MODULE 4: The pessimistic view of old age

What is it like to be old?

1. Jane Goodall  (91) -- primatologist, advocate for animals, raising awareness about climate change
2. George Etzweiler (98) -- runner, former professor, still devoted to wife
3. Mary in Pennsylvania (98) -- enjoying the senior center, lonely at home, cutting up junk mail
4. Folks at a senior center --  WATCH

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Views of old age

1. Pessimistic view of old age -- Simone DeBeauvoir (The Coming of Age)
2. Optimistic view of old age -- Cicero (On Old Age), Carstensen

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Simone DeBeauvoir

• when referring to her can say "Beauvoir"
• you only need the "De" when saying the whole name 
• 1908-1986
• novelist, social theorist, philosopher, most famous philosophical work: The Second Sex (a feminist classic)
• partnership (romantic, philosophical) with Jean Paul Sartre, the existentialist
  

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The Coming of Age (published in 1970, when she was 60)

Start with the big picture:

• How does Beauvoir see childhood and midlife?
• How is old age different?

Chapter 7, "Old Age and Everyday Life" -- annotated here

Childhood, youth, even middle age (READ p. 491)

• "life is experienced as a continual rise" (p. 491)
• you are "advancing towards a goal" (p. 491
• your projects require a future
• projects: raising a family, supporting a cause, writing a book, becoming a better runner

• 
  

Old age (READ p. 491)

• "Then all at once a man discovers that he is no longer going anywhere, that his path leads him only to the grave" (p. 491)
• "the idea of advancing towards a goal was a delusion" (p. 491)
• this is an insight, but it makes the rest of life worse

Is there any hope for any old people?

• old people can make themselves useful (p. 493)
• projects begun in middle age can persist (p. 493)
• videos: who does this apply to?

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The pessimistic picture of most old people

• videos: who does this apply to?

learning, curiosity

• 452, 452-453,  453,

superficial ambition

• 454, 459

no projects

• 460, 461, 461

seen as inferior

• 462 (and rest of paragraph)

sink into gloom, stop laughing

• 463, 464 ... "a world that has nothing but indifference for them"

coping by having habits

• 469

Joy of grandchildren

• 474, 475

Serenity? no!

• 485

A bit of liberation, especially for women

• 486, 488, 489, 491

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Contrast

1. Kieran Setiya: at midlife, need to become "atelic"
2. Simone DeBeauvoir: at midlife, make sure you have projects 

Are these incompatible pieces of advice?

We all liked Setiya's advice. What about DeBeauvoir's?