Exciting Book! "The Making of an Elder Culture"

This new book by Theodore Roszak looks intriguingly on target for a lot of the things I believe Marsha's been talking about in our social policy class. I can't wait until inter-term to have the time to read it!

The Making of an Elder Culture: Reflections on the Future of America's Most Audacious Generation

The Making of an Elder Culture reminds the boomers of the creative role they once played in our society and of the moral and intellectual resources they have to draw upon for radical transformation in their later years. Seeing the experience of aging as a revolution in consciousness, it predicts an “elder insurgency” where boomers return to take up what they left undone in their youth. Freed from competitive individualism, military-industrial bravado, and the careerist rat race, who better to forge a compassionate economy? Who better positioned not only to demand Social Security and Medicare for themselves, but to champion “Entitlements for Everyone”? Fusing the green, the gray, and the just, Eldertown can be an achievable, truly sustainable future.

Ellen Langer = Brilliant.

I first stumbled across Ellen Langer in the article I quoted about Ageism and Health Outcomes. in an effort to hunt down the root of her quote, I came across this review of Langer's latest book, "Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility," in The Situationist.

Here are some of the main points from The Situationist article I like:

...we are all victims of our own stereotypes about aging and health. We mindlessly accept negative cultural cues about disease and old age, and these cues shape our self-concepts and our behavior. If we can shake loose from the negative clichés that dominate our thinking about health, we can “mindfully” open ourselves to possibilities for more productive lives even into old age.

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Most people try to dress appropriately for their age, so clothing in effect becomes a cue for ingrained attitudes about age. But what if this cue disappeared? Langer decided to study people who routinely wear uniforms as part of their work life, and compare them with people who dress in street clothes. She found that people who wear uniforms missed fewer days owing to illness or injury, had fewer doctors’ visits and hospitalizations, and had fewer chronic diseases—even though they all had the same socioeconomic status. That’s because they were not constantly reminded of their own aging by their fashion choices. The health differences were even more exaggerated when Langer looked at affluent people: presumably the means to buy even more clothes provides a steady stream of new aging cues, which wealthy people internalize as unhealthy attitudes and expectations.

We are surrounded every day by subtle signals that aging is an undesirable period of decline. These signals make it difficult to age gracefully. Similar signals also lock all of us—regardless of age—into pigeonholes for disease. We are too quick to accept diagnostic categories like cancer and depression, and let them define us. . . . [W]ith a little mindfulness, we can try to embrace uncertainty and understand that the way we feel today may or may not connect to the way we will feel tomorrow.

This Proves My Point on Ageism

This proves my point, right now, about ageism.

A search for "Ageism" on Google pulls up a shocking low return of 652,000 references.

As a point of comparison - "Sexism" on Google presently garners 4,230,000 results, and "Racism" on Google gets a whopping 23,000,000 returns.

No matter what your race or gender, all people are born with the potential, if they're lucky enough, to be aged. Yet, the discourse around ageism is minute compared to that of other biases and cultural prejudices.

In our Social Policy class, a few of us are working on a project about Language, Ageism and Policy. Essentially, we're researching ways that raising awareness about the usage of negative or positive labels regarding the older population can have a cultural impact. The fact that there's such minuscule discussion about the topic of Ageism as a whole confirms that this is a "hidden" problem, though it's hidden in plain sight.

My point is - let's get talking about "talking about" aging and stereotypes!

Now, how can we utilize Social Policy to get that going?

Link Between Ageism & Health Outcomes

Some notes for me to refer to later for our project in the Social Policy class:

According to the March 2006 Journals of Gerontology and Social Sciences, “Among 546 people ages 70 years and older, those who had negative images of aging (describing older adults as senile, feeble or stooped) were more likely to experience hearing loss than those who had positive images (describing older people as wise or active).” On the other hand, those with a positive aging self-image live and average of 7.6 years longer than those with a negative self-image.
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For older adults to accept the stereotypes as future reality is to threaten their future health and well-being. If there is a single myth about aging that most symbolizes our dread, it is the assumption that our memory will decline in old age. In a stunning study, Harvard psychologist Dr. Ellen Langer demonstrated that it is the near-universal expectation of memory loss that actually brings that fate upon us. The fear of aging is the single most powerful agent creating exactly what we fear. Accordingly to Langer, “As people age, low expectations lead to decreased effort, less use of adaptive strategies, avoidance of challenging situations, and failure to seek medical attention for disease-related symptoms.”

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To avoid creating unintentional negative perceptions, PRAXEIS avoids the use of words that sound institutional or might trigger negative mental images. Managers and operating team members are encouraged to use members instead of residents; residences or homes instead of units, beds, or apartments; and neighborhoods instead of facilities. They avoid using words like senior, elderly, continuing care, or retirement community all together. These are just a few of the words addressed in the growing Life Fulfilling Community Vocabulary to help redefine community living for life’s second half. Our simple rule to combat aging stereotypes is “if a word, title or description sounds institutional, negative, or ageist” do not use it.

Life Fulfilling Community