BBC pushes grannie killing

What happens when we're too old to be 'useful'?

expect a lot more of these articles in the future.

LINK

notice they start out with anecdotes of 3 very poor tribes (with few members) living on the margin of life, where starvation is near for everyone? Also notice that they don't say if this custom continued after the threat of tribal starvation no longer existed because the modern world had alternatives?

In the tribe where I worked with in Africa, usually twins were traditionally killed because they were seen as bewitched because they usually died slowly of malnutrition; once missionaries came and infant formula was available, such customs quickly died out. 

Yet those anthropologists who cited matricide in this article (like the anthropologists who look the other way at Amazon infanticide) don't recognize that people chose life for their children if possible. 

Same here.

so why does the author if the BBC article cite historical examples in marginal primitive tribes (which he calls our ancestral societies) ? Are there other societies, equally poor, that didn't do this (yes, he mentions this but without details or perspective if this was more commonly done or not, maybe because if that was done his entire ethical relativism argument might collapse).

In contrast, filial piety and care for one's elders is a cornerstone to Confucian ethics, and is the key to China's ability to survive and thrive as a culture for the last 2500 years. 

Maybe this is why Chinese culture succeeded, when these tribal cultures he cites lovingly in the article remained small, marginalized, and in danger of dying off? 

but never mind. The BBC author just moves from primitive remnants of unsuccessful societies to today's world, and talks about pensions.

But the right to support in old age is still far from global. Nearly a third of the world's older people have no pension and for many of the rest who receive some money, the pension is not enough to live on.

ah, so it's about the money.

note that part about "no pension"? Well, in most countries the elderly were cared for by their kids or other relatives.

With the modern world, the kids might be working as an OFW five thousand miles away, or maybe, as in China, you only have one child who would need to support four grandparents.

Back to the BBC guy's arugment, which assumes a government pension is the only way old folks can survive.

Old people are inefficient, he laments, so we (meaning the government) can't afford to support them. Oh no, he doesn't say that openly, but that is the implication if you read the article.

Can you say "untermensch" children?

Galton lives!

 In many countries, however, generations have grown up assuming they will be well looked after in old age. But it's becoming a challenge to meet that expectation. And for years, economic-policy experts have been sounding the alarm about a slow-burn crisis in the pension system.

the author go on to talk about raising the retirement age, and this is a good idea, but maybe providing jobs that allow fewer hours and less intense working day might help too.

On the other hand, old age is not what it used to be: because modern diet and medical care and modern machines that make hard physical labor no longer needed not only prolong life but make people "younger" at the same age as their grandparents, and they usually live on their own or with family members:

hard data can be found in this article.

The good news, Kinsella said, is that non-disabled component of the Medicare-enrolled 65-and-over population has been rising over time. In 1982, 74 percent of Medicare-enrolled 65-and-older individuals were “non-disabled.” That number rose to 81 percent in 2004–2005.

This trend is reflected in the fact that the percentage of Medicare-enrolled 65-and-older individuals who reside in institutional settings (i.e., nursing homes) has decreased over time, to less than 5 percent in 2004–2005.

And many elders care for their spouses, children or grandchildren. (one third of caregivers are themselves over 65, and this doesn't include the almost 3 million grandparents who are raising or helping to raise their grandchildren, whose parents often can't care for them due to substance abuse).

All of this comes back to the importance of family, an institution that is under stress not just from economic stresses but from cultural propaganda that denigrates responsibility, sees sex as an act that has nothing to do with love or affection, sees babies as a threat to women's rights, and of course, ignores that evolution (or God) has placed into the human psyche that people need their families to live a complete life.

The traditions of honoring elders is strong here in Asia because we remember the wisdom of the past.

This is dismissed as no longer important according to the BBC expert:

But there are other differences, too. Once we relied on elders to store knowledge and instruct the young. Now, knowledge dates quickly - and who needs Grandma when we have schools and Wikipedia?

What's wrong with this picture?

She is mixing up facts and wisdom.

Professor Etzioni who I quoted in a previous essay,  points out that human beings are social animals and these societal ties need to be encouraged to make a healthy society.

The trouble with this view of society is less in what it claims and more in what it leaves out: namely, that people are social creatures whose flourishing and psychological well-being depend on strong, lasting, meaningful relationships with others and on the sharing of moral and social values.