The New York Times has an interview with Morgan Freeman, who is 89 – he in fact says “pushing 90” – and still working. At the moment he’s got a regular role on a streaming series.
I am a sucker for all reports about people who are older than I am and still pursuing their art or their career or doing something else that we’re all told is “unusual” for old people. I want to be reminded that getting old doesn’t mean you have to stop doing stuff and just wait around to die.
But there’s a hell of a lot of ageism out there right now and it’s really starting to get on my nerves. The other day I saw a social media post excoriating James Carville’s ideas about what Democrats should do and then saying something that I read as “oh, well, he’s 81 and gonna die soon anyway.”
I got the impression that the person who wrote just thought 81 was horribly old, not that they knew anything about Carville’s health.
Now I despise Carville. His ideas about what Democrats should do are awful; he’s the original “compromise with the Republicans no matter how extreme they get” person. I actually go to the trouble of cancelling political solicitations that mention his name, instead of just ignoring them. The Democrats made a major mistake by listening to him in the first place.
But he’s been wrong for at least 30 years, and probably longer. He thinks politics is a fucking game. After all, he’s married to a Republican consultant. Obviously he doesn’t think any of this is really vital – he just wants to win a game.
The problem isn’t that he’s old. It’s that he’s wrong. He’s always been wrong.
And when you blame it on his age, you give him a pass for all the terrible things he’s done for years.
I see a lot of criticism of Congress that starts with a discussion of how old the members are, but the real problem isn’t their age; it’s that they’re bad people with bad policies.
Yes, Congress is set up to favor people who are already in office and to allow people to set up their own little fiefdoms. But that’s a systemic problem, not an age-related one. And it’s not like they make decisions that favor most old people – look at the ongoing claims that Social Security is running out of money or the cuts to Medicaid, which pays for a lot of care homes for the frail elderly.
They’re doing things that help the extremely rich and the major corporations. That’s the real problem: they don’t represent people; they represent money.
Aging is also an uneven thing. Some people in their 80s and even 90s are still very good at their jobs. Nancy Pelosi, with whom I don’t always agree politically, is a very good example. I don’t think there’s been a more competent Speaker of the House in my lifetime.
Now of course older people have to pay attention to their health and recognize – or have family or staff who can recognize – when they can no longer do their job. Actually, though, that also applies to everyone. What about that congressman from New Jersey who disappeared for a couple of months?
Now I am “retired,” by which I mean that I no longer have to work at a day job to pay my bills. Thanks to my last job, I have a small pension and some good savings – my company was employee-owned for most of the years I worked there and we had a good union, so I had stock and defined benefits. And I’m old enough to draw Social Security.
I still do a lot of things; I just don’t have to do them to make a living. And believe me, I don’t want to work for a living anymore. I never really did. I want to do the things that interest me without worrying about whether they’ll put food on the table.
However, if I wanted a paying job – say I wanted to run for City Council – I am quite capable of doing the work. My mind is fine and my body’s still hanging in there.
And since I’m competent digitally – meaning I’m someone who’s been using a computer since the early 80s – I ‘d know better than to be suckered by “AI” and other enshittified crap if I did get a job. Of course, employers might find that a liability, but I think it’s an asset.
I don’t want to because I don’t want that level of stress and because it would mean I had to do a lot of things I hate to do – starting with going to meetings. I like not having all those obligations.
But there are people my age who don’t mind meetings. There are people who really do love the paying work they do. There are probably even some who don’t stress out when things go wrong – and in jobs things are always going wrong. They’d be fine in politics or running organizations.
The problems we’re facing are caused by old people, but by bad people. Some of the most powerful politicians are old, but most of the broligarchs are young or middle-aged. And they’re all terrible people doing terrible things.
Judge people by who they are and how they act, not their ages. You’ll get better results.