(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The aging woman is not clearly present in the culture as a desirable figure to identify with, says author, gender scientist and feminist Wencke Mühleisen in an interview on Gyldendal's website. Her latest book All current sense gives a room for the wonder she craves – and tries to create a platform for the kind of lust she thinks it is so little of. The interesting thing about the novel is how it creates a flow zone between nonfiction and fiction, life and art, where the reader has to locate the speaker himself and what is said.
But aging is not just about women: we are old, but there are few role models and hero figures up in the years in popular culture. Where should we look to learn something about the values of growing old? Traditionally, the elderly have been looked up to because of their wisdom and because they can reap the benefits of a long life, but now most people turn to Wikipedia rather than seek the coming of wisdom. There are few visible public and cultural places for us as we age – it seems like-
It seems as if old age only causes us to become dilapidated editions of our young selves, a slow disappearance where we are lost both to others and to ourselves.
Inside and out. In its excellent (and overwhelmingly thick) About old age (Old age, 1970), Simone de Beauvoir illuminates the age from the perspective of both philosophy, anthropology, sociology and biology. I returned to Mühleisen's book several times while reading de Beauvoir's book, for it is precisely the old invisibility that the French existentialist tries to understand and trace the historical roots of in this elusive work.
De Beauvoir's cultural-historical review of old age still misses her equal – both the material and the canvas she bleaches are enormous. Here all the stones are turned. An even more important reason why her age work will remain is that she writes from a subject position as a thinking and old woman. It is from this place, like herself, that she moves into a field of knowledge with great authority and the urge to understand and free herself from her own invisibility. Freedom is established in the mapping of the meaning of the ancients, so that this knowledge is available to both writer and reader when they think through the matter, but even more it is located in the strong desire to get out of the impotence that also Mühleisen, many years later , describes. In this sense, About old age the crown of the work of de Beauvoir's authorship, and can be regarded as an equivalent to hers The other sex from 1949. For both books, that is to create an actionable and free subject goal – herself, but also all other women (in 1949) and all other old ones (in 1970). In the first book, it is the woman who is the other; in the latter it is the old one. "Every human situation can be viewed from the outside – as it appears to others – and from within, to the extent that the subject takes in and exceeds it."
The old invisibility is further enhanced when one has no capital or distinguishing props to hide behind.
Individual and community. It is this connection between the strong subject and the commitment of the readers, to other elders, that lifts even those who are not old. For there is something writing and thinking people want to do, is to set oneself and others free through the writing, through the work of the author. One of the book's masterpieces is how de Beauvoir places the question of the old in a collective world of imagination as something we all have a responsibility to think through.
The individualized invisibility and loss of authority is not left to the individual – neither as fate nor the task – but is written into the very heart of what a society must be in order to function well. "The importance or lack of meaning that old age has in a society questions the whole community, because through it the meaning or lack of meaning of the whole life is revealed before it," she writes in the introduction. A few lines later, she puts this problem into a class analysis, where, she says, there are individual ages that are determined by whether you are rich or poor, dividends or dividends. "Any claim to describe age in general must be rejected because it tends to hide this difference." De Beauvoir places the old man's invisibility into an imaginary world where the community has a responsibility, or reveals its shortcomings, if it does not take on the responsibility. So was the woman in it The other sex, but with another sign: The woman was visible as a distortion forged by the man's fantasies.
The class aspect becomes an extremely interesting side of this optic, because financial also comes as a sharper component of the lens. The invisibility of the old man is further enhanced when one has no capital or distinguishing props to hide behind, she says. The decay of the naked body becomes extra worthless when the old is no longer a productive entity in society, when he or she can no longer supply goods or produce something useful to the others, to the community. Thus, the old becomes a residual product both as a subject of desire and as a gear in the social machinery. "Society only cares about the individual to the extent that it is profitable."
Good examples. But are there no other models to see age? Aren't there any examples of the kind Mühleisen is looking for? De Beauvoir's book has an interesting chapter on historical persons who neither became bitter nor grieved by aging, which is a very exciting read. Victor Hugo, for example, looks at the aging of the body, and how joints, muscles and skeletons harden, as a hardening of the strength of their body, rather than the opposite. "I have the rock's proud and heavy stiffness," as he puts it, "the physical decay that more than ever makes the old man a slave of his own body, he transforms into a mineralization that can free him from the organic," de Beauvoir acknowledges . A somewhat eccentric example, perhaps, but it certainly demonstrates that one can take different angles than the sheer sadness of decay.
Victor Hugo looks at the aging of the body, and how joints, muscles and skeletons harden, as a hardening of the strength of their body.
Another example de Beauvoir is concerned about is Lou Andreas-Salomé, who was loved by figures like Nietzsche and Rilke, and became a pupil of Sigmund Freud when she was 50 years old. Her many interests and large network of friends kept her engaged throughout her life. She began working as a psychoanalyst when she was over 60 and had her most productive time in old age. Although she was plagued by pain, it was her dedication and friends that kept her going and made the last thing far more than death preparations. It is also this de Beauvoir fall down to, that we do not have to worry so much about old age, if we can fill it with meaning. "For old age not to be a ridiculous parody of our former existence, there is only one solution: It is to continue pursuing goals that make our lives meaning: to sacrifice for individuals, collectives, issues, social, political, intellectual or creative work. ”
Not a controversial point of view, but it can save us from ourselves, both as a society and as an individual, if we take it seriously. Then we must not forget that de Beauvoir himself is a formidable role model for this book.
The book, and also The other sex, is translated by Bente Christensen.
