Above all, they were afraid of catching cold, and so put on thick clothes even in the summer and warmed themselves at the stove. Granny was fond of being doctored, and often went to the hospital, where she used to say she was not seventy, but fifty-eight; she supposed that if the doctor knew her real age he would not treat her, but would say it was time she died instead of taking medicine.
Anton Chekhov – Peasants (1897)
One of those attitudes not quite admitted among the chattering classes is the fate of those they consider to be too old, too useless or both. It’s an old attitude which every now and then bubbles to the surface in various covert and sometimes not so covert guises.
One of the covert guises is fiction. Writers of fiction are able to slip it into situations and conversations as part of the social ambience their writing aims to create. Fictional situations and fictional characters, but probably not unfamiliar to many readers. The most famously explicit example must be Charles Dickens –
“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don’t know that.”
Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol (1843)
Sometimes it goes further –
In any case he did not like old men. The War had carried him with the rest upon the swing of that popular cry “Every one over seventy to the lethal chamber.”
Hugh Walpole – The Young Enchanted (1921)
5 comments:
Oh boy! I think we're getting there.
There's no need for literature now. As well as freezing some pensioners to death, Starmer has promised Parliament a free vote on assisted dying. And he did it a few days after becoming PM, so it must be a fairly high priority. Here's the BBC on July 12th:
Speaking on a trip to the NATO summit in the US, the new prime minister was asked whether he would hold the vote in the first year of his government.
Sir Keir replied: "What I said was that we would provide time for this by way of a private member's bill, and there will be a free vote.
"That remains my position for the reasons I've set out, having probably got more experience on this than most people, having personally looked at tens of cases in my time as director of public prosecutions."
It's interesting how he can recall such cases, yet can't recall rape gangs, Savile, Prince Andrew, Rolf Harris, and Fayed. All quite high profile and urgent compared to the done deed of some unknown euthanising their relative, I would have thought....
Mary Renault’s narrator in ‘The Praise Singer’ (set in Ancient Greece) puts it rather well, I think:
‘Keos is stern. You’d not suppose so from the proverb, that it knows not the horse nor ox, but is rich in the gladdening vine-fruit […] On the other hand, it is a lie that on Keos a man has to take hemlock when he reaches sixty. That was only in the old siege, when the warriors had to be kept alive. Nowadays it is just considered good manners.’
(As a bonus, ‘the gladdening vine-fruit’ is rather fine too.)
I remember one of my mildly lefty lecturers (more than 50 years ago) complaining that we would rather spend billions sending a few men to the moon than spending 50p on a blanket to keep an old person warm.
This is still true today although the trade-offs have changed. So... what are we spending the money saved on not paying the Winter Heating Allowance? I've seen plenty of money being spent on things that make the politicians feel good (foreign aid, climate change bureaucracy, prancing about on the world stage) but is it worth perhaps several hundred or thousand old peoples' deaths?
Sackers - I hope not, but the signs are there.
Sam - yes I was surprised at the speed of the assisted dying push, although the freezing pensioners move clarified it. He has an enormously convenient memory, it must be a great comfort to him and will be again when he pens his memoirs.
Macheath - thanks - I see there is a Kindle version of ‘The Praise Singer' so I'll bookmark it. I suppose hemlock at sixty could become available on the NHS if current trends continue. Just imagine the ads for it.
DJ - and as we know and they know, the money saved by not paying the WHA will simply disappear into the government maw. Nobody will ever know where it went.
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