Paul Cantz, PsyD, University of illinois at Chicago College
of Medicine
We live in a time where aging is viewed as a disease needing a cure. Prominent figures in the anti-aging movement including gerontologist Aubrey de Grey and futurist Ray Kurzweil can be largely credited, for establishing a contemporary scientific infatuation with achieving immortality. They and others have slowly, though deliberately, been shifting the bio-medical zeitgeist in a direction that implicitly privileges youth while vilifying the aging process.
To be sure, this contemporary resurgence of embodied immortality does not represent a novel human striving, but rather exemplifies the return of regressive tendencies that initially found expression amongst our primordial ancestors, culminating in the misguided passions of the Ancient Greeks. For instance, we find the Greek goddess of youth, Hebe, deriving from a word meaning “prime of life”, whereas her deistic counterpart, Geras, is one of the malevolent spirits spawned by the goddess Nyx (Night) and commonly depicted as a tiny shriveled-up old man. Similarly, while Oedipus’ answer of “man” frees Thebes from the Sphinx’s riddle: “What has one voice and is four-footed, two- footed and three-footed?”(The Library of Apollodorus 3.5.8), it implies his acquiescence to a curvilinear or cyclical model of aging: the elderly become feeble and infant-like – a drain on society. This view obliterates the demarcation line between generations, representing a hopeless view of the human condition and undercutting the value of intergenerational linkage.
This bio-medical ‘revolution’ in longevity studies (i.e. “anti-aging”) is in fact the leading edge of ancient, if not primitive, defensive maneuver meant to ward off the universal anxieties inherent in acknowledging our own corporeality – our own “creatureness”. This attitude has consequently led to the institutional infantilization, marginalization and even vilification of the elderly.
The Biblical worldview, in stark contrast, eschews physical, embodied immortality, instead promoting a covenantally-based brand of intergenerational continuity: “l’dor v’dor” (“from generation to generation” - a biblical leitmotif). The first major narrative of the Bible warns humankind not to eat from the Tree of Life, lest we live forever (Gen. 3:22). What hazards does the Bible caution us to avoid by discouraging humankind from pursuing physical immortality?
The desire to transcend the constraints of mortality and temporality have, until relatively recently, been the pursuits of mystics and alchemists. With the burgeoning field of nanotechnology accompanied by ambitious bio-genetic advancements, we now find ourselves at the crossroads between science fiction and science fact. The bio-ethical questions surrounding the anti-aging movement have been largely suppressed by reframing aging in pathological terms as a “disease” – a societally agreed-upon construct demanding a medical remedy.
We would be wise to tread lightly as we approach the elbow of the oncoming exponential growth curve of bio-technology. De-situated from its theological context, the Bible offers intergenerational rather than personal immortality as a psychologically healthier way of living that neutralizes death anxiety through an intergenerational covenant. Rather than endeavor to avoid aging or pathologize the condition of being elderly, the Bible embraces older adulthood as the verse in Proverbs reminds us: “Gray hair is a crown of glory” (16:31).
We live in a time where aging is viewed as a disease needing a cure. Prominent figures in the anti-aging movement including gerontologist Aubrey de Grey and futurist Ray Kurzweil can be largely credited, for establishing a contemporary scientific infatuation with achieving immortality. They and others have slowly, though deliberately, been shifting the bio-medical zeitgeist in a direction that implicitly privileges youth while vilifying the aging process.
To be sure, this contemporary resurgence of embodied immortality does not represent a novel human striving, but rather exemplifies the return of regressive tendencies that initially found expression amongst our primordial ancestors, culminating in the misguided passions of the Ancient Greeks. For instance, we find the Greek goddess of youth, Hebe, deriving from a word meaning “prime of life”, whereas her deistic counterpart, Geras, is one of the malevolent spirits spawned by the goddess Nyx (Night) and commonly depicted as a tiny shriveled-up old man. Similarly, while Oedipus’ answer of “man” frees Thebes from the Sphinx’s riddle: “What has one voice and is four-footed, two- footed and three-footed?”(The Library of Apollodorus 3.5.8), it implies his acquiescence to a curvilinear or cyclical model of aging: the elderly become feeble and infant-like – a drain on society. This view obliterates the demarcation line between generations, representing a hopeless view of the human condition and undercutting the value of intergenerational linkage.
This bio-medical ‘revolution’ in longevity studies (i.e. “anti-aging”) is in fact the leading edge of ancient, if not primitive, defensive maneuver meant to ward off the universal anxieties inherent in acknowledging our own corporeality – our own “creatureness”. This attitude has consequently led to the institutional infantilization, marginalization and even vilification of the elderly.
The Biblical worldview, in stark contrast, eschews physical, embodied immortality, instead promoting a covenantally-based brand of intergenerational continuity: “l’dor v’dor” (“from generation to generation” - a biblical leitmotif). The first major narrative of the Bible warns humankind not to eat from the Tree of Life, lest we live forever (Gen. 3:22). What hazards does the Bible caution us to avoid by discouraging humankind from pursuing physical immortality?
The desire to transcend the constraints of mortality and temporality have, until relatively recently, been the pursuits of mystics and alchemists. With the burgeoning field of nanotechnology accompanied by ambitious bio-genetic advancements, we now find ourselves at the crossroads between science fiction and science fact. The bio-ethical questions surrounding the anti-aging movement have been largely suppressed by reframing aging in pathological terms as a “disease” – a societally agreed-upon construct demanding a medical remedy.
We would be wise to tread lightly as we approach the elbow of the oncoming exponential growth curve of bio-technology. De-situated from its theological context, the Bible offers intergenerational rather than personal immortality as a psychologically healthier way of living that neutralizes death anxiety through an intergenerational covenant. Rather than endeavor to avoid aging or pathologize the condition of being elderly, the Bible embraces older adulthood as the verse in Proverbs reminds us: “Gray hair is a crown of glory” (16:31).