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What was the discussion about: "share two "big ideas" that were new or insightful for you

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What was the discussion about: "share two "big ideas" that were new or insightful for you.  Explain why these were significant and how you related to them.  Identify something you didn't understand well or that you had questions about." 

My Discussion? " Applewhite A. (2016). Where Ageism Comes And What It Does. This Chair Rocks (page 1). New York, Celadon Books. “Negative messages about aging cast a shadow across the entire life of every American, stunting our prospects, economy, and civic life. This is oppression: being controlled or treated unjustly”Applewhite A. (2016). Our ages, ourselves: identity. This Chair Rocks (page 43). New York, Celadon Books. “When we internalize stereotypes of olders as useless and debiliated, it's understandable that we experience aging as trauma-the Detrayal of the body and the dissolution of our place in the world along with it”.In both sentences, a transcendental concept is that Applewhite thinks that aging can be a great dilemma in the lives of all Americans and that they grow conditioned because the years pass so quickly. The writer also says that we are totally conditioned by the advertisements that come out of television which want to teach us that the perfect stereotype is always to look younger than we are. The main message of those advertisements is that we need to hide that time has passed and that we are getting old. An impressive idea that the author wants to convey is that everyone teaches us from childhood that growing up is something negative, that our body begins to function badly, that we are not going to be worth anymore, that we lose value and desire to keep living and that we must do everything we can to delay getting old.  The two quotes I have chosen are related because the author tries to open her reader’s eyes and she teaches them to stop believing in stereotypes that society wants to impose. Applewhite A. (2016). Our ages, ourselves: identity. This Chair Rocks (page 47 ). New York, Celadon Books. “Aging is, obviously, a process. The older we grow, the more complexly layered identity becomes, the fatter the file in which our knowledge and memories are stored, in which, in turn, our sense of self resides”. I would have many questions about that phrase from many aspects of life, since I am currently at a young age and there are many things in life that I cannot understand, and that phrase of the writer produces many doubts about the process of living.  The quote generates me enthusiasm and questions about the experience of living. When I am much older, I will verify what the author emphasizes.  I would ask the writer: “How complex can life be?”, “Will I find my identity and what I want for my whole life?”. Questions that will be answered later and that I will have to live much longer to answer. 

My fellow classmates replies that you need to reply to them ?

1- Alfredo Roman: Good evening class,I have to admit that it was delight to read the first chapter of, This Chair Rocks.  Dr. Rainey is spot on when she mentioned that the book is not your normal read.  The first chapter was: clever, witty, and quite frankly a bit entertaining.  That said, there is plenty of in-depth, research based, and data-based material to digest.  Historian David Hackett Fischer explained that when we do not come to terms with the transition to older age. we create a destructive, ignorant, and distaste for others in that age group (Applewhite, 2016, p.17).  That also turns in to distaste for oneself.  Having such an ignorant and negative outlook on what is inevitable for all of us could have dire consequences on an individual and societal level.  These norms are already in place and in action as the years move on in our society.  If we do not seek and make a change to this baseless way of thinking, we will self-manifest as a society to a more: conflictive, divisive, and uncompassionate country.  This message is so relatable to current day events in the world and society.  I being an optimistic and positive person prefer the Successful Aging Model (Applewhite, 2016, p.17-18).  Healthy behaviors, a can-do attitude as a society can open our minds to change those old ways of thinking and treating our older folks in an appropriate way.  Walter Mosley put it "When you become old, you become black...anybody that's poor, who gets really old, anybody who suffers some kind of traumatic physical ailment, they realized what it is to be pushed aside by a society that is moving ahead with they believe is good..." (Applewhite, 2016, p.35).  This struck a very strong cord with me.  Being that I am a minority, my experience in America has had its challenges but we can not compare it to African American experience.  Mosley took me down a way of thinking that I had never considered, nor seemed comparable.  But as I learn, explore, and discover the treatment of this population I can see the similarities and the covert prejudice.  We have a long road ahead of us to make change.  It will take a lot of work and compassionate people, but it can be done.  Applewhite said it best, "The mutually advantageous alternative is to see age as an asset. Exploit the "experience dividend" that this new cohort embodies. Acknowledge that olders are not mere burdens but contribute to society, and that their value as human beings is independent of conventional economic productivity" (Applewhite, 2016, p.37).  Working together will produce the best results for all age groups in an even equitable manner. reply.....

2-Nicole Costello :  Aging in our country is very vain, not enough people want to embrace the aging process.  Men and women alike all age at different rates.  This makes it a much easier process to deny or reject our chronological ages, I myself do not feel 44.  Although some days the age creeps in and oh my, I have aches and pains I didn’t have yesterday or at times even hours before.  I am finding that with more people exercising and eating healthy, the age denial an easier process.  “Stereotype embodiment theory” according to Becca Levy (page 42) a Yale Psychologist and Age Scholar who used negative and positive words that were associated with aging process later in life on a screen, flashing them briefly that way the subjects couldn’t really pay attention to them.  I found it interesting that the older people who were exposed to the positive words recalled positively to aging related items than those who were exposed to the negative words about aging.  There have been many times I have related to this idea of the negative effects of aging flashing across a screen depressing me or making me sad.  You start to feel old or embody the old age idea.  Why is Hitting the Age Wall (page 44) so significant and real?  Has anyone ever experienced this?  Applewhite talks about how while interviewing Betty Soskin a Park Ranger she discusses hitting that age wall while on a hike in the Grand Canyon.  Betty describes walking past a group of older adults who were talking, and she started relating to them, walking slower and feeling older as she stood near them.  I have not heard of this theory before, is those a true experience?I mentioned how vain our country is regarding aging, I am not a saint in this subject.  I just covered my gray hair because I couldn’t stand it anymore.  It wasn’t terrible; however, I noticed every strand and couldn’t stomach the thought any longer.  The aging process is inevitable, we all know this, we all recognize it. But why can’t we accept it?  At what age is aging appropriate?  Is there really an age?  Applewhite mentions this (page 47) regarding the inevitable changes of our lives, and even our bodies.  She says, “The older we grow, the more complexly layered identity becomes”.  This is so true, as you are no longer the girlfriend in a relationship, you become the wife, the mother, the grandmother, and at times a great grandmother.  Same for the men, boyfriends, husbands, fathers, grandfathers, etc. the layers of titles and experiences of aging that is inevitable at time goes on.  However, with these title changes comes the physical changes too, gray hair, wrinkles, hunching back, slower walking, no walking; maybe you are in a wheelchair.  Aging as we are finding is everywhere, no one person can stop this process, no matter how fit, vain, or how much the ignore the process.  We all find the same end result, just at a different rate. Reply.... 

PS: For your TWO peer replies , engage with the author by elaborating, comparing or contrasting, sharing counterpoints (stats and/or studies welcome!), or drawing connections to specific sociological concepts or theories.  This is an opportunity to demonstrate critical thinking, so avoid simplistic replies that mainly repeat the author's post or others' replies.  Try to bring something new, insightful, or provocative to the discussion!  You want to further the conversation by adding new ideas, information, or perspectives.  It's OK to play "devil's advocate", just let others know so we're all on the same page.  Be sure to use in-text citations when appropriate and page numbers so others can easily find the passages you're discussing!

CHAPTER ONE WHERE AGEIS M COMES FROM AND WHAT IT DOES When geriatrician Robert Butler coined the term "ageism" in 1969not long after "sexism" made its debut-he defined it as a combina- tion of prejudicial attitudes toward older people, old age, and aging itself; discriminatory practices against olders; and institutional prac tices and policies that perpetuate stereotypes about them. The term was quickly adopted by the media and added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Almost half a century later, it's barely made inroads into public consciousness, not to mention provoked outcry. entire messages about aging cast a shadow across the life of every American, stunting our prospects, economy, and civic How life. This is oppression: being controlled or treated unjustly. in a most Americans have yet to put their concerns about aging Negative ever, social or political context. When I ask people if they know what age to other "isms," ism is, most reflect for a moment, compare the word and they and realize what it must mean. The concept rings true, social oppression nod. But it's still a new idea to most. And unless is called out, we don't see it as oppression. Perpetuating it doesn't deliberate discrimination. This lesser require conscious prejudice or will be. life is "just the way it is," and the way it probably always IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS In most the few people who prehistoric and agrarian societies, lived to old age were esteemed as Religion gave older men power. teachers and custodians of culture. History was a living thing passed tradition took a serious hit with generations. This oral when books became alternative the invention of the printing press, remained relatively of knowledge. As long as old age down across repositories THIS 14 CHAIR ROCKS rare, though, olders retained social standing as possessors fvalu. able skills and information. The young United States was a gerontocracy, which served the older men into positions citizens had to age who held the the roi. reins; younger of authority, The nincteenth and twentieth centuries usheredd in in a reversal Modernity brought massive transitions that reduced the visibility of of society, diminished their older members opportunit and eroded their authority. Rapid social change made learning aboutand th Dast seem less relevant. Aging turned from a natural proceue.into a social problem to be "solved" by programs like Social Securitvaand "retirement villages. The nursing home, a "shotgun maria. of the poorhouse and the hospital" in geriatrician Bill Thomas's memorable phrase, came into being and created a growth indo try. The historians Thomas R. Cole and David Hackett her have documented how, at the start of the nineteenth century, the idea of aging as part of the human condition, with its inevitable lim. its, increasingly gave way to a conception of old age as a biomedical Droblem to which there might be a scientific solution. What was lost was a sense of the life span, with each stage having value and meaning. Propelled by postwar leisure and prosperity, the explosion ofcon sumer culture, and research into a stage of life newly dubbed "ado- lescence" youth culture emerged as a distinct twentieth-century phenomenon. As this "cult of youth" grew, gerontophobia--fear of aging and dislike, even hatred, ofold people-gained traction. Those of us who grew up in the 196os and '7os were warned not to trust anyone over thirty, perhaps the first overt exhortation to take sides across a ever less generational divide. The decades beyond thirty appeared enviable. "Will you still need me, will you still feed when I'm sixty-four?" crooned the Beatles. me, GROWING OLD HAS he older Americans is rooted not only in historic and eco status of nOmic BECOME SHAMEFUL circumstances but also in deeply human fears about ue in- WHERE AGEISM cOMES FROM 15 herent vulnerabilities of old age: the loss of mobility, visibility, and autonomy. Not all of these transitions befall us all, and only two unwelcome ones are inevitable: We'l lose people we've known all our lives, and some part of our bodies will fall apart. These changes are natural. But we live in a culture that has yet to develop the lan guage and tools to help us deal with them. That's partly because these changes make us feel vulnerable, partly because longer lives are such a new phenomenon, and partly because of ageism, both internalized and in the culture at large. As a result, all too often these transitions are characterized by shame and loss of self-esteem. Internalized, these fears and anxieties pave the way for a host of unhealthy behaviors that include denial, overcompensation, and worse: actual contempt, which legitimizes stigma and discrimination. Two characteristics of marginalized populations are selfloathing and passivity-what my daughter tactfully dubbed the "yuck/pity factor" that the prospect of growing old invokes in so many. As a friend who bought a house from a wheelchair user observed, "Damn, it's nice to have wide doorways, and a toilet positioned this way-they should just do it for everyone." That's the premise of uni versal design-that products designed for older people and people with disabilities work great for everyone else too. Age-friendly products improve the built environment and make it more accessible, but stigma keeps them off the market. Realtors advise removing on the market, as ramps and grip bars before putting a house bonus or aging into it as a necessity. Alas, thanks to internalized ageism, they've got a point. though no buyer could see accessibility as a Stigma trumps even the bottom line. There's a fast-growing "sil ver market," especially for products that promote "age-independence technology" yet advertisers continue to pay a premium to target eighteen-to-thirty-five-year-olds. Despite the significant purchasing power of older buyers, retailers are uneasy about stocking products for them and companies are leery of investing. Unless they're R 16 THIS CHAIR ROCKS selling health aids, brands don't want be associated wit with the no longer-young set either. Just as telling is the resistance sumers themselves to buying products that might nce of older Con oh poo eyesight or balance. Instead we blame ourselves for a vast range ofcircum mstances or over which we have no control. of our making and Difficulties us into "problem people." When abels are hard to read or handrturn missing or containers hard to open, we fault ourselves f being prepared. Watching anolder nerson struggling to heave herselt out of a low chair, we assume her leg muscles are weak or her balance is shot, instead ofconsiderin more limber or dexterous or better the inadequacies of seating so deep or low to the ground. Ifwe ee a teenager perched on a kindergarterner's chair, we don't bemoan the fact that his legs got so huge. Kiddie chairs aren't designed for teen. agers any more than armchairs are designed tor ninety-year-olds. As we age, we blame ourselves for a vast range of circumstances not The issue is not competence, or incompetence, but it's hardo keep sight of that in ageist an of our making and over which we world. These obstacles are less have no control. of a problem than the under lying policies and prejudices that reduce access and independence. We blame our own aging instead of the ageism that renders these natural transitions shame ful and these barriers acceptable. Discrimination-not aging-is the barrier to full participation in the world around us. AGEISM MAKES US DREAD OUR FUTURES It doesn't make much sense to discriminate against a group that spire to join. Or to rail about olders sucking up "entitlements which they carned-when both the need and One our the antagonis vill way in turn. Ageism isa prejudice against our own furtu SEIves, as Todd Nelson and many other age scholars have observc andhas the dubious distinction of being the only "ism" relateu to a VESal COndition. It takes root in denial of the fact that we re go oing WHERE AGEISM cOMES FROM 1 to get old. That we are aging. Its hallmark is the irrational insistence that older people are Other, not Us-not even future us-and we go to great lengths to distance ourselves from that future state. "My mom is ninety, but she's not old," someone insisted to me not long ago, as though it were contagious. We exaggerate difference and overlook what we have in common, as with older people who spurn senior centers "full of old people in wheelchairs" lest they be tar nished by association. In childhood we're maddened when grown-ups don't treat us with respect-that's ageism too-but unable to imagine that our speech will someday quaver, skin crease, gait falter. Over time it gets harder to sustain that illusion, and a punitive psychological bind tightens its grip. Unless we come to terms with the transition, we hate what we are becoming. Historian David Hackett Fischer is blisteringly clear about the implications of this damaging divide, "destructive most of all to those who adopt it-for in the end it is always directed inward upon the mind it occupies." That's the nature of prejudice always ignorant, usually hostile. It begins as a distaste for others, and in the case of age (as opposed to race or sex), it turns into distaste for oneself. This self-hatred takes many forms. It's manifest in the wide spread effort to "pass" for younger, the way people of color have passed for white and gay people for straight; behavior spurred both by the desire to protect ourselves from discrimination and by inter- nalized disgust. It underlies disparaging comments like, "I know that this isn't true of anyone else in the room, but I'm not getting any younger" and "You don't have to say when I graduated," both of which I've heard verbatim from people on the front lines of ag ing policy. Youd think they'd be a little more selfaware, but many are invested in deficit models of aging. They're experts in the impo tant task of caring for the frailest and neediest-thae's how they get funded and promoted-and they have yet to reconcile that view of old age with what lies ahead for themselves. At the other end of the spectrum, many experts are proponents of the successful aging THIS CHAIR ROCKS 18 model, which holds that healthy behaviors and "can-do". can hold aging at bay. That's still denial, a high-end versionthatt tends po to overlook the very important role of socioeconomic class and tential disability in shaping how "successfully" we age. We're so busy feeling young that we stay blind to the ageisrm in and around us and never learn to defend ourselves against it, Olda people tend to identify with younger ones as strongly as youngers themselves do. Other groups that experience prejudice, like gays or people with autism, develop buffers that can reinforce group iden. tity, and even pride, at belonging to what sociologists call an out group. Olders are apparently the only group whose attitudes about old age are as disparaging as those held by the in-group, the young2 Talk about not wanting to belong to any club that would have you as a member! Which would be funnier, and a lot less ironic, if it weren't the club that everyone is counting on getting into. AGEISM LEGITIMIZES ABUSE, AND ACTUALLY SHORTENS LIVES they apply stereotypes so insidious? Because others, there's no need to defend ourselves against them. They're Steoften unconsciously, absorbed into our ways of thinking. Why when are to easily, reotyping obstructs empathy, cutting people off from the experi ence of others-even if, as is the case with ageism, those "others are our own future selves. "Ageism allows the younger generations thus they subtly to see older people as different than themselves; Robert Butler cease to identify with their elders as human beings," wrote in Why Survive? Being Old in America, which won him a color, When we see people as other than us-other less of a other nationality, other religion-their welfare seems of elder abuse human right. That's why at least five out of six cases Pulitzer Prize." go unreported. take many forms: neglect or abandonmen, or conine physical abuse (including the inappropriate use of drugs emotional abuse such as intimidation or humiliation; sexua Elder abuse ment); can WHERE AGEISM COMES FROM abuse; 19 healthcare fraud; and financial exploitation. Because of age elder abuse is less familiar to emergency room staff and law ism, enforcement offticers than other forms of domestic violence, and the ublic is less equipped to recognize it. "If nobody knows that I'm be ing abused or I never hear about elder abuse and I think I'm the otuly one it's happening to, I'm embarrassed and ashamed so I just keep my mouthshut, explains Mary Anne Corasaniti, ex-director of New York State's Onondaga County elder abuse program. It's why corme people rationalize exploiting olders with the repugnant excuse that the person is too old to notice. Condescension alone actually shortens lives. What profession- als call "elderspeak"-the belittling "sweeties" and "dearies" that Deople use to address older people-does more than rankle. It reinforces stereotypes of incapacity and incompetence, which leads to poorer health, including shorter life spans. People with positive per ceptions of aging actually live longer-a whopping seven and a half years longer, on average-in part because they're motivated to take better care of themselves.' Dementia confers no immunity. Nursing horne residents with severe Alzheimer's have been shown to react aggressively to infantilizing language. Overaccommodation also harms-behavior like using simpler words and sentences or speak ing louder and more slowly than we would to a younger person, in- stead of first ascertaining that the person is in fact confused or hard of hearing. Targets of this demeaning behavior appear to "instantly age' speaking, moving, and thinking less capably. Internalized stereotypes also interfere with the value that people place on their own lives. Take the sad story of Bob Bergeron, a therapist in New York whose suicide at forty-seven took his friends by surprise. Described as "relentlessly cheery" Bergeron had friends and family, financial security, and no history of depression. Extraor dinarily beautiful as a young man, he was writing a sel-help guide Called The Right Side of Forty: The Complete Guide to Happiness for Gay Men at Midlife and Beyond. In Bergeron's suicide note, next to an LW pointing to the title page of his manuscript, he wrote, "It's a 20 THIs CHAIR ROCKS bad information." writing life and alone on New lie based on He was new to the ar's Eve; not a good ruggle- of the combir on Belonging to a subculture that fetishizes youthful beauty and did no favors con ventional sexual prowess ther. him Bergeron greater tragedy, though, was to inhabit a world so bereft of alt ernative narratives that dread overtook him. That's why we need me rich, complex stories that shrug off the mantle of decline and d there's no "right" or "wrong" side to forty-or any other age. In now another study, people were exposed to negative or positive ste. reotypes of old age. then asked to request or reject life-prolonging medical treatment in a hypothetical situation. As expected, the neo. eg atively primed subjects were more likely to opt out. We see these values in the cultural controAmerican culture barrages the old versy around assisted suicide, and disabled with the message that their lives are not worthwhile, nor worth paying for. where the indignation index drops sharply when the population in question consists of the very old or severely disabled. Conversations need to factor into a cultural climate that barrages the old and disabled with the message that their lives are not worthwhile, nor worth paying for. that goes back at least as far as the Victorian-era novelist Anthony Trollope. Pub: Euthanizing older people has a history in fiction lished in 1882, his novel The Fixed Period proposed mandatory euthanasia at age sixty-eight, ostensibly to relieve suffering. In satirist Christopher Buckley's novel Boomsday, Millennials rise up The movement's prophetic leader urges folks to stop paying taxes that subsidize retirement, and create financial incentives for Boomers to commit suicide. The description ofa seminar hosted by New York University in June 2013 called "Love and Let Die: An All Day Consideration of Ballooning Longevity, the Quality of Lite, atnd the Coming Generational Smash-up" posited that "We may well be approaching a situation in which we as a society will have to choose between living in a world where an eighty-five-year-old is routiney WHERE AGEISM COMES FROM 21 ranted five hip operations, or one in which we can still afford, say. gran primary school." If someone botched my first four hip operations, Id like a crack at a fifth. thank you very much. It's not as though funding crack at a fifth school for primary comes out of the same bucket as funding for ioint replacements (and universal healthcare and decent public education would render the example meaningless). It's not a ques educ but of how they're distributed. People at both ends of the age spectrum are least likely to be economically productive in and therefore the most likely to be discriminated a capitalist system, tion of resources 20ainst. For all the "family values" rhetoric coming out of Capitol Hill, programs for kids are underfunded because kids don't vote and because the kids whose parents have political influence need those programs less. As with other "isms, ageism pits the disenfranchised against each other in order to maintain the power of the ruling dass. "Kids vs. canes" is a false dichotomy that gerontologists have de bunked countless times, but it makes great headlines. As it is, older people are lacking from the landscape, and pro-aging voices are rare. If ageism continues to go unchallenged, a dystopian future where they are missing entirely begins to seem conceivable. Given the remarkable set of achievements that longevity represents, that would be an ironic and tragic outcome. LONGER LIVES ARE A BASIC INDICATOR OF HUMAN PROGRESS Growing old isn't new. What's new is how many of us now routinely do so. The first leap in life span occurred some thirty thousand years ag0, during the Paleolithic era, when people started living past age of thirty. That's when modern humans began flourishing, making art, using symbols, and thriving, despite the bitter cold of tne last lce Age. Why? Because thirty is old enough to be a grand- parent, which conveys evolutionary advantages. Older people are Tepositories of knowledge, skilled in avoiding danger and storing THIs 22 d CHAIR ROCKS nowing who's related to these complex skills. whom, and at passing alo \ong The next big shift occurred:some 150 years ago, propelled by the extraordinary scientihc and technological advances that began with the Industrial Revolution. As more children survived to ad dult hood. women began having fewer of them. (Somewhat counterin. tuitively, the main determinant of population aging is dronnin fertility rates, not rising lite expectancy.) The proportion of older people increased, and the life span in the developed world has since doubled. In the twentieth century, in the U.S. alone, the American life span increased by a staggering thirty years. This largely reflects the fact that more Americans too, gaining on living longer, grandparents' era. surviving to adulthood, but we're average ten biological years since our are In effect, thanks largely to clean water and antibi. from the young to the old. an ageing population and not otics, we've redistributed death "Tt is, frankly, insane to look at re- CenGuardian columnist Zoe ...