252 RüdigerKunow
health care. As a member of the Club of Rome put it, a "Population
Bomb" will explode and release growing numbers of elderly people
which "like a massive iceberg, [that] looms ahead in the future of the
largest and most affluent economies of the world" (Ballantyne et al. 2;
Peterson 180-83) will sink the ship (society, the nation as a whole).
Predictionsofthiskind,rehearsedalmosteverydayinpublicdiscourses
and private conversations, derive their criticalmomentum from the way
inwhichstatisticsonthelongevityrevolutionarebecominganeffective
and powerful representational tool (representation here understood in
both its semiotic and political senses) which understands human life as
human capital and late life as wasted capital. "Greying means paying,"
PeterG.Petersonsuggests(18;butseeMullenandFuredi110).
Measuredbythenewnormsofeconomicviabilityandfoundfailing,
late life can and has in fact become a factor in a kind ofcomparative
biopolitics(Kunow, "Old Age and Globalization" 300-08; Neilson 167-
73). In the context of the "War Against Terror," population statistics
have attained even greater geopolitical urgency. In hisThe Clash of
Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (1996), the late
Samuel P. Huntington makes note of what he calls a "demographic
bulge," i.e., the relative youthfulness of the Muslim world vis-à-vis the
aging nation states of the "Western Civilization" (the United States,
Canada, Western Europe, and Australia). On this basis, he predicts that
in the coming clash of civilizations, the EuroAmerican sphere will be
seriouslydisadvantagedbecauseitspopulationisolder,hencelesslikely
to withstand the assault from a supposedly youthful and aggressive
Islam(Huntington,ClashofCivilizations117).^83
Not only in this widely discussed text but throughout the discursive
registersofneoliberalglobalization,"oldage"figuresasloadedsignifier
of an ominous future, as aging populations are said to bode ill for the
welfare of the United States and other capitalist countries in the North
Atlantic sphere. In point of fact, however, many nations of the Global
South are hit much harder by parallel demographic changes because
they do not have the fiscal or institutional infrastructure to cope with
(^83) Huntington'ssweepingpanoramaelicitedafloodofcommentsandsparkedan
intense, controversial public debate. See, e.g., Howe, Neil, and David Jackson.
"Battle of the (Youth) Bulge."The National Interest.The National Interest,
2008.Web.14May2017.