoby got it wrong? Exactly where an atheist would get it wrong: In not covering the role of religion in the lives of very old people. ESPECIALLY when she discusses depression and loneliness and other negative emotional states. Does religion help with these? (they do in young people) She totally avoids the question. I realize the answer may well be "no"--but I would like to see an honest airing of the question, preferably accompanied by some stats (which I realize would be difficult to obtain; like a nice meal, religion is a subjective experience, pleasant for some and pure hell for others)... but I am intelligent and self-aware enough to know that *I* will become a religious fanatic of some sort in my old age. I am trying to work it out so that I will not be an annoying type of religious fanatic, but a benign presence or (at best) one that people might take some comfort from. But I know already, that religion is my opiate, and at the end of my life, I will be administering opiates (all kinds) in spades.



What does atheism offer? I think yall might consider "atheist congregations" of one kind or another, for the social needs of atheists. Sweet Mormon, Baptist and Catholic ladies will come to visit you when you are old... In fact, I visited the late Monsignor Baum myself, about a week before his death (he gave me a blessing in Latin, he seemed to have forgotten the words in English, which I actually found charming) --even though I barely had time to wipe my butt in those days. But I made visiting him a religious priority.



Question: Do the atheists have ladies with angel-food cakes standing ready to visit the old atheists? (If not, yall really need to get to work on that.)



And if the atheists say, fuck angel-food cakes, we don't need people to visit us when we're old, well, maybe that is the major difference between them and the rest of us. They expect us all to be as hard-assed as they are, and we just can't do it.



Does religion make old age better or worse? And I don't simply refer to the religious practices of the old person in question, I also refer to religion as a social force; do not underestimate the importance of hundreds of Sunday School classes going to visit the old people and sing them songs.



I know I'll just love seeing them, when it's my turn.

Let's swim to the moon

At left: Ben Hall, at Bohemian Cafe on Saturday.



One of those things about age that makes me profoundly uncomfortable: I get sentimental very quickly.

Like, really sentimental.

It overtakes me suddenly, and there I am, shedding tears over seemingly peculiar, unrelated or odd events. Such as Ben Hall and his guitar playing. Which was just like my late stepfather's. (Note: although the outdated link claims Ben is 18, he has now reached the ripe old age of 22.)

Until I was sitting there listening to Ben, whom I hadn't heard before, I didn't realize I had unconsciously avoided the music of Chet Atkins for a reason... I was suddenly aware that the "thumb-picking" guitar-style of Ben's, was the same as my stepfather's. I have avoided it for many years, flipped radio channels and such, because it made me so emotional. And as Ben described his style of playing, I thought, oh no... because I probably would have avoided his fabulous guitar playing if I had known.

I listened, and promptly got all teary-eyed and emotional. It is so embarrassing, reminding me of a line from Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now: "I cried like some grandmother." Yeah, I guess he means me. I have arrived!

Does any music do that to you?

Here is Ben's playing, the signature thumb-pickin style.

Cannonball Rag - Ben Hall



~*~

This song is as old as I am, seriously... careful, its about death, and way before the Doors made drowning at night sound sexy and existential.

I can hardly believe its taken me this long to post it!

Endless Sleep - Jody Reynolds



~*~

And speaking of the Doors, here is the 60s version of drowning for fun:

Moonlight Drive - The Doors



Let's swim to the moon
Let's climb through the tide
Penetrate the evening that the
City sleeps to hide
Let's swim out tonight, love
It's our turn to try
Parked beside the ocean
On our moonlight drive

Let's swim to the moon
Let's climb through the tide
Surrender to the waiting worlds
That lap against our side

Nothing left open
And no time to decide
We've stepped into a river
On our moonlight drive

~*~

Sorry so morbid, but its been a rather morbid week in America, yes? ;)

Retro politicians

Listening to the Retro Rock channel on Music Choice, I am startled to learn what is considered Retro these days. Marilyn Manson is "Retro"? Holy shit, who knew. (The kids, I guess, knew.) And there is now "Hip-Hop Classics"... wait, what? Didn't hip-hop start, like, last Tuesday or something? How can there be classics already?

Yeah, aging can be perpetually culturally dislocating and ... sometimes, just plain weird. It certainly provides for perspective and ample opportunities for cynicism and skepticism.

Like, take Newt Gingrich. Please. (My photo is from our recent demonstration against Fox News.) Why do we have to put up with him AGAIN? My father-in-law is going to flip out over the simple fact that he has to look at Newt again, after his beleaguered congressional district was finally RID of his dopey, self-important, narcissistic neocon ass.

Conservative politicians never die, they just get jobs on Fox News.

Speaking of which, Mike Huckabee announced on Saturday that he is NOT running for president, for which small mercies we can be forever grateful.

His blather, however, was something else, all about his HEART and such. (Link to conservative Arkansas blog containing his complete statement here.):

When people asked me what it would take for me to run, I would tell them the same thing—pray for me to have clarity in the decision. I don’t expect everyone to understand this, but I’m a believer and follower of Jesus Christ. That relationship is far more important to me than any political office. For me, the decision is ultimately not a political one, a financial one, or even a practical one —it’s a spiritual one.

The past few weeks, the external signs and signals and answers to many of the obstacles point strongly toward running. When I am with people encouraging me to run, it’s easy to feel the strength of their partnership and commitment to help me to the finish line. Only when I was alone, in quiet and reflective moments did I have not only clarity, but an inexplicable inner peace—a peace that exceeds human understanding. All the factors say GO, but my heart says NO. And that is the decision I have made and in it have finally found resolution. I don’t fully understand it myself—but I’m sure the pundits will.

And the pundits understand that it's really about Huckabee leaving his lucrative Fox TV show (which he would be forced to do if he ran for president) whilst he is trying to build his pricey, nice new home in Florida.

I kept switching back and forth from Huckabee to America's Next Top Model... after engaging in a little herbal refreshment, I started thinking Tyra Banks will probably run for president herself some day. She's far more entertaining than Mike Huckabee!

Rob Zombie is Retro? (shakes head in old-lady amazement)

Dead Air Church: Our Facebook era

Meditations today concern the rise of our social networking.

I was asked a question in response to my post about the late Ben Masel (in one of the comments later eaten by Blogger): Did I have any contact with Ben in recent years? And this made me think about The Rise of Facebook.

I had only re-established contact with Ben on FB rather recently. And far too soon, he passed away. It was painful, more painful than if I'd heard about his death at a remove. Hearing about memorial services, mourning friends and Ben's surviving daughter in "real time" was somehow more disturbing than if I hadn't.

I suddenly realized that Facebook has changed everything, including (most especially?) our interior landscape.

Remember how it was to "fall out of touch" with someone? To eventually lose contact completely? It just happened. In fact, let me be clear: it always happened, unless that someone was especially dear and precious. (And how many people are, really?) The meaning of the old-school Christmas card, for many of us, was what Facebook is now: a way to keep in touch and stay up to date. If you weren't on the Christmas card list--no known address, return to sender--well, that was that.

The funky guy who told the great jokes on your job; the pleasant lady who brought the children cookies at Sunday School; Ben Masel, who taught me to be a Yippie... teachers, co-workers, ex-spouses, ex-neighbors... whatever happened to ---? Now, we can keep in touch with them all.

So to speak.

And are we really "in touch"? I guess so, since we can look in on them and see what's happening, or at least see what they want us to know is happening. We can see how they look, where they live, and what they find important enough to mention.

Falling out of touch? Losing contact? Well, you never have to let that happen again.

That is... jarring, to those of us who grew up that way. And what does it mean, that future generations will never know what that is like?

Or will they? Will there always be the Facebook holdouts, the deleters of accounts? The people who simply 'disappear'? Such an act will now take on added significance; it is now deliberate. Before Facebook, it was just the way of the world. And now? It will seem suspicious, as if one is purposely, even determinedly, anti-social.

Maybe it's a sign of being an old fuddy-duddy, but I am glad the various addled twists and turns of my life are not available for public consumption. Certain periods of my life (hardline feminism, early sobriety, the dreaded pseudo-Opus Dei period) are somewhat embarrassing to me now, and I am glad I didn't (couldn't!) broadcast any of that stuff. How could I have explained it? Buddhism holds that there is no "I" or actual self, while Facebook enshrines that same nonexistent self to a fare-thee-well.

If I was unable to completely escape or obscure aspects of my past, would I instead embrace them with verve? Would I change as quickly and easily as I have changed so many times in my life, or would I be even more committed to a particular lifestyle as part and parcel of my identity?

If "hard-partying" became an iron-clad part of my identity, would I have entered recovery at the relatively young age of 24? Or would it be even easier, since a thriving online scene beckons from that corner also? (Do the hard-partiers defriend the people who enter recovery? Vice versa? Admittedly, I have no idea.) If I had totally ensconced myself with Opus Dei-like commandos, would I have ventured out to hear what the Buddhists have to say?

When my daughter moved to Texas, she didn't leave her friends behind. I often think back to what a comfort that would have been for me, those times I uprooted myself and nearly died from homesickness.

And then again, there is Gatsby, the quintessential American character. We re-create ourselves throughout our lives, in numerous ways, large and small. Is Facebook making Gatsby more or less possible and is that a good thing?

Just some random Sabbath thoughts. And what do you think?

Ain't this boogie a mess?

I need some soundtrack to getting tarred and feathered over at Womanist Musings. Comments welcome, here or there.

I am told there is something... off... about the language of my post, according to one gentleman-commenter. I told him, it is likely because I use the language of his mother, rather than his friends.

And a story from the 70s gets translated into a story from NOW, and found weirdly wanting. Well, that was then and this is now, could be why. (I am very, very weary of today's standards being applied to the past. Yes, we all know better now, but that was not the point of the story.)

(sigh)

See, this is why I am so reluctant to guest-blog. HERE at DEAD AIR, yall know I am an old hippie, and I am not taken to task for calling someone ELSE a hippie. Jesus H.

If I recount a story from the 70s, some of yall can even REMEMBER the 70s. ;)

Anyway, speaking of old hippies, Frank on Friday to the rescue! What would I do without this show, centering me every Friday at noon?

This one contains one of those incomparable Zappa guitar solos... and of course, Frank's famous dissertation on the meaning of the apostrophe, containing today's blog post title. (It sure is!)

Frank Zappa - Stinkfoot

American Electra by Susan Faludi

The funniest aspect of the mass internet-responses to Susan Faludi's much-discussed HARPER'S article, is that young women already run the joint. Therefore, when blogs like Feministing authoritatively announce:

We mulled over how to respond most effectively here at Feministing, and have decided to publish a week-long series of responses from a diversity of young voices in our community

Say whaat?

Um, isn't that who ALWAYS writes for Feministing? How is this any different from business-as-usual? They write as if this week-long special event is somehow different from the norm, and of course, it isn't, which is the hilarity.

In truth, "a diversity of YOUNG voices" (emphasis mine) is the typical demographic for ALL of the Big Feminist Blogs. The fact that a tiny middle-aged squawk over at HARPER'S (a magazine you have to BUY to read; it isn't online for everyone's perusal and I still haven't read the whole damn article) can create such a fuss, is telling.

I long ago unsubscribed to HARPER'S, after their Andrea Dworkin hit-piece, which I didn't like (see comments here). However, Susan Faludi commands widespread respect, even from young feminists. She is likely the primary reason for the overarching concern this time; even Amanda Marcotte, major Youthquaker, notes that she was eager to read Faludi's account. (For my part, I have been howling non-stop about ageism within feminism since my arrival in Feminist Blogdonia in 2007... nobody cares, and in fact, I am usually shown the door for bringing it up.)

What is immediately striking is how this mass counter-attack would not happen regarding any other form of discrimination, except (as we have seen numerous times) for fat. I very much doubt that if this was an account about racism in feminism by Alice Walker (and she did write one), the response would be, "to present a diversity of white voices in our community." (Or would it?)

Yes, it is the same.

Maybe worse, since Faludi outlines the incontrovertible facts: Second Wave feminism gave birth to the Third Wave, and this feud tends to imitate the elements of a mother-daughter fracas. Since that's what it is. Basically, many Third-wavers are spitting in their feminist foremother's faces. Faludi writes: "The contemporary women’s movement seems fated to fight a war on two fronts: alongside the battle of the sexes rages the battle of the ages."

Yep. (NOTE: Sorry I can't provide "a diversity of older voices" to reply along with me, but there are EXCEEDINGLY FEW of us online... and the Third-wavers have banished even those few, in favor of young folks talking endlessly about Lady Gaga. Thus, it is very difficult for us to even find each other.)

I still can't find the entire text of Faludi's piece, so if you can find one online, please link here. But here are some excerpts from what is currently posted:

Why does so much of “new” feminist activism and scholarship spurn the work and ideas of the generation that came before? As ungracious as these attitudes may seem, they are grounded in a sad reality: while American feminism has long, and productively, concentrated on getting men to give women some of the power they used to give only to their sons, it hasn’t figured out how to pass power down from woman to woman, to bequeath authority to its progeny.

...

I’ve been to a feminist “mother-daughter dinner party” where the feel-good bonding degenerated into a cross fire of complaint and recrimination, with younger women declaring themselves sick to death of hearing about the glory days of Seventies feminism and older women declaring themselves sick to death of being swept into the dustbin of history. I’ve been to a feminist conclave convened to discuss the intergenerational question where no young women were invited. After the group spent hours bemoaning the younger generation’s putative preference for a sexed-up “girly girl” liberation, one participant suggested asking an actual young woman to the next meeting—and was promptly shot down. I’ve delivered speeches on the state of women’s rights to college audiences whose follow-up comments concerned mostly the liberating potential of miniskirts and stripping, their elders’ cluelessness about sex and fashion, and the need to distance themselves from an older, “stodgy” feminism.

Gee, she sighed, I wonder why no young women were invited? (I can't imagine.)

Interestingly, Faludi uses the word "handicapped"--the type of old-fashioned term that makes young women (and me too, and I am older than Faludi) wince. (I wonder how often our language-choices 'mark' us as older, online?) She writes at length about the stylistic differences in Second and Third Wave feminists, and I suddenly remember my recent post in which I exhorted women to sass back to fatophobic doctors, advice that came almost verbatim from early issues of Ms. magazine, as well as Our Bodies Our Selves. I was lambasted for expressing disgust that women so often act like victims, instead of paying customers, which we are. This is the kind of thing that got me lauded (as a writer) in the 70s, but now, I get excoriated for saying the exact same things.

How radically have our sensibilities changed, that what I say can be taken (by my generation) as a praiseworthy goal, but by the young women as somehow insulting?

Faludi writes about the recent NOW [National Organization for Women] presidential election:

The candidate who seemed to be in the lead was thirty-three-year-old Latifa Lyles, a charismatic speaker attuned to a youthful sensibility, a black woman who insisted on a more diverse constituency, a technologically savvy strategist who had doubled the organization’s Internet fund-raising and engaged the enthusiasm of a host of feminist bloggers. A feminist activist since she was sixteen—when she told her mother she was going on a “school trip” and ran off to the 1992 reproductive-rights demonstration in Washington, D.C.—Lyles had worked her way up the ranks in NOW, from chapter leader to national board member to youngest-ever national officer. She had spent the last four years as national vice president for membership under [Kim] Gandy, who championed Lyles as her successor. “It’s hard to ignore the fact there’s been a generational shift in this country, and an organization that doesn’t recognize that is living in the past,” Gandy declared. “Latifa’s youth is not a detriment but an advantage. She’ll take NOW to a different level.”

“I never paid attention to a NOW election in my life until I knew Latifa was running,” Jessica Valenti, the founder of Feministing.com, a leading young feminist website, told the Associated Press. “This could be the moment where NOW becomes super-relevant to the feminist movement again.”

What kind of Major American Feminist isn't paying attention to the NOW election? I had no idea you could be a Big Feminist Blogger and Big Feminist Author and not care about NOW. (shows what I know)

If anyone wants to know what's wrong with modern feminism, doesn't that sum the whole thing up in a nutshell? The young women don't give a shit about NOW, unless the prez is a young hipster like themselves. Can we be forgiven for thinking they might not be too serious?

The preoccupations of the younger side of the generational divide were on rampant display the next afternoon at the young feminist workshop, which included tips on how to recruit other young women (do not use the NOW logo when advertising your event) and a prep session on Twitter marketing, led by a young woman in stiletto heels—along with tirades on the transgressions of NOW’s elders, people “so grumpy and crotchety that as a young woman, you come into that meeting, you’re like, ‘I’m never coming back here.’ ” “Many a time I’d hear, ‘Oh, why are you wearing high heels? We fought for so long not to have you wear those high heels!’ ” “I’ve been in meetings where Seventies-ish women say to me, ‘Oh, we’re so glad to have some young blood!’ It’s creepy, and we don’t like it.”

Do not use the NOW logo?!?

(They won't use the NOW logo, but I betcha they DO take those extra salaries, birth control pills and legal abortions that NOW secured for them.)

Lord have mercy, what a lousy state of affairs this is.

One young feminist I respect a great deal, because I know she heartily works for the Forces of Good, is Natalia Antonova, who wrote:

Inter-generational conflict always exists, and it affects way more than simply mainstream American feminism. Faludi’s assertion though that there is a “nightmare of dysfunction” within American feminism is, well… funny. For me, “nightmare” relates more to systemic exclusion of trans people. Or, say, how the concerns of those who are not middle-class and don’t get invited to sit on panels can easily get lost in the shuffle. Is that too much theory, perhaps? Theory, of course, is another thing that Faludi says that younger feminists are too preoccupied with.

Indeed, I have to say that bringing THEORY into the mix is something I genuinely appreciate about the youngsters. Recently, when I commented on another blog that [Bourgeois Feminist] didn't speak for me as a working class woman ... well, they heard me. They got it. I admit, older feminists often didn't, and still don't. They still don't understand why we all didn't vote for Hillary.

So maybe I wouldn't like the whole article, even as I enjoy the relatively cheap shots that I have quoted here. Maybe I'll even get to read it one of these days.

In the meantime, I am very pleased with my own daughter, as Jessica Valenti is proud of her own mother. Maybe that is key. Generalizations are one thing, and I can relate to them. But how do we really feel?

I am personally proud of young feminists when they stand up to patriarchy (pardon old-fogie terminology) and pave their own way... and that will never change.