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. Continue reading “Old People Aren’t the Problem”…