A quick look at the European Social Survey\u2019s most recent research on attitudes, behaviour and beliefs, prompted by an article in yesterday\u2019s Observer. It reveals the opinions and experience of 55,000 people across more than 30 countries. The newspaper\u2019s headline reads \u2018UK among Europe\u2019s worst countries for ageism\u2019. According to the survey only Russia, Ukraine, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have more people who feel they are ignored or patronised because of ageism. <\/p>\n
I am surprised that the survey reveals that countries which I would have imagined have a clearer social and family structure than Britain, are in fact more subject to ageism than we are. It is structure which we lack; a unifying social consensus that is absent from so much of civic and political life. Perhaps it always has been, but is especially noticeable today.<\/p>\n
It is so difficult to have a balanced view on ageism because there are so many reasons for it, and I suspect a lot of them derive from the attitudes of elderly people themselves. It\u2019s so easy to pull up the shutters of your life as you get older. So many things you can no longer do, so many appetites that can never be satisfied, so many of the signposts of your life by which you have always recognised yourself that are no longer there. And some of the people who have loved you and whom you have loved are no longer here to company with. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s no wonder that we too easily behave like snails, more at home in our shells than out of them. And there is something about using what energy we have to keep going rather than reaching out to others. I am constantly amazed at the sheer fortitude of some older people as they shop in town or heave themselves onto buses, frail often with disability as well as age. \u2018Still taking the pills\u2019 said someone yesterday as I asked her how she was. There\u2019s a sort of stoicism about ageing that is really rather wonderful. But it can, as I suggest, shut you into yourself<\/p>\n
People of all ages can be very kind but I sense that there is a suspicion of older people \u2013 or a sheer lack of interest \u2013 amongst the young, and as far as young families are concerned, well they are too busy unless there are some grandparents to keep an eye on. Having spent much of my working life amongst the young, that alienation is painful. I would like to be in their company, but their interests and way of communicating creates a division between us. What\u2019s to talk about?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s something which bridges the gaps: the protest of mainly young people against the mindless capitalism of City bankers in London. They are camping -horrors of horrors – outside St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral (the stafff of whom have been woefully inadequate to deal with the situation). Their cause has made generation unimportant. Many of us older ones are entirely with them. Their adversaries are ours as well; the greed they identify and campaign against is a sin against society that affects the whole body politic. <\/p>\n
So \u2013 against ageism as we are, we salute the young!<\/p>\n
Bryan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A quick look at the European Social Survey\u2019s most recent research on attitudes, behaviour and beliefs, prompted by an article in yesterday\u2019s Observer. It reveals the opinions and experience of 55,000 people across more than 30 countries. The newspaper\u2019s headline reads \u2018UK among Europe\u2019s worst countries for ageism\u2019. According to the survey only Russia, Ukraine, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have more people who feel they are ignored or patronised because of ageism. I am surprised that the survey reveals that countries which I would have imagined have a clearer social and family structure than Britain, are in fact <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"yoast_head":"\n