“That is no country for old men” – so begins ‘Sailing to
Byzantium’ a moving poem by W.B Yeats who grapples with realisation that his
soul is trapped in a “dying animal”. It was written in 1926, when Yeats was
around 60-61 years old; an age that some people now consider to be not worth
saving from COVID-19 if doing so causes economic disruption.
Enough. There is a pernicious debasement of humanity and travesty
of economics being pushed by people with a heart of stone arguing that the
lives of older people are not worth the economic impact of social distancing.
The eugenically convenient collateral death of others with immunodeficiency
brought about by conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity,
hypertension, tuberculosis, nutritional disease exacerbated by poverty and so
on, are usually skipped in this narrative to focus on the decrepit, spent lives
of seniors, especially those over 65-70 years old. These elderly people are
assumed to be infirm, purportedly with nothing much more to offer or enjoy
beyond the success of a completed jigsaw puzzle.
On May 7th, the disturbing essence of this
argument was captured by an Australian comedian, Wendy Harmer, who tweeted, “Look,
I’m almost 65, child-bearing days over, no wisdom to impart, no longer useful
to the economy… let’s just get this shit over with and leave me on a hillside
to die and be pecked at by crows. PS: The number of Australians 65+ is 3.8
million – 15% of us.”
And one day later – also in a tweet – by the nom de plume
‘Dumb Blonde’ who asked, “When do we start burning redundant old people for
energy?” To which one wag jokingly observed that to do so is probably unethical
because they would inevitably be classified as a ‘fossil fuel’.
Dispiritingly, these evil ideas have even been spruiked by would-be
elderly COVID-19 sacrificial offerings. On March 24th, Dan Patrick,
the 69-year-old Lieutenant Governor of Texas told Tucker Carlson of Fox News,
“You know, Tucker, no one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are
you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the
America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’” Patrick
continued, “And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in… That doesn’t make me noble
or brave or anything like that,” he added. “I just think there are lots of
grandparents out there in this country like me.” Really? Lots of spaciously
ensconced, wealthy, heads-of-state-government grandparents ready to “take a
chance on survival”?
More recently, 72-year-old Nobel laureate Michael Levitt,
Professor of Structural Biology at the Stanford School of Medicine joined this
chorus. Professor Levitt,
who is neither an epidemiologist nor economist, declared that Sweden is one of
the "standout winners", along with Germany, which has had 172,000 reported
COVID-19 cases and 7,569 deaths. He argues that, "The standout losers are
countries like Austria, Australia, Israel that've actually had very strict
lockdown but didn't have many cases… They have damaged their economies, caused
massive social damage, damaged the educational year of their children but not
obtained any herd immunity… This is a virus designed to get rid of the baby
boomers. Quite frankly, I've had a great life… I'd much rather have young
people than live for a very long time."
On May 8th, in response to Levitt, Andrew Probyn
of ABC News pointed out that, “The leaders of Austria, Australia and Israel
just happen to be members of the so-called ‘First Movers’ group, an eclectic
bunch that also includes the leaders of Greece, Denmark, the Czech Republic and
New Zealand; countries which have done a comparatively good job preventing
COVID-19 deaths, losing about 1,900 people combined.”
He continues, “Sweden, which has chosen to be much less
restrictive in its response compared to its Scandinavian neighbours and the
rest of Europe, has been heralded by some commentators as the example to
follow. It's kept schools, shops and restaurants open and appealed to the public's
self-restraint with voluntary social-distancing measures. With a population of
10.2 million, Sweden's had 23,918 infections and 2,941 deaths, a third of which
have been in nursing homes. Australia's population is 25.7 million. It's had
6,875 infections and 97 deaths. If Australia followed Sweden's trajectory,
COVID-19 would have killed more than 7,000 people.” Speaking to the National
Press Club, Australia’s Treasurer Josh Frydenberg observed that, “Sweden
has 40 per cent of Australia's population but 70 times the death rate. The
numbers speak for themselves."
To his credit, the Australian Prime Minister, Scott
Morrison, argued, “"Nobody's got herd immunity. I mean the United States
(1.36 million infections and 80,574 deaths) hasn't reached it, Sweden hasn't
reached it, the UK hasn't reached it… You've got to get to about 60 per cent,
two-thirds of your population. And even with all the death and devastation
we've seen and all of those countries, they went nowhere near herd immunity and
no one's going to reach that.” He added, “That's a death sentence, and that's
not something that Australia has ever contemplated.”
So, shall we stop pretending that this is simply about allowing
a cruel but inevitable force of nature take its course? Countries like New Zealand,
Israel, Czechia, Greece, Denmark, Norway and Australia are showing that good
policy and governance can save lives. In
addition, as they are now the first to be opening schools, returning people to
work and allowing social interaction, these countries are demonstrating that
decisive and uncompromising action to save lives is also the best and fastest
way to restore economic activity.
No, calls to sacrifice old people in the name of the economy
mask deeply rooted intellectual laziness by those who grasp at discredited assumptions
of neo-classical economics, small-government laissez faire capitalism, household
analogies of public debt and a diabolical belief that elderly people are a
societal indulgence that is best dispensed with when inconvenient. In short, they
believe that the utility value of old people cannot justify the cost.
An age of fleeting pleasures with not much more to offer?
Viewed from the perspective of a person in their thirties,
the age of 70 is unimaginably old. Septuagenarians, let alone octogenarians,
are frequently assumed to have lost vitality and be simply trying to keep
comfortable while they wait for death. Anyone over 60 is often considered to be
in preparation for this phase, which is why they are mostly avoided in employment
recruitment. Such misguided ageist prejudice is breathtakingly common. And now
we see it in calls for society to “get back to normal” and accept the death of
people who do not have much longer to live anyway.
However, according to the World Bank in 2019, the average lifespan
of people living in Australia, France, Canada, New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland,
Singapore, South Korea, Sweden and Norway is over 82 years, for those in Japan
the figure is 84 years, while in the UK, Chile and much of Europe people live
to over 80 years. The average lifespan in the US is 78.5 years. That’s a lot of
years after 60 to be considered infirm and of lesser value.
Perhaps before we cast our seniors to the Volcano God in
order to placate this pandemic, we would do well to remember that for hundreds
of years, people well over 60 years of age have created some of our most
sublime art; written much our most moving poetry, music and literature; articulated
world-changing philosophy; done spectacular science and changed the course of
history for many nations.
For example –and the
examples are inexhaustible – in literature and art, Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra (1547-1616) would probably have died in obscurity and poverty had he
not published Don Quixote at the age
of 58 (Part 1) and 68 (Part 2). In our own time, the multiple prize-winning
author of Schindler’s Ark (Booker
Prize), Thomas Keneally, published his most recent novel only last month at the
age of 84. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910 ) published his masterful novella The Death
of Ivan Ilyich in 1886 at the age of 58 and completed the short novel Hadji
Murad in 1894 when aged 66. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is believed to
have painted Mona Lisa between 1513
and 1517, when he was aged 61-65. And in 1547, at the age of 72, Michelangelo
(1475-1564) took on the architectural design of St. Peter’s Basilica, creating
a spectacular dome that is considered by many to be the epitome of Renaissance
creation.
In music, Sergei Rachmaninoff
wrote his Symphonic Dances (Opus 45) in 1940 at the age of 63. In 1903, at the
age of 60, the Norwegian composer and pianist, Edvard
Grieg, (1843-1907) pushed the bounds of technology and made nine
78-rpm gramophone recordings of his piano music in Paris, which survive
and are available in digital form today. And of course, in 2018 at the age of 76,
the former Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney
(b. 1942) released his album Egypt Station which became his first
in 36 years to top the Billboard 200, and his first to debut at
number one.
In 1921, Albert
Einstein (1878-1955), received the Nobel prize in physics; however, on 9th
July 1955, aged 77, together with the philosopher Bertrand Russell, then aged
83, he signed the influential Russell–Einstein Manifesto, which highlighted the
dangers posed by nuclear weapons and called for the peaceful
resolution of international conflicts. This manifesto gave rise to the famous
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs that in turn won the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1995 for work on nuclear disarmament. Indeed, Bertrand Russel
won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 at the age of 78. In September 1961,
at the age of 89, Russell took part in an anti-nuclear
demonstration in London and was jailed for seven days for ‘breach of peace’.
In the field of
politics, we might note also the nation-changing market-economy reforms made by
Deng Xiaoping in 1978 when he was 74 years old. And few will forget the recent
Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, who won the 14th
General Election in 2018 at the age of 93.
In science, Nicolaus
Copernicus (1473-1543) was 70 years old when he published his book De
revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the
Celestial Spheres), which – controversially for its time – argued that Earth
was not the centre of the universe and in fact orbited the sun. Louis Pasteur
(1822-1895) developed his rabies vaccine in 1885 at the age of 63. In 2014, Stephen
L. Antczak reminded us in Next Avenue,
“Consider these renowned scientists who are still making important
contributions: David Attenborough (88), James Watson (86), Noam Chomsky (85),
E.O. Wilson (85), Roger Penrose (82), Jane Goodall (80), Richard Dawkins (73),
Stephen Hawking (72) and Neil deGrasse Tyson (55).”
An iconic active
senior was the Catholic nun and now saint, Mother Mary Teresa (1910-1997).
Mother Teresa was not above controversy; nevertheless, none would question her
vitality and hard work as head of the Missionaries of Charity until the age of
87. Staying with religion, let us also remember the tireless advocacy work done
today by the founder of the National Action Network, Reverend Al Sharpton (b.
1954), who remains active on radio and television across the US at age 65.
And finally, not for
want of further examples, consider a COVID-19 hero in the UK, Captain Tom Moore
(b. 1920). Last month, just over three weeks before his 100th
birthday, he set
out to walk 100 laps of his
garden with the hope of raising £1,000 in aid of ‘NHS Charities
Together’. By the end of his birthday, he had raised £32.79 million. He
also featured in a cover version of the song ‘You'll Never Walk Alone’, which topped
the UK music charts, making him the oldest person to achieve a UK number one
hit and leaving Paul McCartney looking like a spring chicken.
This is not a list of exceptional seniors amongst a cohort
that generally sit around waiting to die.
A look at volunteer participation rates around the world shows a
consistent picture of engaged and motivated older people. The Australian Bureau
of Statistics reports that 35% of volunteers across that country are aged
65-74. Ninety-five per cent of Australian volunteers delivering meals to people
who need support at home are aged over 50 with the average age of ‘Meals on
Wheels’ volunteers being in their early 70s. A recent report by the European
Commission on volunteers in Finland said, “generally both younger people and
older people participate and have roughly similar participation rates in volunteering…
There is also evidence to suggest that older people are increasingly
participating in voluntary activities, as they are more active and enjoy better
health than previous generations.” According to Statistics Canada, in 2013, 27%
of Canadians over the age of 75 undertook volunteer work with that percentage
increasing to 38% for those between 65 and 74 years old.
