Accentuate the Positive? Aging and Ageism

by Stephen Katz

Social images of aging seem to come in two varieties; negative and positive. We know about the negative ones -- decline, dependency, disease -- because they are so pervasive and have come to define the aging process itself. At times such imagery has proven politically useful. For example, in the early twentieth century the imaginative lobbyists who fought for major pension and healthcare reform, often publicized and even exaggerated the economic woes of older individuals. In 1968, leading American gerontologist Robert N. Butler coined the term ageism to signify a new form of discrimination akin to sexism and racism. Carl Bernstein popularized the term in his article "Age and Race Fears seen in Housing Opposition," for The Washington Post March 7, 1969. Ageism has continued as a rallying call for those who advocate the rights of older groups.

Calling a group or whole society ageist, however, can also victimize elderly populations in a different way; hence, those who fight ageism can unwittingly reinforce the very negative stereotypes they work to challenge. Of course many older persons are needy, poor, lonely and powerless, but not all of them. And many people suffer chronic illnesses, but the majority do not. In fact, recent research has found many older people to be healthy, happy and hopeful. These points are made by those who advocate positive images of aging. Indeed, the championing of positive aging sparked the rise of gerontology (the science of aging) in the first place. Elie Metchnikoff, the inventor of gerontology, was a celebrated scientist who worked at the Pasteur Institute in Paris during the early twentieth century. He wrote two important books: The Nature of Man: Studies in Optimistic Philosophy (1903) and The Prolongation of Life: Optimistic Studies (1907). The optimism in his subtitles was deliberate. Metchnikoff thought one could confront and even eliminate the pathological ravages of the aging process with the right positive program. His influence was such that in 1902, his theory that sour milk was a rejuvenating miracle food, created an international sour milk craze. Today researchers and practitioners have continued the positive attack on negative and ageist ideas. They have developed new gerontological perspectives buoyed by changes in demographic patterns, the possibilities of extending the lifespan, and the rise and empowerment of "gray" political movements.

Then why have critics suggested that positive images of aging can lead to ageism? Shouldn't we be thankful that positive images of well-being, activity, autonomy, mobility and choice in old age are finally vanquishing the callous dominion of the negative? The critics argue that positive programs can impose unrealistic expectations on elderly persons and justify the social neglect of ongoing physical and financial difficulties. Sometimes, the positive focus can overlook the value of traditional pursuits, such as contemplation, wisdom and disengagement, which today become associated with inactivity and stagnation. As British sociologist Mike Hepworth puts it: "Positive and negative styles of ageing into old age are not objectively distinctive physical conditions waiting to be discovered, but are socially constructed moral categories reflecting the prevailing social preference for individualised consumerism, voluntarism and decentralisation."

In this critical light, the positive and the negative are not necessarily opposites. Rather, they share a continuum of images that represents certain aspects of aging under different conditions. Just as negative images were once a resource to the builders of the welfare state, positive images have become a resource to popular therapists, marketers and politicians, who promise individual fulfilment over collective gains. In popular therapies, positive images help to enlarge private and privileged spheres of expertise. In business, positive images in real estate, bodycare, travel, cosmetics, finance and recreation industries are a symbolic boon to marketers targeting a newly commercialized, but middle-class, seniors culture. For politicians and policy-makers, positive images add rhetorical weight to anti-welfarist programs. These aim at rewarding individual self-sufficiency and responsibility while cutting pensions and healthcare funding. Thus, in the warm glow of a new age of aging, where problem-free retirement lifestyles are promoted as the utopias of the future, the material challenges of growing older can remain uncontested -- poverty, homelessness, sickness. We must move beyond both positive and negative ageism to understand the complexities of our aging society. This is especially crucial as governments have declared war on human dependency while retreating from social support commitments across the lifecourse.


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Last updated May 4, 2001