Age Discrimination

Sybille Berg, a former German, now Swiss author, lives in Zürich as a writer. She is one of the most frequently performed playwrights in the German-speaking world. Since 2011 Sybille has regularly written articles for DER SPIEGEL.

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Her recent essay deals with age discrimination, i.e., about a gray mass that almost fills younger people with disgust. Is it so because no one still in Lohn und Brot (in wage and bread) likes to think of a time when he/she will belong to the same category of people and face the unreasonableness of his/her mortality?

Sybille claims that only those who can perform, multiply, and be active have value in our society and that old age is a blind spot in the increasingly sharper debate on equity and participation.

When people are old, they walk more slowly, hear worse, and are often entirely pushed out of social life. They hinder the fast pace, are Nazis, can't install an app, and have ruined the planet.

Wait a moment, Sybille, you lump together all those being of "old age?"

Indeed, Red Baron walks more slowly, but I am not a Nazi. I work with computers and sometimes have problems installing programs like everybody else. And yes, I ruined and am still ruining the planet simply due to my sheer presence.

You must invest actively in social life not to be pushed out of it. Look at those many aged benefactors who help care for the more elderly, are  Tagesmütter/väter (childminders) or work at Tafelläden (food banks). Without all the mostly benevolent helpers, our society would collapse.

One of Goethe's Maxims states, "Whoever strives, we can redeem." Red Baron remains active socially in particular since he lives as a widower.
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