NotNormativelyHuman 217
Western societies (if not others as well). "Age," however understood, is
a constant contestation of what passes as "normal" in human
embodimentandhumanlifemoregenerally.
Already in one of the earliest treatises on the topic in Western
Culture, Cicero's dialogueCato maior de senectute(ca. 45/44 B.C.E.),
almost all the interlocutors voice uneasiness about senescence,
especially when applied to themselves. And such unease about the later
stages of the human life course seems to be a stable shared feature
across different social and cultural arrangements. Pat Thane's edited
collectionThe Long History of Old Age(2005) offers many exhibits of
"the remarkable continuity in how age was defined in both popular and
official discourse" as a negative experience (17). Especially in the U.S.
astheself-defined"youngnation,"multiplewayshaveevolvedtoinsist
on, even celebrate, the halcyon days of juvenility. In "the country of
young men" (Emerson n. pag.), "age" has historically carried negative
connotations, and continues to do so, even today, in the wake of the
longevity revolution, when more and more Americans live longer into
later life (Achenbaum,Old Age21-40; N. K. Miller 3-10). Critical
studiesbyMargaretGullette,especiallyherAgedByCulture(2004)and
Agewise(2011), provide many stark examples of a pervasive negative
attitude towards later life and even of a virulent "ageism" (Gullette's
term)againsttheelderlyacrossthenation.
But what exactly is "age" and when does it begin? Such questions,
formanypeople,areadon'task,don'ttellproposition.Nonetheless,the
questionitself—andthenormitinvokes—persists.Doeslatelifestartat
fifty, at sixty, or even earlier? Though "age" is, as I have said, an
omnibus term covering (up) a wide range of individual and collective
experiences, there does not seem to be a good, generally applicable
answer to when and what it is. Even when measured in seemingly
"objective" chronological terms, "age" (in the sense of old age) cannot
be said to be an ontogenetic state. Human life is a structure unfolding
and functioning in time, unevenly so. As medical studies have shown,
people do age in different ways and at different speeds (Biggs,
"'Blurring' of the Lifecourse" 217; Combe and Schmader 96; Grimley
passim). The somatic temporality of the body does not map onto the
normative social or cultural chronologies operating in the United States
(but also many other nations both in the Global North and Global
South). In view of this fact, it seems to make more sense to askwhere,