It Gets Worse

From the New York Times

Susan Jacoby has long made it her project to uncover ill-formed, cynical “junk thought” and administer a cold dose of reason and logic against it.

Jacoby sees a new ageism that doesn’t just stigmatize old people for their years, but blames them for physical ills that no lifestyle adjustments or medicine can yet forestall. In particular, she believes that our dreams of active, vital old age block a clear vision of “old old” age, the highly vulnerable stage that begins around a person’s 85th birthday. Among other perils, the “old old” have a roughly even chance of being counted among the mind-eaten ranks of Alzheimer’s victims. We may not like to think that poverty, social isolation, crippling pain, dementia and loss of autonomy are likely to come calling the longer we live, but it’s a fact.

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