It is (intuitively in the Gitlin sense) a fact that the elderly members of our society are treated with less than optimal respect. In the vein of intuitive discovery that Gitlin has used in his post on pop culture which we have read for this class I assert that it is easy to convince people that the elderly deserve to be appreciated more than they are. (This insert is a little long but you might just let the music play while you read on as the tone of the tune/soundrack has an aesthetic element which lends itself to the sentiment of what I am asserting. Otherwise forty seconds will inform you.)
However, there are people in society who know this as a result of their experiences.
Among this population are these young medical professionals who (presumably) care for the elderly. The way in which they have taken control of "the means of production" as per Marx is an indication of the true humanistic nature of some members of our society. They wish to do good. They have done good by attempting to understand through "ethnographic" analysis what it is like to be old.
In the Gramscian sense perhaps one could criticize this exercise as a useless crumb thrown to the agressive train of humanity which will never accept our geriatrics as fully human. But in the Gramscian sense there is also (I would assert) potential here for the use of the means of production to become more than a crumb. That is not to take away from the positivity that created this media looking at the elderly. Marx would congratulate the producers of this kind of media:
In the Marxist sense this is a departure from the control of media by conglomerates.
In my opinion, it is the first step. This media needs to be seen to be appreciated. I believe, in the Gitlin sense, intuitively that I would have a challenge ahead of me to find one who would disagree with the sentiment that our elderly deserve better/more.
Therefore, this kind of media needs to be shown in schools and spread out through the virtual (and therefore real) world. We need to get this message to the forefront of people's thinking. People want to help and love our elderly. They just need to be shown how. This media can do that - people do want to help:
Media have a certain amount of power to influence. Surely it can be a force for the realization of the attributes of our elderly. But these media need to be seen. Now that we have the means of production distributed among the masses, how do we get the masses to see the production?
This may seem simplistic but if each of us brings this blog to the attention of our mother/father/grandmother/grandfather/aunt/uncle/etc. - then more people will be aware that they are not alone in their thoughts about the elderly in our society, whether they are elderly or not.
Now, that is progress.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Well, that was inspiring right up to the point it made me want to kill myself....
Ah, no irony today. It is encouraging to see some prep for understanding the weight of GeezerTime, which is fast approaching in my case. Though I do think the students should have used something to replicate the loss or dimunition of sexual capacity.
I'm not quite sure how you do that. Oh wait. Get old.
I think what we fail to recognize is that between 20-40 years (depends on our ages) we will be apart of the elderly population. It always psyches me out when I learn that people mistreat the elderly or refuse to try to understand their situation. They act as if it is an affliction that cannot be healed.
It's not an illness.
It's life.
Hey Tommy, I applaud your choice of topic!
I guess from where I stand, I don’t regard 60 somethings as part of the senior class. But there are a lot of 60 + year olds who are getting infirmities and dying…it’s a sad thing and probably preventable. The whole subject of the elder class in our society is fraught with prejudice and misinformation and ignorance and neglect, for sure. But from a Marxian perspective it all comes down to economic and political relationships beginning in the family and the workplace.
You suggest that these caregivers are attempting to provide a better standard of care for the elderly by dimming their own senses and physicality with cotton balls and plastic wrap, and that this play acting will help them understand their patients. This may be true and a good exercise in compassion, except that they neglected to mention the fact that one of the primary causes of poor health among the elderly is the debilitating effect of all the medications that they have become dependent upon, for years and years, as a substitute for adequate health care.
Persons 65 years of age and above comprise only 13 percent of the population, yet account for approximately one-third of all medications prescribed in the United States. Older patients are more likely to be prescribed long-term and multiple prescriptions, which could lead to unintentional misuse.
The elderly also are at risk for prescription drug abuse, in which they intentionally take medications that are not medically necessary. In addition to prescription medications, a large percentage of older adults also use OTC medicines and dietary supplements. Because of their high rates of comorbid illnesses, changes in drug metabolism with age, and the potential for drug interactions, prescription and OTC drug abuse and misuse can have more adverse health consequences among the elderly than are likely to be seen in a younger population. Elderly persons who take benzodiazepines are at increased risk for cognitive impairment associated with benzodiazepine use, leading to possible falls (causing hip and thigh fractures), as well as vehicle accidents. However, cognitive impairment may be reversible once the drug is discontinued. http://www.nida.nih.gov/ResearchReports/Prescription/prescription5.html
The older we get, the less valued we are in the workplace, because we can’t perform at the level expected of one who has functioned as an appendage of the corporate, capitalist machine. This is true, at least, for the masses who physically labor with their bodies. In other important ways, the older, more experienced individual may well be the better choice because of acquired experience and wisdom, but society still discounts seniors due to prejudices held over from a time when most Americans had to work in factories. And since seniors can’t work as hard as a 20-40 year olds, they lose freedom and credibility along with economic and political power. If a person can’t be productive—i.e. make money for the owners of the company or the corporation—their worth diminishes, even after twenty or thirty years of loyal service. And if the bottom line dictates, the company may try to cheat its employees out of their pensions or, shut its doors and relocate in a country where wages are lower and working conditions are poorer. A worker may spend his entire productive life making money for someone else yet, in the end, he/she may have nothing—there is no longer a safety net. The capitalist system cares little for the most vulnerable, the youth and the elderly. Marx and would declare that the capitalist ideology takes advantage of people’s weaknesses and doesn’t really respect anybody, productive or not. 159,000 jobs were lost last month, yet we rush to bail out Wall Street and big corporations—what’s being called socialism for the rich. 10% of the population has been raking in windfall profits while 80% are losing money and jobs.
Through fast food and drugs, we are urged to maintain our capacity to work and be productive. Pharmaceutical companies, conventional medicine, psychiatry, food companies, and the educational system are all designed to coax us, from our earliest years, to perform beyond our capabilities, all in the name of productivity. This is a short-lived, unsustainable schema that produced the industrial revolution in the 19th and 20th centuries, but clearly is no longer relevant or appropriate socially, economically and environmentally. As scientists and social theorists have become increasingly aware and worried about the dire ecological consequences of modern technology, a new philosophy has emerged based on what is called the “precautionary principle.” Simply stated, it cautions that when there is any evidence that a new technology or product could be hazardous, either it should not be released into the market place and the environment or strategies to mitigate its hazards should be implemented before doing so. However, nothing about the dominant American ideology emphasizes prevention and long term thinking. What America is geared for are pre-emptive and reactive strategies that seek either to take advantage of vulnerability—this is called healthy competition—or to tackle problems after they’ve already occurred and the damage is done. We are not encouraged to do devise preventive measures or to solve real problems at their roots.
The Liberal Response: Your first clip demonstrates how we can reform the system so it’s not as abusive, but, although compassionate, it is not a terribly effective strategy since it doesn’t change the fundamental ways in which the medical industry is organized. Yes, Gitlin would agree that the elderly are being screwed and Gramsci would call this effort a crumb. Instead of making the masses passive recipients of media, new or old, we should be putting the means of media in their hands so that the masses could produce their own media—in their own voice.
Can you hear Marx, Gramsci and Adorno cheering?!
Annual spending per elderly person for prescription drugs grew from $559 in 1992 to $1,205 in 2000, an increase of 116 percent. At the same time, overall per senior health care spending grew by 59 percent, nearly half as fast as drug spending. As a result, per senior prescription drug spending as a share of total health care spending grew from 7.4% in 1992 to 10% in 2000.
By 2010, annual per person spending on drugs for the elderly is projected to reach $2,810 a year, an increase of 133 percent over spending in 2000. During this period, per senior overall health care spending is projected to increase by 76 percent.
Over the 18-year period from 1992 to 2010, prescription drug spending per elderly person is projected to grow by 403 percent, more than twice the rate of overall growth in per senior health care spending, which is expected to grow by 180 percent. The portion of senior health spending devoted to prescription drugs will have grown from 7.4 percent in 1992 to 13.3 percent in 2010.
Number of Prescriptions for Seniors 1992-2010
-----------------------------------
Year # Prescriptions/Senior
-----------------------------------
1992 19.6
1994 20.7
1996 22.6
1998 26.5
2000 28.5
2005 34.4
2010 38.5
-----------------------------------
Source: Data compiled by PRIME
Institute for Families USA.
-----------------------------------
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/563761.html
The average number of prescriptions per elderly person grew from 19.6
in 1992 to 28.5 in 2000, an increase of 45 percent. By 2010, the average number of prescriptions per elderly person is projected to grow to 38.5, an increase of 10 prescriptions, or 35 percent, per senior since 2000. From 1992 to 2010, the average number of prescriptions per senior will grow by 96 percent. The overall total number of prescriptions for seniors grew from 648 million in 1992 to over 1 billion in the year
2000, and is projected to grow to almost 1.6 billion in 2010.
Families USAhttp://www.familiesusa.org/site/DocServer/drugod.pdf?docID=726
I just finished complaining in response to Annie's blog post that the most popular user-created content on YouTube is absolute drivel. I also said that now that we hold the means of production of media, we should use that power to tell stories that are worth listening to. I think that the videos you posted exemplify what I meant; we need to see stories that inform us of the real world around us. We've been distracted for too long with messages about consumerism, when we really need to deal with issues that impact our lives and our communities. We need to have stories that educate and empower us to become our authentic selves. I'm glad to see that some people are undertaking that work. Now the challenge is make people want to tell more of these stories, and moreover, to get people to ignore the drivel and watch media that really means something.
Post a Comment