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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| What happens when we're too old to be 'useful'? |
| 2020-01-22 |
| [BBC] "I customarily killed old women. They all died, there by the big river. I didn't used to wait until they were completely dead to bury them. The women were afraid of me." No wonder. That's the account of a man from the Aché, an indigenous tribe in eastern Paraguay, as told to anthropologists Kim Hill and Magdalena Hurtado. He explained grandmothers helped with chores and babysitting but when they got too old to be useful, you couldn't be sentimental. Brutally, the usual method was an axe to the head. For the old men, Aché custom dictated a different fate. They were sent away - and told never to return. What obligations do we owe to our elders? It's a question as old as humankind. Depends on the size of their 401k. And the answers have varied widely, at least if surviving traditional societies are any guide. As another anthropologist, Jared Diamond, points out, the Aché are hardly outliers. Among the Kualong, in Papua New Guinea, when a woman's husband died, it was her son's solemn duty to strangle her. In the Arctic, the Chukchi encouraged old people to kill themselves with the promise of rewards in the afterlife. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #15 It is probably not a coincidence that these are not very successful societies. |
| Posted by: James 2020-01-22 21:47 |
| #14 Their culture is to vulgar to be useful. |
| Posted by: Woodrow 2020-01-22 21:40 |
| #13 "If you are over 50 years of age, your usefulness to society has become suspect." Ah, so that's one reason why the average age of Capitol Hill is so high. |
| Posted by: DooDahMan 2020-01-22 19:46 |
| #12 You will know how useful I am after I whoop your ass for walking on my lawn! |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2020-01-22 19:28 |
| #11 I’ve been too unhealthy to be properly useful since New Years Day 2002. Thank goodness Mr. Wife thinks I’m worth it anyway. I grew up reading George Bernard Shaw’s plays, but thank to magpie, I now know what a vile little man he was. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2020-01-22 17:56 |
| #10 Are you sick of Pop or Mama? Expectations? Too much drama? If you like your Narayama, You can keep it. Doc Obama |
| Posted by: Bertie Ebberese4823 2020-01-22 17:24 |
| #9 Soylent Green... |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2020-01-22 16:56 |
| #8 Drink up! |
| Posted by: gorb 2020-01-22 13:19 |
| #7 You sit at the bar and blog. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2020-01-22 12:37 |
| #6 That's why we have wills. |
| Posted by: gorb 2020-01-22 12:16 |
| #5 I can write code. I can. I can still do it. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2020-01-22 12:15 |
| #4 "Logan's run" |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru PB 2020-01-22 10:44 |
| #3 Fabian Socialist George Bernard Shaw... |
| Posted by: magpie 2020-01-22 10:41 |
| #2 Obamacare death panels |
| Posted by: Procopius2K 2020-01-22 07:50 |
| #1 In our 'polite society' the elderly have oftentimes become an inconvenience not unlike the unborn. If you are over 50 years of age, your usefulness to society has become suspect. Those with the ability to 'write code' are the obvious exception. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2020-01-22 04:27 |