NotNormativelyHuman 257
basic assumptions of modern physics finds an obvious parallel in the
ignorance,evenincomprehension,in "thelandwith thechildren,"about
thatothersphereoflife."Age,"whateverpeoplemayassociatewiththe
term, is not a domain they know much about, and which is thus pretty
much a blank spot on the mental maps provided by contemporary
culture. What most people would readily admit, though, is that the
placeswhere"age"isorissupposedtobedonotseemtobemuchfun.
Such assumptions are of course part and parcel of the overall negative
valorization of later life which I have already discussed at some length.
In addition, and more importantly, this separation also points to a
structurallackalongthelinesidentifiedbyParsons,namelytheabsence
ofmeaningfulscriptsforthepost-workperiodofthehumanlifecourse,
"an extended period of older age that is essentially without formal
structure,anentryintothetimeofthe'rolelessrole'"(Rileyetal.7).
Itrisksbeggingtheobvioustosay(asIhavealreadydone)thatU.S.
culture is in many ways a youth culture, a culture that idolizes
everything pertaining to youth, in bodies and minds, in fashion,
behavior, and above all, the economy. Inside this line of thought, age
andyouthareorganizedintermsofwhatFanon,indifferentbutrelated
contexts, called a "Manichean delirium" (WretchedoftheEarth43) and
arelatedseparationofspheres.Suchaffectivelyintenseformsofbinary
thinking, he argues, operate on a strictly representational economy in
which self-other relationships are located "in two camps" (in his case
"the white and the black") which then ground a set of subsidiary
oppositions: between West and non-West (as in Fanon), but also good
and bad, superiority and inferiority, subject and object, all of which
serve the purpose of consolidating the self by defining its absolute and
negative other. At the same time, one pole of this dualism remains
"tethered"toitsother.
Fanon's "Manichean delirium" is extremely useful in the present
context, not only because it captures very well the affective dimension
involved in the spatial apartheid separating the old from the young and
frommidlife.Buttheideaofspatialapartheidandtheaffectivebaggage
that goes with it can be observed with particular acuity in the Western
culturalpracticeofResidentialCare.
Nursinghomesarenodalpointsinthetopographyoflaterlife.They
are among the examples most often cited in debates about the role and
the structural isolation of the elderly in Western societies. Here, in