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« The Power of Community | Main | They Can't Help It »
October 3, 2007 |Permalink |Comments (1)
Saying What You Mean
Newsweek has an interesting article about age and inhibition. It summarizes some very clever research designed to explore why people's tongues loosen as they age. As one woman put it, "I'm 91. What the hell do I care?" Ohio State's Press Release gives the details. Here are a few excerpts from the Newsweek article...
"The frontal lobes, responsible for inhibiting unwanted speech and behavior, shrink with age. The resulting loss of "inhibitory control," a new study shows, plays a central role in the politically incorrect speech that becomes more common with age.
[snip]
...William von Hippel of Australia's University of Queensland (This is a photo of Professor von Hipple.)
measured how well people of different ages could halt unwanted speech. Volunteers were given paragraphs containing distracting words within the text and were asked to read them aloud—without speaking the distracting words. (Imagine reading this story aloud but skipping words beginning with "s.")
[snip]
Lack of inhibition may also explain why older adults sometimes drone on about topics irrelevant to a conversation and ask embarrassing questions. ("Do you ever hear from that boy who dumped you, dear?") Their frontal lobes can't censor their impulses—impulses that younger adults have, too, but squelch."
So, here we have a classic bit of research that explores and then offers an explanation for a trait commonly associated with the old age. In particular, the researchers found that, while old people were not necessarily more racist than young people, they are more likely to make politically incorrect and racist statements.
Embedded in the article is an interesting ageist assumption. The "normal" state is assumed to conform to the adult reality of nearly automatic suppression of controversial statements. In other words, hypocrites are us. The converse notion, that speaking one's mind freely and without shame is actually a virtue (one earned by long experience living as a human being) never arises.
The idea seems to be that racist hypocrisy is automatically superior to spoken racism and that elders with racist beliefs (which reflect their cultural experience) betray the young by saying what is actually on their minds.
Here are my take-aways...
1) Ageism is in the air we breath (and the Newsweek articles we read).
2) It is a worthwhile exercise to bring that ageism into the light and expose its impact on us.
3) More often than we might suppose, there is a value concealed in the necessity of aging. In this case, we can be thankful that old people are increasingly endowed with the power of truth-telling.
Elders are uniquely prepared to puncture the smug certitude of the young.
Comments ( 1)
I am with you here, Bill. One of the things I find most refreshing about Elders is their honesty. That is a virtue to be treasured and imitated. It is totally liberating, and the result of years of growth and development, not a sign of decline.