President Biden fell at the US Air Force Academy ceremony/from documentation that appeared on social networks, use according to Section 27A of the Copyright Law
The US presidential election campaign, which is in full swing, brought with it, unfortunately, also negative effects. The results of the "Super Tuesday" in the USA, which definitively pitted an incumbent president who was approaching the age of 82, against a "young" 77-year-old candidate, stunned the world.
The most discussed topic in relation to coping is the issue of their age and competence for the position, and this is clearly accompanied by the phenomenon of ageism.
The concept of 'ageism' (in Blaz: ageism) is a prejudice against a person, which expresses discrimination, a type of stereotype fixed on a person due to his age, without regard to his personal qualities and abilities.
Studies have revealed that this stereotype exists to one degree or another in every person.
The phenomenon necessarily embodies the negative social construction of old age, and the discrimination of a social group labeled as having characteristics of weakness and incapacity, solely due to its chronological age.
One of the reasons for the phenomenon of ageism is the fear of old age, which is associatively associated with the end of life and with the phenomena of deterioration in control of the brain and other functions of the body.
In the mass media, the elderly are exposed as weak, as victims of exploitation, as helpless and unhappy.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden/Reuters
A person's age consists of six variables: the chronological age, the biological age, the cognitive, the emotional, the social and the functional, when each person progresses in each of these variables at a different pace and in a different way.
According to the chairman of the Association for Gerontology Prof. Yitzhak Barik, there is no obligation to define a person as old at any age, due to their chronological age, although the aging process should not be ignored. There is bio-individual and intra-individual variation and that is why the elders are so different from each other.
More in Walla!
The intriguing process of recycling metal packaging
In cooperation with the Tamir Recycling Corporation
Old age is not just biological age
The phenomenon of ageism is present in our lives, in the retirement age crisis and its consequences.
More than once an active person mentally, physically and mentally, finds himself in the reality of emptiness, passivity, with a decrease in the sense of value and self-image.
Even in the labor and employment market, older people are less needed, despite the extensive experience they have gained and being more free in terms of family needs.
The insight is that old age is not just a biological age or a numerical parameter of years of life, but a qualitative spiritual age, of the ability to renew oneself for self-realization even in old age.
Old age can be regarded as the end of one life chapter and the beginning of a new life chapter with meaning, challenge, self-fulfillment, activity and creative joy.
The new chapter of life can be reflected in an active old age of a formal work and employment life on the side of volunteering, studying, pursuing hobbies, sports, etc.
Along with the aging process, diseases or limitations - there are abilities at every age.
Old age is not a disease - in old age there are diseases.
In Judaism the old man is the wise man, while in all our sources the old man is mentioned in praise.
It is written in the book of Job, in the chapters of Avot, our sages said: 'The one who learns from the little ones, what is he like?
- He eats dull grapes, and drinks wine from his vineyard.
And the one who learns from old men, what is he like - to eat ripe grapes and drink old wine."
It's time we all change our perception. The old man is not sick or limited in his abilities. One should not compare and throw away an old man. The old man's long life experience elevates him from the first rank, and his great wisdom is irreplaceable You can look at Biden's match against Trump not as two incompetent elderly people fighting for the presidency, but to treat them as they test any candidate of any age. Now this is our task.
Orit Raz is an attorney, manager of the training system in the nursing division of the Ezer Mizion association
More on the same topic:
Joe Biden
Donald Trump
ageism
old age