During UK lockdown it’s become clear that our society is ill-equipped to serve older people – or to learn from them
I was surprised to see Max Hastings disparaging the qualities that older people might bring to high office last week. Sir Max is, at 74, still writing excellent books and columns, and gives entertaining public talks. In this latest piece he described how he’d been discussing the question of age with the historian Margaret MacMillan, who is of a similar vintage to him. She, too, questioned whether someone in their 70s was up to the job of being US president – although Prof MacMillan remains, as Sir Max said, “both fit and razor-sharp”.
It is certainly true that the prospect of the Trump/Biden debates hardly fills the heart with joy. The encounters are unlikely to be especially dynamic, or edifying. But it’s startling if even high-achieving septuagenarian commentators are losing faith in their generation’s ability to function. Ageism is bad enough when perpetrated by the young. It seems a shame to witness a self-inflicted version.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3e0BMj1
