"There is no end to a narrative before death, just as vulnerability cannot be surpassed."
Recently, in a love variety show "My daughter 2024", Aunt Huang Han, who was once a popular emotional expert in major variety shows, was labeled by many young people as old-fashioned and "Qing Dynasty".
What triggered the controversy was Huang Han's remarks on "living in a nursing home", in which she first expressed her feelings as an elderly person who did not want to choose to live in a nursing home, and then tried to generalize this attitude by "pushing oneself to others", believing that "choosing a nursing home" is a "helpless". This speech directly triggered the rebellious mood of the young group.
In literary and philosophical works, "old age" often implies profound tragedy. However, in today's society, "old people" are either idealized as a symbol of wisdom or the survival of suffering, or marginalized as "poor people" with declining rationality and no contribution, or degraded and stigmatized as "vested interests" lacking in quality and stubbornness.
Their voices are rarely heard, not actively expressed, and we don't really pay attention. In fact, "aging" runs through our lives, and like "death," it is a philosophical theme that needs to be considered throughout our lives. Reflecting on the fragility of "old age" challenges our consciences - are those who no longer create value still worth living? At the same time, this reflection also dispels the "myth" of autonomy and health - perhaps helplessness and dependence are the true human norm.
No one has the right to claim the moral high ground and ask the young people to unconditionally respect the elderly, and many phenomena in society that "rely on the elderly" or "disrespect the elderly" should not be forgiven. Older age groups cannot be represented by one category of people, and although they may face certain similar problems, there are still huge differences within them.
We're just trying to avoid a feeling of regret. When the elders, who have always been arrogant, stooped and reluctantly bowed their heads to admit that "the world is yours"; When stung by the father's increasingly clumsy turns and the mother's increasingly slow reactions; When we see grandma and grandpa in the subway station or on the bus who are confused because they do not know how to use electronic devices, we can understand this regret.
Unfortunately, the perspective of the generations is misplaced, resulting in the experience and care can not be smoothly communicated. When antagonism deepens, we are more inclined to close ourselves off, allowing prejudice to grow and anger to spread, ignoring the sensitivity and compassion of the heart, and forgetting that we also face the ultimate vulnerability in life.
In the information age, the elderly have become marginal
In the eyes of some young people who oppose marriage and childbearing, Huang Han has become an outdated representative of "old people" who are hard to accept new things and full of stereotypes. This resistance shows the progress of The Times, reflecting that young people value their own feelings and are open to changes in ethical relations. But, at the same time, what does it mean for the elderly, as the "we" of the younger generation, to display a sharp attitude when they express their demands? Are old people "worthless" in the eyes of young people?
The reason why we can talk about a group like this seemingly "indifferent and easy" and without emotional ups and downs on the network may be precisely because this group lacks "discourse power" in cyberspace. This does not mean that young people are subjectively hostile to the elderly, but it shows the fact that the object of the comment may be the absolute "fringe" of the society.
They are "muted" in two senses: their expressions are outdated and they have difficulty quickly learning to use new media and tools; The second is that when they try to express themselves, they are easily met with overwhelming misunderstanding and ridicule. Huang Han's anachronistic, ambiguous dullness may represent an old-fashioned but well-meaning way of communicating, in which her parents have always tried to gently reconcile conflicts. However, this expression of three points to leave seven points is far from the vanguard and spicy that young people expect.
It is not without those old people who are fashionable, wise and able to keep up with The Times, who are notable precisely because they are rare, but they clearly cannot be regarded as universal representatives of old age. In The Double Standard of Aging, Susan Sontag points out that in industrialized secular societies, youth is seen as a sign of happiness. The so-called standard of "graceful aging" may be the alienation of human beings from the logic of capital in a consumer society. Consumerism defines certain outward characteristics and ways of behaving as "young" and bestow them on older people as a badge of honor.
This mechanism affects not only our attitudes toward the elderly, but also how we think about our own aging. Scholar Zhang Rongnan said in his book "Not Afraid of Aging", which systematically reviews the Chinese and Western philosophy of aging: "We always watch others grow old and die, and try to separate ourselves from the process of life and death, but after all, no one can escape the fate of aging and death." The prevalence of facial anxiety and medical beauty, which can be seen everywhere, may be a manifestation of our fear of aging.
Zhang Rongnan astutely points out that the current social attitude towards "old age" and "aging" is utilitarian. When interpersonal relationships are dominated by utilitarian comparisons and calculations, the inner perspective of the good life is ignored, so that old age is seen almost exclusively as a negative existence.
On the other hand, the particular vulnerability of old age may lead us to re-examine the basis of ethics - emphasizing autonomy while also noting that humans are always dependent and vulnerable at different stages of life. No one can survive alone without each other's care.
The movie "Happy Funeral" just reflects the utilitarian reality and the ideal of care these two aspects. The film tells about the life of a young woman who lost her husband and raised four children alone in her later years. All four of Grandma's children, for their own reasons, wanted her dead, and she knew it. Perhaps because of this, she suffered from uncontrollable laughter - laughter is the dual loss of self-esteem and care, can be displayed autonomy, although no longer under control.
However, even in such a fragile situation, when the grandson died, the grandmother asked the grandson daughter-in-law to marry again, the day is too long. When she was young, she chose to endure hardships alone because she understood the vulnerability of her children, and in her old age, she still gave priority to the vulnerability of her children.
The utilitarian attitude of the children shows the indifference of human beings in the face of realistic pressure, in contrast to the concern of grandma. Despite suffering from illness and rejection in her later years, she showed concern for the well-being of others. Can vulnerability be truly understood only by those who experience it? When we are bored with old people or fearful of our own aging, perhaps we should ask the question differently: Is aging really just pure loss? Perhaps we should rethink it from the perspective of virtue ethics and caring ethics.
