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E-book Extraordinary Forms of Aging : Life Narratives of Centenarians and Children with Progeria

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Penilaian

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Debates about the aging process go back into ancient societies. Philosophers suchas Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca pondered questions about the life-course and theways that human nature develops into advanced age. Age(ing) is often regardedin relation with ‘old’ age, as the stage in life that is most commonly associatedwith derogatory stereotypes of decay. Andrew W. Achenbaum explains that Romanphilosopher Seneca wrote “‘[s]enectus morbidus est’” which translates into “‘[o]ld ageis a disease’” (“A History of Ageism” 11). Seneca’s statement focuses merely on theaging body and its tendency to become weaker in later life. In other words, Senecaregards ‘old’ age solely in terms of the declining body, implying that not only is theagingbodymorepronetofallillbutthat‘old’ageitselfisthedisease;aterminalone.Considering ‘old’ age to be a terminal disease defines later life as something thatbefalls the body, weakens it, and, if not cured, kills it. Further, diseases are oftencontagious, which might lead to the fear that ‘old’ people could infect others withtheir ‘oldness.’ That fear, in turn, encourages a marginalization and stigmatizationof the ‘old.’ Having caught a disease, there are only two possible ways to go: Eitherone declines and ultimately dies or one receives treatment and fights off the illnessthat invaded the body. As there is no cure for ‘old’ age, once a person is ‘infected’with it, there is no going back which leads to an association of ‘old’ age with death.Even though Seneca’s statement is about 2000 years old, the assumption that‘old’age is a disease is still prevalent in modern thinking.This tendency can be seenintheresearchofscientistssuchasBritishmolecularbiologistAubreydeGreywho,in an interview withThe Guardiandescribes age as “this ghastly thing that is goingto happen to [a person] at some time in the distant future” (Smith). De Grey andhis SENS Research Foundation have made it their mission to find a ‘cure’ for ‘old’age. According to their homepage, the foundation envisions “to develop, promote,and ensure widespread access to therapies that cure and prevent the diseases anddisabilities of aging by comprehensively repairing the damage that builds up inour bodies over time” (“Home”). In other words, the SENS foundation tries to stopthe aging process within the human body, at the same time connecting ‘old’ age to illness and disability. While other researchers clarify that ‘old’ age is not a dis-ease, they do however frame it as a ‘risk-factor.’ Christopher Burtner and BrianKennedy, for instance elaborate that “[a]dvanced age in humans is considered thelargest risk factor for a range of diseases, including neurodegenerative, cardio-vascular, metabolic and neoplastic syndromes, raising the possibility that targetedapproaches to aging will delay the onset of many causes of morbidity in the el-derly” (567). Yet, they also advocate for research that helps slowing down the agingprocess in general in order to avoid the risks that come with ‘old’ age as long aspossible. Ultimately, these scientific discourses present the aging process as a bio-logical problem that needs to be solved and thus implicitly promote the perceptionof ‘old’ age as a curable condition.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

305.2 VEL e

Penerbit

Germany : transcript Verlag., 2022

Deskripsi Fisik

255 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9783839462775

Klasifikasi

305.2

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Groups

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

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