NotNormativelyHuman 223
normative chronological signposts, especially when "age" during the
19 thcenturygraduallybecameanobjectofpublicinterestandsolicitude.
In the United States, at 50, people are in official parlance designated as
seniors (and eligible for membership in the AARP^63 ), 62 subjects them
to the presumption of financial need by allowing them to qualify for
discounts,forexampleonairfareorBroadwayandLasVegasshows.65
used to be the mandatory retirement age until it was scrapped by the
Supreme Court (United Air Lines, Inc. v. McMann, 434 U.S. 192,
1977), but 65 still makes people eligible for social security benefits. At
this point, all official counting curiously stops, and people considered
"over the hill" are relegated to a netherworld for which few, if any,
socialorculturalnormsexist.
Much of this is in the process of changing right now. The much
publicized "longevity revolution" during the previous century, the
growth in life expectancy (however unevenly distributed globally) have
resulted in growing cohorts of elderly people, the "Happy Agers" or
"GoldenPonders,"whicharenowpopulatingthemedia.Newscriptsfor
later life are forming, or perhaps I should rather say are being formed,
whicharebenttocreatea"newnormal"foragingandtheelderly.^64
Partofthisnewnormalistheconceptualsubdivisionofstagesoflate
life that I already mentioned as a "Third Age" and a "Fourth Age"
(Baltes and Smith 123-25). While the former is often taken to be
useful than functional age... concepts as age strata, cohorts, age grades, life
stages,socialclocks,on/offtime,agenorms,youngold/oldold,andeventhelife
course"(276).
(^63) TheAmericanAssociationofRetiredPersons(founded in 1958)is a powerful
lobbyingandadvocacygroup;currentmembershipstandsatabout40million.
(^64) The debate on the "new old" and its possible negation of the risks and
deprivations of old age is too extensive to be reproduced here. For the major
positions cf. Achenbaum,Old Age; Grimley-Evans; Gilleard and Higgs; Katz,
DiscipliningOldAge.
InabrilliantargumentMargaretGullettehasdemonstratedhowfashionandthe
fashion cycle with its periodical re-definition of what figures as old-fashioned
clothing has become a symbolically charged terrain on which the elderly learn
what it means to be out-of-date: "The fashion cycle is only one the mysterious
waysbothmenandwomenlearn[that]wearenolongeryoung...,learn[their]
relationshiptopassingtime:lossfromwithin"(Gullette,"OtherEnd"37,48).