Perhaps one of the most oft repeated reasons for the greatness of civilization is that it has nearly doubled the life expectancy of human beings, and while that does seem to be the case, what is also true is how much it has damaged the experience of old age.
The modus operandi of civilization is progress. Civilized humans believe that time is a steady march towards ever available new peaks of greatness. We nurture that delusion by accepting that things like population growth, technological advancement and the promise of globalism are all signs that it is better to be a human right now than it ever has been before, even when those things are dehumanizing, destructive and increasingly exploitative. And perhaps one of the most disturbing developments of all of this progress is that it displaces the old and makes them irrelevant.
For the hundreds of thousands of years in which relatively egalitarian human groups roamed the planet gathering and hunting, life would go unchanged for generations. Outside of distant travel and climate shifts, human beings lived similar lives for dozens, or even hundreds, of generations. For those who survived into old age, their lifetime of wisdom was relevant, fascinating and in demand to the younger members of their group. They were indispensable dispensers of knowledge and wisdom necessary for the happiness, well being and survival of their reverent younger pupils.
In a world of progress we have come to the stage where the lived experience of the old is hardly relevant. The world has changed so much that knowledge and wisdom of the old is either no longer of value, or at the very least, no longer seen as being of value. We use terms like “set in their ways” and “out of touch” to describe our rejection of what old folks have to offer. Even more pathetic are the old folks who try to remain relevant by adopting the values, virtues and culture of young people, whose delusion, denial and pandering are inauthentic and lack dignity.
This devaluing of older people is multiplied by population growth, which makes it easier for seniors to remain virtually hidden away where they are out of sight and mind, but even more so by the fact that there is a higher percentage of seniors than there ever has been. The supply is high and demand is low.
And then there is the cultural displacement. Our entire culture is youth-centric. With few exceptions the most popular music, films, books, etc. are aimed at a younger audience, and often made by younger creators. Older audiences are a niche market expected to either get on board with youth culture, or continue to follow whatever older creators still exist from their youth. With few exceptions do we ever think of senior artists as cutting edge mavericks, or relevant icons of the zeitgeist, even if they are.
Indeed our notions of health, beauty, sexuality and just about everything else all revolve around youth. And in recent years the disdain for older generations seems to have grown, with new labels and insults popping up to signal how little mainstream culture values its older participants.
At the same time the old grow bitter and disdainful of youth. Feeling displaced, devalued and dehumanized – and then wound tight by the media factions catering to their angst – they blame the youth for the state of the world, just as the youth blame them. Living with that kind of anger is the opposite of wisdom. It has transformed the peaceful easiness and prestige of the twilight years into a painful, lonely struggle to feel a sense of belonging and purpose in the world.
Every generation blames the next generations for being the worst yet. This fact is often referred to as evidence that it is never true, but it could also be that it is always true, and humanity continues to worsen as we grow wildly apart from our primal roots and are trapped in the maddening artifice of civilization.
As we age we eventually cross from seeing death as a distant, abstract event – to seeing its inevitable approach. That seems a lot harder to accept when there aren’t any good reasons to be old. Where ancient humans may have relished the respect, honor and reverence they achieved through longevity, civilized humans have little to look forward to. Civilization has robbed old age of its greatest reward – esteem.
The problem worsens. As the world progresses exponentially it has changed so rapidly that the generation rift widens more quickly. Where just a few decades ago we forgave the old their archaic ideas and habits as a reasonable effect of ‘being from a different time’, now scorn and blame is heaped upon them mercilessly. And so the angst and defiance of the old worsens in response, and they take on bad values like materialism and authoritarianism, which gives their youthful detractors more ammo to dehumanize them. It is a feedback cycle which harms the experience of being alive for everyone, while pushing us more quickly down the path of self destruction.
On the bright side at least auto-despotic extinction will eventually vanquish the virus of civilization. Perhaps enough of us will survive to learn to live in harmony with the natural world. And human beings can once again grow old with dignity and honor, instead of being hung up wet to dry when the machinery of centralized hierarchy and technological society renders us obsolete.
The Dungherder 