{"id":6970,"date":"2022-06-17T07:15:55","date_gmt":"2022-06-17T11:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/?p=6970"},"modified":"2022-06-16T07:18:45","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T11:18:45","slug":"the-paradoxes-of-aging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2022\/06\/the-paradoxes-of-aging\/","title":{"rendered":"The Paradoxes of Aging"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently came across a passage about contemporary aging so concise and insightful that I had to post it. It\u2019s from <\/span>a review<\/span><\/a> by eminent gerontologist Thomas Cole of <\/span>Aging and the Art of Living<\/span><\/i> (2012) by Jan Baars. <\/span><\/p>\n

We live in an era when ever-faster, ever-larger flows of information and images fly around the globe, leading to a cultural acceleration of everyday life. When this acceleration meets chronometric time, Baars notes, two paradoxes emerge: (a) \u201cpremature cultural senescing\u201d in which individuals live longer but are called old at earlier ages; and (b) the desire to stay young but grow older, which is the cultural creation of a huge antiageing industry in medicine and in commercial products that promise to maintain youth. These paradoxes result from the contradictory desires of long life and infinite youth. Our culture produces them because it suppresses and tries to control finitude and our increasing vulnerability over time\u2014those things that in Baars\u2019s view are the condition of our \u201cspontaneity, discovery, creativity and uniqueness.\u201d (p. 84)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, yes, yes. I already knew of Baars, whom Cole describes as \u201cthe premier philosopher of aging.\u201d Possibly my favorite quote in my book, <\/span>This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism<\/span><\/i> (2020), is his:  \u201cAutonomy requires collaborators.\u201d What brought him back to mind was a wonderful essay by \u201cphilosophical traveler\u201d Eric Weiner called <\/span>\u201cOld Age Is Not a Pathology,\u201d<\/span><\/a>  which contains another passage well worth quoting:<\/span><\/p>\n

Old age is not a disease. It is not a pathology. It is not abnormal. It is not a problem. Old age is a continuum, and everyone is on it. We\u2019re all aging all the time. You are aging right now as you read these words\u2014and not any faster or slower than an infant or a grandfather.<\/span><\/p>\n

Agreed, and beautifully put. I take issue, though, with another point Wiener makes:<\/span><\/p>\n

Philosophy helps us define our terms. What do we mean by \u201cold\u201d? Chronological age misses the mark. It is meaningless. It tells us nothing about a person, says the contemporary philosopher of aging Jan Baars. \u201cChronological age is not the cause of anything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Chronological age tells us far less about a person than we think it does, and the older the person, the less the number reveals. But it is not meaningless. Being young is different from being old, and age is a key component of identity. Baars, on the other hand, nails it again. Myriad factors shape our lives\u2014benefactors and tormentors, hardships and windfalls. Age marks when we encounter them, but no more.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently came across a passage about contemporary aging so concise and insightful that I had to post it. It\u2019s from a review by eminent gerontologist Thomas Cole of Aging and the Art of Living (2012) by Jan Baars.  We…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more The Paradoxes of Aging<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

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