Why Americans worry so much about old age

Time - In the 1980s, Thomas Pyszczynski, 68, professor of psychology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, was part of a group of researchers who developed the terror management theory of facing death which, as its name implies, addresses the way we somehow get through our days knowing that somewhere at the end of the existential line lies the utter annihilation of the self. That’s a knowledge that other animals are spared, but it’s one that both haunts and animates our thinking....

Pyszczynski agrees that there is a particular anti-aging imperative in America. Traditional Asian cultures, for example, are inclined to venerate the elderly for their decades of acquired insight and wisdom. The U.S., a younger country with an equally young ethos, does not show the same respect. That’s especially true in politics, for example: witness the alternating hand-wringing and bomb throwing about whether President Joe Biden, at 80, is too old to serve now, much less seek another term. By contrast, the Dalai Lama, at 87, remains a revered figure in the Eastern world, with his advanced years seen as one of his great, transcendent strengths.

“Our culture has always relied on the new,” Pyszczynski says, “on new discoveries and new ideas, whereas other cultures look back more at the elders and the ancients and see the world as fine the way it was many years ago.”

Boomers have been a force multiplier in that rejection of the old and celebration of the new—and in some ways that comes from a disarmingly idealistic place. “There was the rebellion of the 60s,” says Pyszczynski. “There was the opposition to the Vietnam war, the push for desegregation, the sense that young people were going to make things better. The Who sang ‘Hope I die before I get old.’ I don’t think they would agree with that anymore.” Maybe not, but the exaltation of youth has stayed with the Boomer demo. “The values of being young that were so prominent when we were growing up makes it a little harder for us to age gracefully.” For example, 71% of Baby Boomers have failed to save adequately for retirement, according to MarketWatch—a stage in life that many Boomers may have felt they could put off indefinitely.