Aged by Culture
By Margaret Morganroth Gullette, The University of Chicago Press, 2004
The dream that underpins this book is its great attraction. It is that "toxic" images of ageing - images which, in the author's view, begin the minute we can no longer be described as young - will some day be vanquished.
In this dream, age will not be associated with decline and decrease in opportunities but, instead, everyone will appreciate and value the whole life span. We will all be at home at every age in the life course. Even better, no matter what our age, we should be able to look forward to the ages still to come.
The book itself is a scholarly text, directed more to the profession of cultural criticism than to ordinary readers. It spends a lot of time illustrating the deeply ingrained signals which tell us to fear the time when we are no longer young. It has few of the counter examples of the many vibrant individuals who are delighted with their older lives.
She sees the positive stories as exceptional and unconvincing. A few successful skirmishes in the real long-term war (war is her word) only just begun over ageism and the portrayal of age. A war in which the sides are "immensely unequal": the forces insisting age is decline far more powerful than the voices saying the whole life experience is to be valued. At least unequal thus far.
One important theme in the book is that the way we tell our personal story (or stories) to ourselves and to others is a powerful influence on the way age is defined and interpreted. There is an example, a fragment of a story, in the book that is interesting. It was told by a male professor:
A few years ago, in my late thirties, I began to play basketball with undergraduates at my university. After a few months I became a 'regular' on the court and imagined I was just 'one of the guys'. One day as I was walking off the court, feeling particularly good about a well-played game, a team mate turned to me and said, "Nice game, sir." That one communication disabused me of the 'one of the guys' self-image.
What interested us at Re-vision about the story is that, in our view, many interpretations about ageing (at thirty-eight!) can be ascribed to it. Was the young student being ageist? insulting to the professor? Was the professor right to feel hurt? Was this an example of intergenerational barriers being constructed?
Have you had similar experiences? What message did you read in
them?