Fear Of Old Age ( No One Wants to Get Old & Search for a Magic Cure )

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An article by Nancy J. Osgood entitled 'Society Does Not Respect the Elderly' in the book 'An Aging Population' states:

The glorification of youth and development of the youth cult in America began in the nineteenth century and grew rapidly in the twentieth, and it now flourishes in our present atmosphere of narcissism. Youth is associated with vitality, activity, and freshness. To be young is to be fully alive, exciting, attractive, healthy, and vigorous. Old age, on the other hand, is associated with decline, disease, disability, and death rather than wisdom, inner peace, and other positive qualities.Psychological factors influence ageism in our culture. The youth cult grows out of a profound fear of growing old.

Through the ages, few fears have cut as deeply into the human soul as the fear of aging. Americans especially have a stark terror of growing old. Old age is associated with loss of independence, physical disease, mental decline, loss of youthful vitality and beauty, and finally death, and old people are reminders of our own mortality. Because many people have limited contact with healthy, vibrant old people and lack accurate knowledge about the aging process, their fear escalates.

Ageism is manifested through stereotypes and myths about old people and aging. In medical circles older patients are stereotyped as 'crocks' or 'vegetables'. Other common terms for older people are old fuddy dutty, little old lady, and dirty old man. Old people are thought of as being fit for little else but sitting idly in a rocking chair. Older women are referred to as old witch, old bag, and old biddy. Old men are stereotyped as old geezers, old goats, and old codgers. Common stereotypes of aging view the old as out to pasture, over the hill, and all washed up.

In American culture several mechanisms perpetuate and communicate ageist images, stereotypes, and myths: common aphorisms, literature, the media, and humour. Aphorisms about aging and older people permeate American culture. Some of the most common include: 'You can't trust anyone over forty'; 'You're only as old as you feel'; and 'Age before beauty.' These common sayings convey the idea that age is something to be denied or feared and allude to imagined losses accompanying the aging process.

The Western heritage in literature is replete with negative images of old age, beginning with the medieval works. The foolish lust of older women is described in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and Giovanni Boccaccio. The physical ugliness and disgusting behaviour of the old were frequently highlighted in fairy tales such as 'Hansel and Gretel' and 'Snow White,' where old women are portrayed as wicked witches.

The emptiness of old age is a major theme in American literature. In the poem 'Gerontion,' T.S. Eliot provides a description of the empty misery of an old man: 'a dry brain in a dry season.' In his works Eliot describes old age as an empty wasteland. In every culture humour conveys attitudes about the aged. In our own society these attitudes are expressed through jokes, cartoons, comic strips, and birthday cards.

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