Manel Domínguez, PhD in Social Communication: "The brain of a young person is faster, but mine is more secure"

The DNI of Manel Domínguez (Barcelona, ​​71 years old) expires within 7,900 years.

Specifically, on January 1, 9999. “The State may trust my cryogenics by Social Security, preserving my talent and experience.

Or perhaps I'll be disseminated to an exoplanet discovered in that vast future envisioned by my paper.

Perhaps the

telescope is on it ”, jokes this doctor of Social Communication in his book,

(Diëresis, 2023).

Dominguez laughs for not crying.

Or for not getting more angry with what he calls "an example of state ageism": "What is the message of the State to a person like me, who am here, great?

That I am useless, that he no longer needs me at all, that I am going to die.

The negative messages are brutal and that causes many people depression and an

society”.

In a corner of the cafeteria at the Abat Oliba CEU University in Barcelona, ​​where Domínguez is an emeritus professor and director of the Master's Degree in Digital Communication and New Technologies, the author breaks down the weight of ageism on the street.

In politics, in business, in the media.

Everywhere, every day: “The media, on an ongoing basis, said this about: 'Explain it to me as if it were my father.'

I'm sorry, is his father stupid? ”, he protests vehemently.

In a book full of interviews with senior professionals in medicine, psychology and the business sector, among others, Domínguez explains what, in his opinion, is the origin of this discrimination against the elderly and advocates "a revolution of seniors ”.

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“They made us disappear as a class, they assigned us to the wonderful game of petanque as a dignified outlet,” he laments sarcastically in the book.

Domínguez rejects the “cornering” of seniors, pigeonholing everyone over 60 under the heading “third age”, as if 70 were the same as 90. “A newborn is a baby, a seven-year-old is a child, another 15 is a teenager and someone who is turning 20, a young person (...).

On the other hand, the seniors, for 50 years, we are only 'third age' ”, she protests in his book.

On the Senior

pages

and also in person, Domínguez criticizes that they are despised, denying them their presence in public life ("On the news in Spain we do not have senior presenters") or questioning their worth.

And he gives an example: Joe Biden, president of the United States, 80 years old.

The president has been in the spotlight for some time, questioned, on occasions, for his mental lapses and his public missteps.

A few hours before this interview, the images of a stumbling block of Biden getting on the presidential plane returned to the public attention.

“There is such a pervasive cultural ageism in society that it punishes, not Biden, but all 80-year-old seniors and this causes the business, cultural and economic sectors to relegate these people.

It's a drama.

That Mr. Biden has some mental synapse defect is possible,

but it is not because of age, it is specific to Mr. Biden.

We all know people in their 80s or 90s who don't have any mental synapse defects, ”he defends.

The worst part of this discrimination against the elderly is borne, in any case, by senior women, Domínguez agrees.

Ageism, he says, "corners women": "If you are a senior, a woman and you are a widow, you are an invisible woman, you do not exist."

And he gives an example, from his experience in an observational study with a group of women: "There was a lady who said she wanted to get married again and I asked her what the reason was, love, loneliness... And she told me: "Go back to be visible in society.

If I don't have a man next to me, I'm not visible.

It's my experience as a widow."

And the others agreed.

For me that was terrible: a woman and a senior, she wants to remarry to have a man by her side and once again be an active, visible and considered being in society.

Pure ageism,” she muses.

And macho culture, she concedes.

The teacher points to

, the economic and social system based on industrial mass production, as the cause of much of the ills of ageism.

“

in Detroit and

generate a concept that is to produce, produce or die, the exaltation of young people for the fact of producing.

If you are young we use you and if you are senior we don't care about you.

And that moved like a pandemic and it was the first

of society: getting old is the same as being useless, not being useful in society”, explains Domínguez.

And from those muds, these muds: “Retiring is an old adjective.

Because non-orthodox synonyms are useless, a person who is no longer good for anything, someone who for society no longer has any value.

LinkedIn algorithms force you to retire at 50, human resources companies despise you and politics does not give you the right to claim that you are useful until the last moment of your life, even if you are 100 years old.

Manel Domínguez, in the courtyard of the Abat Oliba University in Barcelona, ​​where he is an emeritus professor.

Carlos Ribas

Dominguez is annoyed that a mandatory retirement age is set.

“Does there have to be a date that someone who wants to retire can?

Ok, nothing to say.

Now, if you, State, company, do not let me retire when I want, that is state ageism.

Why do I have to retire at 65 or 70 if I am healthy, the company loves me and I love it?

Where is the problem?".

The teacher proposes “active aging with an active mind”: “This means participating in society, being part of a club, studying for a degree, a career, writing, being a poet, whatever you want.

If you want.

And if you don't want to, you must be able to work until the last day of your life, even if you are 97 years old.

What we cannot do is make the person leave their work action and dedicate themselves to nothing.

That is the death of any human being.

It's the death of your brain."

The author of

also challenges young people.

"Don't let them sleep", he tells them in the book, because they, the seniors, are becoming more and more.

According to his calculations, “in 30 years, there will possibly not be enough young people to carry out all the work that society is going to demand.

Young people must understand where we are all going, that we will be the majority and that we need that intergenerational balance that he mentioned before.

They are not going anywhere by themselves.

Neither do we alone, ”he assures.

And he adds: “But we are going to be more demographically, and it is necessary that from politics, from society, from the company, unite those talents.

What

it is giving way to the young, cornering the elderly.

And what we are doing is immolating the talent and experience that the seniors have.

It has been a tremendous mistake.

We have to recompose this entire process, generate a new culture of the ages, unite young and senior talent and create a new society”, invites Domínguez.

Precisely, from that cafeteria now crowded with young students leaving classes in the afternoon, the teacher proposes an intergenerational agreement.

“A young person's brain is faster, but mine is more secure, I make fewer mistakes, he is more mature.

Therefore, the intergenerational balance is the key to evolution ”, he defends.

The seniors' revolution, he assures him, is already underway.

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