The oldest woman in the world died on January 18th. Her name was Sister Andrè, she lived in a retirement home in Toulon, in the south of France, and she was 118 years old. She is an admirable age, but not incredible, at least not for us, inhabitants of the “age of grandparents”, like l’Economist he defined our time and, above all, what is to come. Old age lengthens: it lasts, at least in the more advanced countries, twenty years. Childhood, on the other hand, is retreating: there are fewer and fewer children, almost everywhere, even in China, which this year recorded the lowest birth rate ever. «I don’t see reasons for jubilation», she says to The print Professor Umberto Galimberti, philosopher and psychoanalyst.
For better or worse, whether it’s good or bad, this is the fact: humanity doesn’t crawl, it trudges. But, assuming that trudging is the path to old age, is it true that the only way forward by trudging is that of wasting away? It certainly has been until now, due to a combination of environmental and cultural factors and conditioning.
Like many other things and aspects of our life, old age also requires a revision, a new investigation, to discover its advantages, and to equip reality with the right tools to make them bear fruit.
Professor Galimberti, in 2050 grandparents will make up 22 percent of the world‘s population. According to theEconomistthe first to benefit will be the children.
“Optimists, these Englishmen. But you know, the rector of the University of Prague once told me that optimism is the quality of poorly informed people».
He wants to become the first in the world to say thatEconomist are they poorly informed? I’m in, I’ll help her.
«Let’s just say that, like all English people, they are pragmatic: time is money, and since children take time away from work, therefore from earning, it is good to give it to whoever can take care of it, namely grandparents, who need free time they have to no end, indeed they have nothing but free time, so that they can occupy it by doing what parents should do, that they can devote themselves completely to making money».
Per l’Economistchildren who are together with their grandparents are happier.
«And of course, because grandparents spoil them! But children have to grow up with their parents. The mother’s reference is fundamental in the first two years of life for all of us: it is the mother’s gaze that opens the children’s eyes, it is her approval that gives confidence. Without it, two possibilities open up, both harmful. One is depression: if mom doesn’t welcome my moves as a child, she doesn’t praise me when I do something good and doesn’t limit me, I don’t feel recognized. We live on acknowledgments: they give us an identity that we otherwise wouldn’t have. The other possible path is narcissism: since nobody looks at me, if nobody interests me and there isn’t a look that heals and corrects me, then I start trusting only myself. And I become one of the narcissists with which the earth is full: mentally handicapped people who lack the structure of the relationship and who are capable of recognizing the other only if he applauds them».
But no one argues that grandparents should replace parents.
«In fact, however, this is what happens and will happen more and more. And it’s not said that it’s good for kids: old people, grandparents don’t give them direction. It is the parents who provide the codes useful for distinguishing between good and evil, right and wrong, true and false, and therefore essentially the principle of non-contradiction, the best tool at our disposal to combat anguish and therefore to orient ourselves in life. And then, excuse me, who says that all old people and grandparents want to take care of the children? It’s not automatic.”
Do you take care of yours?
“No. I am an absent grandfather, unfortunately. I don’t have time to be with my grandchildren and so to take care of them I reward them with gifts, which take the place of all the missed words. But children grow up with words, not with gifts.”
But maybe there are grandparents who are present.
«Blessed are they, and may they be blessed. But being present does not mean breeding. The primary relationship remains the parental one. And then the old ones have an old mentality: in a world that is rapidly changing like ours, they teach what they know and what they learned when they were young, in a youth very distant from the current one. So they are inadequate.”
Vittorino Andreoli writes in his Letter to an old man (Solferino) that old age is a new, unprecedented and extraordinary condition.
“I repeat: optimism is the quality of uninformed people.”
You are hostile to the idea of seeing and welcoming a new condition.
«So let’s say something true: medicine has not lengthened life, only old age. Old age consists in witnessing without interruption the progressive degradation of one’s body. And it is something that induces sadness and melancholy. Sure, old people are cared for physically and medically, but who caress them? Who soothes their sadness? I am convinced that old people die because nobody caress them».
We don’t caress them because we find them repulsive, and we find them repulsive because we are convinced that old age is what it says it is: witnessing degradation.
“No, we find them repulsive because we grow up with the myth of youth. This, and not seeing oneself grow old, afflicts the old. Better still: they hate seeing themselves grow old because they suffer from the myth of youth. And then those who can afford it, get face lifts. They should do it to the brain, all right ».
Debunk the myth of youth.
«Impossible. Old people are a burden: during Covid I am sure that many people who have lost elderly family members have breathed a sigh of relief. After Christmas, my patients told me they ran away from their grandparents’ houses after two days because being with old people is tiring. But don’t you see those poor people on the street accompanied by carers who hold them with one hand and scroll through the phone with the other? Shows of fear, but true. Because the truth is that horror exists in this world, and I’m tired of the generalized inability to admit it and see it».
However, you speak of a reality that is the result of very precise cultural constructions. So I insist and ask you: does old age have anything beautiful about it?
“If we put into practice that phrase from Leviticus, ‘Honour the face of the old’, maybe old people could access the beauty of their age”.
And wisdom, isn’t it a virtue of old men?
“Nonsense. The old are not wise: they are what they were when they were less old, and they often aggravate the worst traits».
Why is there no room for young people in this country?
«Because you think in economic terms: young people have no experience, to find work only that counts, and here they are out of everything. However, it does not seem to me that elsewhere the boys are listened to. Greta Thunberg comes from the highly acclaimed Sweden, and it doesn’t seem to me that what she says affects her. It’s outrageous how we treat kids. They invite me to give conferences to encourage them but I am very honest with them and I tell them clearly that there is nothing left for them and that they live immersed in nihilism and that is where they have to start. They know it and they thank me: they see themselves recognized».
Who are responsible?
«Adults, not old people.”
And how do we prevent kids from becoming adults like this?
“There is no possibility: they are born in a structurally individualistic world“.
But the kids on the street for the environmental fight are not individualists.
«You wait for them to start working and have a modicum of power. Cavour already said: if you want a good conservative, look for him tomorrow among today’s revolutionaries».
All in all, a disaster.
«No. It’s not a disaster: it’s reality. Only that we as good Christians continue to think that the future is a promise, while it is only the time that comes after the present, and if this is the culture and it is not changed, the future will be like now, full stop».
In France they take to the streets against the increase in the retirement age. What do you think?
“You must work until you die, you must never retire.”
Doesn’t that seem like too much?
“Except for demotivating jobs.”
Which they are by now almost everyone.
«So with the exception of the strenuous ones, where people we call “human resources” are employed, as if they were minerals. What a shame”.
You are very angry.
«Yes because I’m tired of hearing about books and thoughts that have an optimistic view of life. This is how people are deceived and I don’t want to deceive anyone, least of all young people».
But hope is not a deception, but a chance.
«It is a Christian category that does not belong to me. Pier Paolo Pasolini had already eliminated it from his vocabulary».