216 RüdigerKunow
rather,adifferenceintemporalpositionalityalongthelifecourse,isthus
transcoded into a constitutive social, cultural, political difference. In
other words, it is normal to age but age itself is perceived as not
"normal."Iwillreturntosimilarparadoxeslateroninmyreflectionson
disability. At this point, it is important to emphasize that the difference
that time makes for the body is not the only story to be told here;
"aging" takes place not only in bodies but also in minds, in language,
cultural practices, and social institutions. Much of that relies on norms,
silent and explicit ones, and these norms, whether based on "scientific"
evidence or reflecting folkloristic beliefs, can be shown to conform to
some recognizable patterns and protocols. In all cultures and
emphaticallysoinU.S.-Americanculture,"age"hasbeensurroundedby
awell-definedsetofculturallyacceptednormssothatthelaterstagesof
the life course are among the most densely regulated areas of human
life, surpassed perhaps only by their polar opposites: pregnancy and
birth.
TheAgeChillFactor:LateLifeasBio-CulturalPathology
To"age" is bothdesireanddread.Mostpeople wantto becomeold;
however,hardlyanybodywantstobeold.Fewpeople,evenyoungones,
will speak and think about the "coming of age," their own or that of
others, with cold indifference and even fewer people would willingly
accept the designation "old" or even self-identify by the term.^57 Jean
Améry, who had survived Auschwitz, in retrospect finds the terrors of
the Shoah not as "horrible as the decay visited on me by my intimate
enemy, the slow death of getting old" (Üb erdasAltern 136; my trans.).
Because "age" is so often associated with dread, the phrase "'you're
lookingold'wouldneverbesaid,excepttoinsult"(Segal5),orperhaps
with the intention of making a joke about someone who is not really
"old." Andso,"age"(anditscompounds), while ahighly malleableand
suggestive signifier, does not float easily in the symbolic order of
(^57) Gerontophobia or "age shame" are anchored not only in the subprime
conditionofagivenhumanbodybutarereflectionsalsoofasocialandcultural
practice which increasingly often regards old people as a "burden" to the
community—an idea that has expanded into systematic proportions in the
contextofneoliberalcapitalism.