Social Insecurity: Breaking the Fifth



(Painting by Rembrandt)

These days, along with talk about Social Security’s failures, the term “greedy geezers” is being heard more and more.

Froma Harrop, in her article Greedy Geezers Are Not Nice People, defines them like this:  …there’s a noisy minority of elders who spend all day obsessing over what they’re owed and resenting any government

program that’s not about them.   Could this be the same group of elders that once spent all day obsessing over the generation that is now calling them “greedy geezers”?

Limited resources have a way of bringing out the worst in people.  There would have been no eventual need for the Ten Commandments had Adam and Eve remained in the abundant Garden of Eden.  But centuries later, here we are – having devolved from a loving concern for our elders, to a dutiful concern for our elders, to a self-serving concern for our elders – and finally, to neglect and abuse of our elders.

Whatever happened to the Fifth (or the Lutheran/Roman Catholic Fourth) Amendment?  Has “Honor thy father and mother” gone so out of fashion as to be lying broken in the fools-gold paved streets of America?

Although Harrop goes on to make some valid points (regarding most people’s ignorance of how the Social

Security funding actually works), an aura of disrespect continues to pervade her discussion.  And let’s face it – if an article about the mindsets of other sub-cultures were to be punctuated with derogatory nicknames, would the facts be what people remembered most about the author’s presentation?

Unfortunately - Harrop’s type, and far worse types, of elder put-downs have become all too common in our far-from-filial society.   Elders are about as imperfect as all other generations of humans.  Those who sneer at human imperfection might therefore wish to take the Fifth when it comes to put-downs, and quit breaking the Fifth when it comes to Commandments.

Resources

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/11/greedy_geezers_are_not_nice_people_97839.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments

http://www.taoism.net/articles/xiao.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleading_the_Fifth

Copyright July 16, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved