Brooks and Amis: Two Approaches to the Aged, One Answer

David Brooks is the Episcopalian minister of pundits: kind, well-meaning, usually intelligent, sometimes absurd, and often good-natured to a fault. This morning in the Times he writes a column about America’s oldsters. He begins by reporting a pile of feel-good findings about aging, telling us about studies that show that people get happier as they get older, that women become more assertive and men more emotionally attuned, that older people feel a sense of reward by engaging in generativity, i.e., nurturing the younger generations. But then Brooks suddenly slaps Grandpop and Grandma upside the head.

“The odd thing is that when you turn to political life, we are living in an age of reverse-generativity,” he writes. “Far from serving the young, the old are now taking from them. First, they are taking money. According to Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institution, the federal government now spends $7 on the elderly for each $1 it spends on children. Second, they are taking freedom. In 2009, for the first time in American history, every single penny of federal tax revenue went to pay for mandatory spending programs, according to Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute. As more money goes to pay off promises made mostly to the old, the young have less control. Third, they are taking opportunity. For decades, federal spending has hovered around 20 percent of G.D.P. By 2019, it is forecast to be at 25 percent and rising. The higher tax rates implied by that spending will mean less growth and fewer opportunities. Already, pension costs in many states are squeezing education spending.”

Then the Reverend Brooks returns and gets all gooey again, calling upon older people–both the happy, emotionally-attuned, nurturing old people, and the selfish, grasping oldsters alike–to lead a “spontaneous social movement” to bring about change that will reverse these spending policies. Says Brooks, “Only the old can lead a generativity revolution — millions of people demanding changes in health care spending and the retirement age to make life better for their grandchildren.”

Well, let’s be realistic: what Brooks is talking about is senior citizens getting up and asking for cuts in their Social Security payments, or in their medication subsidies, or the kind and amount of health care they receive. Obviously the fattest target is the expensive end-of-life care terminal patients receive. In other words, Brooks would like a great movement of seniors to stand up and say “Please turn off my respirator!”

Two weeks ago, the British novelist Martin Amis had a similar inspiration, although he phrased his insights rather differently. According to an article in The Guardian, Amis said that he believes Britain faces a “civil war” between young and old, as a “silver ­tsunami” of increasingly aging people puts pressure on society. “They’ll be a population of demented very old people, like an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out the restaurants and cafes and shops,” he is quoted as saying. “I can imagine a sort of civil war between the old and the young in 10 or 15 years’ time. There should be a [euthenasia] booth on every ­corner where you could get a martini and a medal.”

So which approach do you prefer? Brooks’ sweet cookie with a touch of arsenic in the middle? Or Amis’s nasty punch in the nose? Either way, their observation is the same: Boomers are aging. Dementia is an epidemic. And no society can afford to throw away millions on the terminally ill.