Case Study with the Elderly

Conceptual Overview and Application

Ageism or the wholesale discrimination against the elderly dominates in advanced industrialized countries. Being elderly is mostly stigmatized—it is characterized as being “past it,”“giving up,” and “being a burden.” For some, old age is identified with unat-tractiveness, dependence, loss, and decline. For others, the elderly are viewed as a “problem” because they are “not productive” and form a “welfare burden” that gets ever larger. In response to such negative stereotypes, some elderly persons may claim to be “active,”“purposeful,” and to make a positive social contribution. They may internalize and then deny negative stereotyping. Many elderly buy into the paradoxical antiaging “dream” by acting fit, dressing fashionably, and traveling extensively. Acting is used here in Erving Goffman's sense of performing a social position that is normatively or ethically laden. The “young-old”(i.e., the elderly with a youthful “lifestyle”) or “not-old”(i.e., the elderly who actively oppose being seen as “old”) try to deny aging. Their (life-)stories lead to case studies about “positive aging” and “proactive lifestyles.”

Some elderly embrace interdependence and reciprocity and fight for a more inclusive society. Case studies about them stress caring about others. Directly experienced community is their key norm. Their self is constructed around immediate relationships and personal commitments. In a Postmodern culture of rootlessness, hyperreality, and impermanence, the emphasis on socially committed togetherness and the celebration of community and closely knit relationships is exceptional. For this group, neighborhood is a key value.

Case studies of the elderly are framed in an opposition between naturalism and normativism.

Naturalism accepts physical deterioration with age as inevitable and understands chronic illness to be independent of individual or social values. Disease is a natural phenomenon entailing diminished functional ability. The aged who are in principle chronically ill are simply “diminished” or “lessened” in their abilities. Their condition just is a biological fact.“Agedness” rests thus supposedly on a value-neutral core, though there are economic or political choices or values involved in the choices of care responses. From this point of view, on the one hand, there are the value-neutral facts of medicine understood as a science. And on the other hand, there is the value-laden world of political or economic choice. Proponents of naturalism argue that the two can and must be radically divided.

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