In his 2nd October column, David Brooks cites the French philosopher Chantal Delsol and her demanding observation that the "amount of vigilance, care, friendship and patience that must be given any person, if he is not to be driven insane or to despair, is almost literally incredible."
Mr Brooks surveys the (American) statistics that point to the rapidly increasing number of people who are going to need "vigilance, care, friendship and patience":
"Twenty percent of us, according to a Rand Corporation study, are going to get cancer or another rapidly debilitating condition and we'll be dead within a year of getting the disease. Another 20 percent of us are going to suffer from some cardiac or respiratory failure. We'll suffer years of worsening symptoms, a few life-threatening episodes, and then eventually die. But 40 percent of us will suffer from some form of dementia (most frequently Alzheimer's disease or a disabling stroke). Our gradual, unrelenting path toward death will take 8 or 10 or even 20 years, during which we will cease to become the person we were. We will linger on, in some new state, depending on the care of others. As the population ages, more people will live in this final category. Between now and 2050, the percentage of the population above age 85 is expected to quadruple, and the number of people with Alzheimer's disease is expected to quadruple, too."
Mr Brooks is not optimistic about American society's ability to provide that care. Neither am I optimistic about Britain's ability - or willingness - to sacrificially provide loving end-of-life experiences for our ageing relatives and neighbours.
And that inability is not just because of the increasing number of old people. It's also because of the weakness of the family. Mr Brooks argues that as we aspire to meet the 'care challenge' the "individual is less likely to be regarded as the fundamental unit of society. Instead, it's the family." I fear that we'll choose to maintain our individualistic lifestyles rather than take the sociological leap that Brooks hopes for. Years and years of evidence has shown that sexual and lifestyle promiscuity hurt children. None of that evidence has got in the way of our hedonism. The combination of our love of luxury lifestyles and the demographic timebomb will simply accelerate moves to euthanasia.
This is a straw man argument to attack individualism. Individualism is compatible with support for the family. The opposite of individualism is collectivism and socialism. John Hayes, a self-confessed protectionist and extreme nationalist, exemplifies collectivist conservatism.
Posted by: Selsdon Man | October 09, 2005 at 13:27