244 RüdigerKunow
to actually put to use the available procedures in order to ameliorate,
evenpreempt,bodilyshortcomingsassociatedwith"aging"or"oldage."
Observers have noted that this is already indeed the case and point to a
growingwillingnessalreadynowamongtheelderlytoallowpreemptive
interventions (Clarke et al., "Technoscientific Transformations" 48;
Kaufman238).Theyeven foundanincreasingsenseofbeing somehow
ethically obligated to do so in order to fulfill societal expectations and
avoid being a burden on others or society at large. Seniors under the
perspective of biotechnical perfectibility do age or, rather, are being
aged "in a political and ethical field in which individuals are
increasingly obligated to form life strategies, to seek to maximize their
life chances, to take actions or refrain from actions in order to increase
thequalityoftheirlives..."(N.Rose,PoliticsofLife107).Theupshot
of this process might well be called a new cultural script for later life:
coercivefitness.
Coercive fitness and other pressures of this kind can be expected to
grow as more preemptive measures become available in the future. To
the degree that new culturally mandated and biotechnically realized life
courseregimesaremappedontoanactive-passivedichotomy,theymay
simply repeat and reinforce existing ageist stereotypes about lethargic
older people. Meanwhile, it should not be forgotten, especially from a
cultural critical point of view, that privileging a late life identity
organized around physical fitness and the purchase of the necessary
appurtenances for that same fitness does sometimes amount to rubbing
shoulderswiththeincreasinglyinsistenttrendinU.S.societyseekingto
recruiteldersintoevernewmarketsofbuyingandselling,showcasedin
"bestagers"advertisingandmarketing.^80
And indeed, there have been cases where the boundary line
separating gerontology as a scientific discipline from the imperatives of
consumer culture has become blurred or fuzzy. This is even true of the
widely accepted SOC theory (Baltes and Smith 124) because, with its
emphasis on a self-determined, productive senescence, their findings
andrecommendationscanclaimrelevanceonlyforalimitedsegmentof
the senior population, those for whom the active and interactive
(^80) For an elaboration of this argument and more material see Rubinstein and de
Medeiros.