this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
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You raise a valid point. The social fabric in our society is ripped in such a way that old people often feel "left over" whereas in other societies they remain an integral part and can still have meaningful interactions, where they feel able to provide to society and be respected for it.
The combination of ever getting older thanks to modern medicine, but at the same time being ever irrelevant, seems more of a curse than a blessing.
Western Societies have now been bombarded by incessant neoliberal propaganda for decades. A lot of that propaganda takes the divide and conquer approach to make cutbacks to social security and workers' rights palatable to the public. One day it's the unemployed who are at fault for cutbacks to pensions, the next day it's the pensioners who are too expensive to finance proper unemployment benefits. This has been going on and on for decades, with ever changing marginalised groups being played against each other. Meanwhile boundless egotism and individualism has been lauded as the ultimate life goal of "freedom".
The result of this is a society of egomaniacs who are only looking out for themselves and hate arbitrary people for being in the arbitrary drawer they have been stuffed into by the currently prevalent propaganda.