Longevity

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

Maybe I am completely misunderstanding the concept and/or phenomenon, but it seems to me that these days people take for granted the thought and feeling that the longer one's life is the better it is.

Modern medicine is praised not for helping us live more productive, more comfortable lives, but for allowing us to live longer lives.

I do not know what it is like in other places, but in the United States it seems that we are obsessed with living long lives.

I do not know about philosophy, theology and similar disciplines, but the social sciences seem to be biased in favor of longevity. For example, study after study confirms the trend that women in the United States live longer than men. This longer life expectancy is then almost invariably interpreted as women having some kind of advantage over men, it seems. Never have I seen it suggested that while women may live several years longer than men that men actually live more fulfilling lives--that a man can get more out of, say, 65 years than a woman can get out of 75 years.

Why are we so impressed and so obsessed with living long lives? Is living a good life not what is really important? And is there not plenty of evidence that long does not necessarily mean good?

 

[Ryal Kane]

Perhaps it's because figures are much more easy to correlate as data. It's easy to chart peoples age. It's near impossible to chart their comfort or happiness or any other subjective element. How do you measure whether a man or a woman gets 'more' out of life?

And while there is a focus on age, it should be noted that ederly today aren't just surviving, they ARE enjoying their lives a lot more. My father (64) competed t a masters games recently One woman competing there was in her 90's and having a great time. My grandfather is 105 this June. Pretty frail but he still has his wits about him. He certainly wouldn't be alive if not for medical advances (he broke his hip at 100).

If I had to chose, I'd take quality of life over quantity but medical science as helped improve both.