NotNormativelyHuman 253
growing numbers of senior populations and their needs (Magnus 157-
217).^84
From an American Cultural Studies perspective, the "public burden
of aging scenario" (Polivka 233) presents not only a thematic concern
but also a theoretical challenge: it mandates a cultural critique of a
hitherto often neglected domain of representations: policy statements,
expert recommendations, statistical reports and similar such material.
CarolynHarding'spieceon"NeoliberalTemporality"andtheretirement
crisis, which I have referenced above, is a good example of such work.
It reminds us that the "grounded terrain of practices, representations,
languages, and customs" of which Stuart Hall has famously spoken
("Gramsci's Relevance" 439) does not exclusively lie in cultural texts
and practices. It lies just as much in the public culture where people
come together and engage in debates about the status of human life in
the United States (but also in capitalist societies all over the world)
aboutwhatshouldbedoneandwhatshouldbegiventocitizensinneed.
Icallthisthecivicmeaningofhumanlife,becausesocialformationsdo
not exist in and by themselves, but, as the Frankfurt School has
demonstrated, they reproduce themselves through acts of
communication, cultural acts, in which the contours of what passes as
acceptable, even desirable forms of human life, are negotiated and
defined (Kellner n. pag.). In this context, the World Bank papers or the
Human Development Reportmentioned above, or the U.S. Health and
Retirement Survey and the U.S. Longitudinal Surveys of Aging,
together with texts produced by numerous governmental, non- or
intergovernmental agencies in the back rooms of power, groups of
experts, advisory boards, councils, transnational organizations, etc.
perform important social but also cultural work by influencing the
"distribution of the sensible" (Nancy 36) in the domain of late life. For
this reason, they are legitimate, even indispensable objects of cultural
critique,especiallymaterialistcritique.
(^84) For an extended presentation of this juncture cf. my "Old Age and
Globalization," esp. 298-300; Estes and Philipson 282-83.