Stop Blaming Us!
A recent New York Times op-ed wants to target elders for many social-economic ills.
The term gerontocracy is defined as a form of social organization in which a group of elders “dominates or exercises control”. To put it differently, there is a sense among some now that the current generation of elders (that’s us) have way too much control of society, its’ wealth and our electoral system. This theory was discussed in a recent New York Times Sunday Opinion section op-ed by Samuel Moyn, a professor of paw and history at Yale. His article: “Older Americans Are Hoarding the Nation’s Potential” makes several points that while ageism exists in today’s world, there also exists “a gerontocratic society in which the old control ever more power and wealth, leading to overrepresentation in political life and unequal power in social life.” Moyn, who is 54, overviews a series of issues in his article (an appetizer for his forthcoming book) that seems to point out that we have way too much control of money, real estate and politics, as elders are more likely to vote. Moyn suggests that we, as a group, favor more restrictive immigration policies as well as a “resistance to policies to halt the overheating of the planet or raise funds for education and other civic purposes.” Now, in the op-ed there is no mention of how or where he gathered these statistics. I can report that these social views are not held by the group I associate with. That may be an issue, for there is a wide gap, socially, politically and perhaps spiritually between the huge cohorts of elders. One of the issues is that the older adult population of our country now spans multi-generations. There may be a very real difference in some of Moyn’s findings between the 70-year-old and the 90-year-old!
One of the things that concerns us about such op-ed pieces is that they focus a lot on the economics of life and not at all on the spiritual. There is also, among today’s elders, not only a growing economic gap (just check out access to health care), but also a growing spiritual gap. I do not refer just to attendance at or membership in a faith community, but the challenges in social connection and isolation. Money does not buy friends and too many of this country’s’ elders are spending those dollars in health care, just as the government seems to be trying to find ways to cut some of the funds to assist us. One recent study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine noted that “approximately one-quarter of community dwelling Americans aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated and a significant proportion of adults in the United States report feeling lonely”. You may now someone who, recently retired, is feeling some of this drift now that the phone has stopped ringing and that daily calendar is less filled with meetings, lunches and consults! We are also witnessing the rise in what the literature calls “solo agers”; people aging who have no family and whose friend cohort is aging along with them, thus the issue of caregiving and decision making becomes even more present.
Maybe we need to look at these realities from a more holistic perspective. We can ask if there is a real spiritual deficit among our generations, a deficit that is tied not to economic security by spiritual security. Does my life have meaning and purpose, and if not, how can I find it? Without that sense of meaning, we stand to fear being forgotten and the inevitability of invisibility. Our tradition believes it is society’s responsibility to provide a basic level of health care for each of us. It is not society’s role to provide each of us for a reason to live, that is our calling. Let us choose well and wisely.
Shalom,
Rabbi Richard F Address, D.Min