ageism and adaptedness
Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Thu, 25 Apr 96 22:06:40 EDT
Paul Prior asks how strong a symmetry I mean; i.e. in what
respect I consider all ages of our species to be well-adapted to
their environments. And I mean it just as he has put it: we are
adapted to an environment that very saliently for us as a social
species (this is what 'social species' means in terms of
evolution) contains others of our species, at all ages/stages
along the the developmental pathway, with whom we will
signficantly interact. What I deny is that the later, or as our
culture's hybris has it the mid-late, ages are better adapted
than the earlier (or much later) ones. I.e. middle-aged adults
are not the canonical humans, any more than males are, or
heterosexuals are, or Europeans are, or middle-class people are.
Middle-aged people are not some preferred reference standard
against whose norms to judge the other ages as (inevitably)
worse. Many younger humans of our culture can articulate quite
clearly, from their place along the typical trajectory of the
species, the deficiences of their elders; so can the eldest
humans regarding their arrogant juniors. But the middle-aged have
grabbed the power and resources and use them to coerce the others
in ways that render their judgments and their experience of
Others more pseudo-consistent. JAY.
PS. I suppose it is not surprising that members of a dominant
caste would be more likely to concern themselves with our 'social
responsibility' to direct the future (of all), rather than our
complicity in the coercive arrangements that empower us to do so.
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JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
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