Peter Pan society
That’s not the name of some private organization. Unfortunately, it describes us. Well…..not you exactly, because you folks in the Forum here are intelligent, mature, engaged, and witty…without comproming the sensibility that comes with being grown up.
But it describes much of our culture, says Colleen Carroll Campbell, in this observation of a playground society in need of some adults.
Aging gracefully in a Peter Pan society is no easy task. Older Americans are remaining active and living longer than ever before, but they no longer enjoy immunity from our culture’s forever-young demands. In place of blatant age discrimination, there is a new ethic of exaggerated non-discrimination that says older Americans must meet the same standards of physical health, sexual allure and perpetual hipness as everyone else — or die trying.
True, isn’t it? Which is why Diana West was prompted to write the book Colleen is reviewing here, The Death of the Grown-Up, about adults “trapped in a state of arrested development.”
In a nation in which the Cartoon Network has been known to attract more viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 than CNN, the average video gamester is 33 and 60-something rock stars still prance onstage in leather pants crooning about their sexual frustration, West sees more than nostalgia for the carefree pleasures of youth. She senses a cultural shift that has elevated the decadence, aimlessness and self-absorption associated with adolescence into cornerstone virtues for all ages.
Wow, look at that indictment. Makes you realize how far we’ve drifted from the concept of ‘virtue’ in the first place.
Okay, good and important reflections. But here’s the key line in the piece, in my opinion:
Some welcome this blurring of generational lines as evidence that elders are accorded equal treatment in our cult of youth. But the preoccupation with proving that Grandma’s still sexy and Grandpa’s still got game contributes to the very fixation on youthful vigor that marginalizes our elders.
See? They’re cool, if they can still act young. The very marketing and PR and cultural trend that promulgates this mindset and behavior is actually perpetuating America’s cult of youth. And, yes, it marginalizes our elders.
It also blinds us to their unique contributions to our culture. The lives and stories of our elders remind us that today’s tragedies may become tomorrow’s triumphs and that tasks that consume us now may count for little at life’s end. Elders can testify from experience that the pleasure of earning a few more bucks or turning a few more heads fades much sooner than the peace that comes from comforting a dying parent or living by principle, regardless of fashion.
I heard an interesting roundtable media analysis on one of the weekend cable news channels about Barbara Walters and “The View”, presidential candidates past 60, and other seasoned veterans in the media and government, and whether they ‘should’ continue doing what they do or bow out at some particular age. The whole panel engaged with lively – and unusually unified – argument about why no one with that kind of experience should leave the scene when they can and do contribute so much wisdom to the job. The great debates of our day, the hot-button issues Colleen Carroll Campbell and many of us in the media regularly cover in bioethics, education, social justice, morality, faith, politics, social communications……the stuff of life…..are best engaged by a respectful exchange of young voices and more mature ones.
As long as they’re listening to each other.
Ever since I was a child, I’ve had great respect for the elderly. I knew from an early age, instinctively, that by living as long as they have, they have acquired a wisdom about life that I could benefit from hearing, and I befriended many of them and spent time listening.
That hard-won wisdom accrues with the passing of years. Although it can be glimpsed at any age, it is possessed fully only by those who trade the heady thrills of adolescence for the richer rewards of grown-up life.