We need to stand up for old people

Being young has always been very ‘in’. But increasingly, the West’s leftish, liberal elites see young people not merely as cooler than older people, but ethically superior, too. Whenever I see a Western news report on my native Hungary, broadcasters will show almost exclusively old people if their purpose is to represent the Hungarians as uninformed. If they are trying to make the opposite point, they will show only young people – at a climate rally, perhaps. These days, it seems as if only young people are capable of holding the ‘right’ political positions.

Western cultural and media elites invariably portray young voters in a uniformly positive light. They are supposedly motivated by enlightened and altruistic values. Older voters, however, are portrayed negatively. They are supposedly driven to the polls solely by shallowness and self-interest.

We’ve seen these prejudices play out in Western media over and over again in recent years. In 2016, most journalists depicted Brexit as the triumph of provincial oldies yearning for the lost world of the British Empire. The success of Poland’s conservative PiS party, the dominance of Viktor Orbán in Hungary and, of course, the return of Donald Trump, have all been portrayed in a similar manner, as the victories of backwards old people over progressive youngsters. Old people are painted as racist, and willing to vote for anyone promising to reduce immigration. Young people are ‘humane’, and so care about the future of the planet and want to welcome as many asylum seekers as possible.

What must horrify Western liberals is that, as a society, we aren’t getting any younger. The percentage of old people in Western countries is growing annually. Not only are we living longer, young people also aren’t having children.

This demographic trend appears to have fostered another unhealthy obsession among much of the left. With more people living longer, leftists are continually portraying old people as a burden on an ever-shrinking number of younger working-age people.

This isn’t a fantasy, of course – the trends clearly point in one direction as Western societies become ever older. Studies predict that dementia cases will double in the US by 2060. This will place an immense burden on hospitals and care homes, and require a massive expansion in the carer workforce – a job that young Westerners are increasingly reluctant to do. That probably means more immigration.

Western societies do face significant demographic challenges. But instead of rising to them, Western liberals are far happier blaming and attacking the elderly. They damn them as a moral and economic drag on ‘progress’. And while they do so, the real challenges of an ageing population grow bigger.

There is, of course, a good news story at the heart of today’s despair at our aging population. Many people are living longer because of the massive improvements Western societies have made in medicine and healthcare. These are reasons for cheer, not for despair.

Indeed, growing old should be celebrated. As a society, we should consider ourselves lucky to spend more of our lives with family members who, in years gone by, would not be expected to live much beyond retirement. There is much to value in old age. With experience also comes wisdom.

So instead of damning the elderly as ignorant bigots, unfamiliar with the latest developments in transgender jargon, young people could do with tapping into that deeper well of knowledge. By actually talking and listening to old people, the young might even learn something.

Peter Ungar is a councillor in Budapest and a member of the the Hungarian Green Party.