From Macon, GA  to the world

Dedicated to exposing hidden facts impacting the lives of  older Americans

NOTICE  Commercial use of any part of this web site   requires my express permission

CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL POLICIES ON AGING IN USA  FANNING THE FLAMES OF   By Kara Lane

What is invidia?    How does it affect people over age 55 who are dumped into a labor market underclass, because of their age?

Some are embarrassed  to admit it to themselves,  much less  to others.   Some, who really need, want and are able to work and are envious of opportunities afforded younger people,   lie to themselves and others  by parroting the socially approved phrases  that they  are "voluntarily" retired. They say that theychoose to  step aside and let younger people rob us of the opportunities  we covet. In the context of this article, invidia means envy.

Some  may be silenced by fear of jeopardizing  vague hopes of   future possibilities.     Some  are  prodded into  distracting themeselves from it  by occupying our time  with volunteer work,  as if  we need only to occupy our time.   Or  some may find comfort  in  prescribed chemicals that prolong flow of  happy juice (Serotinin) in their brains.

Bureaucrats and elected officials attempt to steer us into government funded older workers' programs  that offer tantalizing marketing rhetoric,   brief  training  for  the lowest paying, dead end end,  repetitive.  least attractivejobs,   or  referrals  to other ineffective programs.

Ageing program caseworkers ,  usually people under age 55,   are  generous with feel-good talk ( ie: intended  make us feel better about ourselves  and  our deprivation).  Unfortunately,  the psychological benefits do not materially alter our underclass economic situation,    Obviously,  focus is on suppressing the symptoms,  not on the reducing the  causes.
 

 As  more and more of us  are persistently frustrated by  declining purchasing power and deprivation,   we increasingly resent  younger,  less qualified  candidates  being selected for jobs that we covet,  but  are denied.  The primary social goal of  discrimination case law  is to mitigate  the overt expression of envy and outrage at being systematically  bullied out of  earning opportunities  by  camouflaging  "invidious discrimination",  that is,  discrimination that generates envy and resentment.
 

INVIDIOUSNESS AND THE COURTS.

 Let us look at  the US Supreme Court's decision in Mc Kennon V Nashville Banner
Publishing Co^.-1  The issue is whether a worker's wrongdoing(copying and removing confidential information),  discovered in deposition(  after she filed her ADEA  suit)^-2,  is legitimate grounds for firing her,  . The court determined that the employer,  relying solely on this  evidence, could not have terminated her  for information they did not have when they discharged her,   Thus, a question of  fact  of  invidious age discrimination existed, and the Supreme Court  reversed  the lower courts' decision to deny her a trial.

Justice Joseph Kennedy, delivering the unanimous opinion for the court  patently characterized the prevailing judicial  conceptions of  age discrimination:
 

"ADEA ....reflects a societal condemnation  of invidious bias in employment  decisions"(emphases added).

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.  2000
defines invidious as: ADJECTIVE: "1.  Tending to rouse ill will, animosity, or
resentment: invidious accusations. 2. Containing or implying a slight;  discriminatory: invidious distinctions. 3. Envious.    ETYMOLOGY: From Latin invidious, envious, hostile, from invidia,  envy. See envy".

A definition of "invidious"  in Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition. 1995  ^-3  is
 1. Resentfully or painfully desirous of another's advantages: covetous, envious, green-eyed, jealous. See DESIRE.

Understandable is  the courts'  interest in in averting  massive,  overt outpourings of  anger by retaliating,  deprived,  outraged older citizens,  acting out their envy of  opportunities afforded  younger generations,

You get the picture now. The courts are not concerned about  just any discrimination,  only invidious discrimination,  that is, discrimination likely to rouse envy, ill will, animosity, resentment,   emanating from   painful desires of  advantages offered younger people at our expense. . We do not need a graduate  degree  to foresee invidiousness  as  pitting  the disadvantaged  groups  against the favored  groups, the have-nots  against the haves ,  the young against the older,  ultimately erupting into  intense social and political conflict.

However,  the courts evidently are not motivated to  order  sweeping changes in subtle public policies  that perpetuate age discrimination.  Rather  they strive to maintain quiescence by   balancing  the interests of employers, political interests , the demands of younger generations and the needs of  sacrificed, deprived older citizens.  They do this by  mandating employers to adequately  mask their discriminatory actions with legitimate reasons for rejecting, firing or refusing to  promote older workers.

Accordingly,  Justice Kennedy  reminds employers that  the  courts reject  the role of scrutinizing employers'  personnel practices,  that  they are free to justify  their decisions with legitimate reasons.

"The statute does not constrain employers from exercising significant other prerogatives and discretion's in the course of hiring, promoting and discharging of their employees".

.
THE ADEA,  WH DOES  IT REALLY PROTECT?

For most  disenfranchised older workers,   prevailing judicial interpretations  merely cover up the issues,   but do not alleviate  the resulting deprivation and misery.

However,   without the ADEA,  more disillusioned,  disenfranchised older  workers would  vent  their outrage on the streets instead of the EEOC, their elected officials'   or a lawyers office.   Isolated  venting of  complaints  are unlikely to immediately develop into collective retaliatory action.  ADEA protects older workers from acquiring proof of  invidious discrimination,  and society from public manifestation of  invidiousness,    Thus,  it  shields  elected officials from responsibilities to address ageism issues,  since isolated individual complaints and hidden hostilities  do not politically  impact  them.   ADEA shields policy makers  from pressures to exert  effective remedies that will really help us...

INVIDIOUSNESS IN GOVERNMENT SUPPORTED AGING  PROGRAMS

While policymakers and the courts are dutybound to mitigate the  destructive effects of invidious discrimination,   government funded programs,  purported  to  help older citizens,  cultivates it.

The federal government pours billions of  dollars into programs under Title V of  The Older Americans Act.  Although these programs are purported to help older citizens,  citiens over age 55  are recruited as clients,   and most,  if not all, of the staff  positions are filled with substantially younger people.    Ironically,  the younger staff , who  have the jobs and income that their clients covet,    also are vested with the duty of   uuppressing  public expression of invidiousness.
 

ENVISIONING AN ERA OF INTER GENERATIONAL STRIFE

As the boomer  mob  cross the age 55 threshold ,   policy makers  are increasingly inclined to consider appeasing this potentially volatile group.    Such actions will be perceived as progressive,  but  policy makers are behooved to  consider  foreseeable  problems.

Conceivably,  after  suffering many years of deprivation, frustration, impoverishment  resulting from systematic labor market ageism,   persistently recurring thoughts  of  many of  the older generation,   eill be  "What about us?... Why should they have what we were denied?-..What's in it for us?,,,,.Why should they benefit from our suffering?.".

Envisioned  are three opposing factions:   (1) the advantaged boomers,  (2)the deprived, frustrated older group. (3) Generation Xers.     As leaders emerge in the first two groups.  visible disparity in opportunities and rewards  are likely escalate the flames of invidiousness.

As a group,  the boomers are likely to be  more aggressivem than the older group,  and  better prepared  to compete for economic opportunities.   However,  the older group has advantages over the boomers and Genration Xers..  First  the older group has  less or nothing  to lose.   Since  the boomers  are likely have more opportunities than the older cohort  at their age,   they are likely to have   something of  value to lose.  Because of  ageism,  most of us  are left with  relatively little, if anything,   to lose,  and our   hope wells have run dry.  The less we have to lose,  the less constrained must be our behavior.

 Secondly,  Since the older group,   disenfranchized from the labor force or working in part-time jobs,   are likely to  have significantly greater leisure than the younger groups.

Third,  conflict with the older group  is likely  to  weaken the Boomer's power in their competition with Generation Xers.  Conceivably,  the Boomers will benefit by keeping  the older  generation on their side or at least  silent.  Both groups have much to gain by operating as a team.   But the  discarded older  group  is likely to ask,    What's in it for us?.

WAKE UP CALLS  TO ELECTED  OFFICIALS AND DISENFRANCHISED OLDER WORKERS.

 Even if conditions  improve for  some of the  older  group,   wasted years of suffering  cannot be replaced.    As  matter s of  equity and fundamental fairness as well as  pragmatic political and social  concerns,  many of  the older group deserve to be compensated  for many wasted years of  forced deprivation, impoverishment  and denigration, resulting from government  supported  labor market ageism    The inflamatory impact  would indeed be compounded by   again overlooking  this  oprressed group in the distribution of rewards.

Unless policy makers address the needs of  the older group,    more and more of us  are  likely to be left  with nothing to lose,   an abundance of  leisure,  and bitter envy of  the  younger  boomer's good fortune,  As antibiotics and  brain althering drugs lose their efficacy with prolonged use,   the efficacy of  hope diminishes  with disapointment.  Consequently,  many
of the older group can be conceived to be hope resistent..

Accordingly,   elected officials  would  be prudent in focusing on  social aspects of  human nature -- historically evident in the course of  breakdowns  of  social institutions. Relative to disenfranchised older workers, they are behooved view overt invidiousness as a contagious social discorder  that is less and less effectively controlled with hope and common pejoratives intended to hold us in an underclass..

 They would indeed be negligent in ignoring the evidence that,  absent practical intervention,   contemporary social and political policies on aging  are weakening  public  trust and respect for our government,  and  fanning the  flames of  envy-genratied annimosity from individual to individual,  from group to group,  from generation to generation,  from locality to locality. But  elected officials have no duty to correct  what is not visible to them.  Thus,  disinfranchised older workers;   Do you have invidia?

Kara Lane Publications,  Macon, GA  Uploaded December 9.  2001