Growing old as a philosophical experience: “As an elder you are a kind of explorer”
Suzanne Biewinga wrote her PhD at the UvA at the age of 70 on her research into a new philosophy of ageing as an experience. “It takes courage, in the awareness of impermanence, to keep searching for meaning of your life for yourself and others.”
After working for a hospice and patient organisations until she was fifty-seven, Biewinga decided to change directions: she began studying philosophy. This path would eventually lead her to a PhD thesis, in which Biewinga researches new, twenty-first-century answers to the question of what it means to grow older. According to her, the common narratives about wanting to stay young or ending up in a black hole where, above all, much loss awaits, no longer suffice. In reality, the process of growing old meaningfully is a lot more nuanced, she found out during her research.
How did you approach this complex issue?
“It started in 2016 with a post in a door-to-door magazine, where I pitched the idea of conducting a series of group discussions with older people on meaningful ageing. Not a very sexy topic at all, I thought at the time, but it took off. So there appeared to be something going on around the subject. After the discussions, the participants - mainly people in their seventies and eighties, but also a few people in their sixties - walked out with their heads full of ideas. So I started writing reports for them. Then the idea arose to turn it into a PhD study and publish a book, so besides the interviews, I delved into the literature. I read the work of contemporary thinkers and scholars, researched antiquity and analysed the life practices of ancient Stoic and Epicurean philosophers in Roman times.”
Why does this era in particular call for a new perspective on ageing?
“People are getting much older on average, which has changed in a short time. A century ago, many people only lived to be fifty, and now we live to be over eighty. Besides, society is changing incredibly fast now, so a lot of what you used to experience is already old-fashioned now. Also, these days we stay medically well for so long that almost all the diseases and limitations that used to be there from the start are now crammed together from the age of 70. Growing old is thus a crash course in loss because you have lived much of your adult life in seeming invulnerability. Suddenly, people around you get sick and die. You yourself, of course, are not exempt from that. Quitting work is also hugely disruptive. You have all the freedom but no more social structure. For my research, I mainly looked at that cultural aspect of ageing.”
You write that the conventional stories about ageing are no longer true, which stories are they?
“There are two. According to one story, you have to stay involved in everything to stay young, fit and vital. That sounds wonderful, but when you get older you are all sorts of things, but precisely not young. So this story denies what is going on with you. The second story, when staying young no longer works, is the story of misery, death, doom and gloom. In fact, you might as well not be there anymore. That story, too, is too one-sided.”
“Both stories contain some truth, but are just far too simplistic. Growing old is much richer and much more adventurous, much more uncertain than those two stories. They are outdated ideas, perpetuated by the fact that young and old hardly ever meet outside the family sphere.”
Biewinga adapted her thesis into a public version that is available for sale as a book under the title “Growing old as experience, philosophy of late life’. The book will be published on 10 February and is available from Boom publishers.”
So how should we look at ageing?
“The shortest summary is that ageing is an uncharted territory. So as an elder, you are a kind of explorer, and so you also need the character traits of an explorer. You need to be brave, and curious. Keep in mind that you can encounter the most wonderful things, but also things that are hugely confrontational and tough. You need a lot of life experience to deal with that. And others who recognise you as a fellow human being and give you a place.”
How does your research relate to earlier works by philosophers?
“Over the centuries, very little has been written about ageing. Philosophers wrote about life and death, but ageing was never such an issue before. It never happened as massively as it does now, besides, people usually just worked until they died. However, older people did play an important role in history because of the knowledge they acquired over the years. Certainly before there were written texts, their memory was crucial. The idea that older people acquire wisdom over the course of their lives, thankfully, still exists today. You could see that as a kind of constant through history.”
“Also, the idea of Platonic values - that life is about the good, the true and the beautiful - is such a universal thing. Somehow that still holds true, even though we may fill it in differently. But a fourth value should be added as far as I am concerned, that of personal dignity. The fact that older people desperately need the recognition of their personal dignity is something I came across in all the conversations. Without self-esteem you are nowhere, but no one can get that entirely from themselves. You always need appreciation from other people, otherwise you will not last.”
Is that the main conclusion from the study?
“Yes, you need to have the self-confidence that, even as an older person, you matter just as much as any other person. Stay curious and use your life experience to learn to accept that you will start losing everything, including yourself. We are taught that citizens are competent and independent, but everyone is by definition dependent on others, at whatever age. It is only in interaction with each other that the world acquires meaning. We are desiring, embodied, social and finite beings, moving through time.”
