Last weekend, the New York Times suggested that age was the new "combustible" topic enflaming people's biases and prejudices in the presidential election. The others are race and gender, as we've seen.
Said author Adam Nagourney, the issue is not just candidate John McCain's age but the voters' age as well.
"Many boomers, as we all know, cherish and chase youth, and many of them, not surprisingly, could be found at Mr. Obama’s rallies this fall, the political equivalent of a 50-year-old man wearing a baseball cap backward. Yet, at a time when many Americans live into their 80s and beyond, those who are beginning to contemplate their first Social Security check can simultaneously embrace the belief that they will remain active members of society for years, even decades, to come. For these voters, Mr. McCain may seem as much a barrier-breaker as either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton."
The same day, an article by geriatrician Greg Sachs, MD, professor and scientist for the University of Indiana Center for Aging Research, welcomed the controversy.
"I see this as an opportunity to help encourage greater education of the public about aging, health, and memory issues in particular." And those issues, he pointed out, don't just arise every four years but are with us always.
It's easy to merely dismiss concerns about age affecting performance as "ageist." But Dr. Sachs reminds us that, contrary to the beliefs of a youth-worshipping society, age brings with it greater diversity. It's not all old people who tend to be alike: young people are more similar in health and ability. With older people, you just can't generalize about anything. Especially not health.
Aging carries real concerns. Cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and kidney disease are found increasingly as people grow older. And so are alterations in brain and cognitive function. The latter is not an easy problem to address, as routine screening for cognitive impairment has yet to be found cost-effective.
Still, Dr. Sachs suggested, "perhaps older people who hold important positions affecting the lives of many others ought to have a more comprehensive evaluation on a regular basis."
Seems like a reasonable suggestion. For all of us, the ability to do the job should be the measure of suitablity, not age, race, gender or other factors.
What do you think about age and ability? Share your thoughts on this or other aging-related topics with us.
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1 comment:
Perhaps if John McCain had new and bold ideas he would have been looked at differently. It really wasn't his age as much as his inflexibility to try the new, and unproven.
I feel that if he had plenty of exciting new ideas and a track record of putting them to work (as a maverick, of course) he would have had more appeal than Obama.
I'm afraid that with McCain, he looked uncomfortable and it was his uncomfortable image with his old ideas that were resistant to change that made him look old -- not his actual age.
If we could have seen the same McCain that we saw on Letterman, we might have seen the goodness rather than the stiffness, in him.
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