Look At This Face and Try Not To Be Warmed. Aging in Place.

Maramures, Romania: women in traditional dress

Traditional cultures:
keep in view the value
of an ongoing place for an individual.

Aging in Place; A Life With Choices

Aging, in areas of economic limit. Globalism - an ever expanding frame of reference. What is the place of the traditional older person. Does globalization necessarily mean an influx of "rankism" - adding stress as an overlay. Rankism. Who is more important than whom, and why. If that is a part of the knowable community, familiar, can it be a mere pattern of life. If that is part of an imposed inferiority hierarchy from outside, is that just plain unhealthy.


Croatia, Citizen of Nin on Easter

Look up "rankism".

Somebodies vs. nobodies. Rankism mean an individual or group's use of position to identify the self, or the self's interests, as superior to others', therefore others must kowtow, see ://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/323030/kowtow/, and the rest of the world can be disregarded as inferior.

The role of the surrounding group:

A manageable sized group makes a difference. There, rank may be sharply differentiated, but at least faces are known. An individual has a chance of getting some attention. See://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/small-group/sgt1.3.html/.

But there comes a point as a group grows, that the group becomes more interested in perpetuating itself instead of looking out for those in the group. Nations becoming interested in a position among nations.

Is that the nostalgic pull of small towns in collective memory.

Is a group its own worst enemy. See ://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html/.

• Schools know as well that size of group matters. A teaching group size? See ://146.227.1.20/%7Ejamesa//teaching/group_size.htm/

• Do groups abuse their original tools to get going, against its own. Look at use of propaganda (or, more neutrally, public relations) as an example: use it to muster for membership, or a "righteous war" perhaps. But, once its techniques are learned and seen to be effective, use those same propaganda techniques in the political, commercial and religious marketplace. Entrench a group over another by means of those same propaganda techniques, at ://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Propaganda_techniques/.
  

Global Guerillas, at ://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/03/what_is_the_opt.html/.

Nobody is free of groups.
Vlach shepherd, Romania

No life is free of groups and politics. Even a shepherd has a group somewhere. The point is, watch your groups. Which serve the good of larger wholes; and which serve just themselves. Which are like the sassafras, fostering leaves of different shapes, in the lower stories.
Their leaves in different shapes?


Vlach shepherd's flock, Romania

Black sheep.

What happens to the black sheep in any flock.

In a smaller group, does rank assert itself against the different ones, more or less than in a big group. Sheep don't seem to care.. See ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankism/

A degree of ranking may be hard-wired in human groups, weed out so the truly best and strongest will lead, but it has a malignant side. Muscle doesn't matter so much any more, and we don't know how else to do "rank." See references there, including Berger, Daniel (August 2005). "Book review: Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank". Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 198 (8): 571.

A simple, self-evident concept, hierarchy in social organization: but take it further.

Romania: village women

These kind ladies waited for us as we came out of the village church, just being tourists. Gestures and smiles. Follow us, please follow us. So, Dan and I did, over back yard low fences, through gardens, around corners and wagons, and to - an outhouse.

Thank you. We didn't need it, but the thoughtfulness, the caring about a fellow human set of beings. Thank you so much. We were looking for old Saxon walled churches, and found no walls at all.

No ranks. Just human courtesy and fun. Why add to people's stress. Stress adds to everyone's stress and cost. See ://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/a/stresshealth.htm/ Stress reduction - one person's ego satisfaction in imposing stress: is that worth it?

Rankism. What is the effect of rankism, if we had gone all snooty and hustled back to the car. What is the effect of asserting nobodyness on people, the effect on their health and productivity of others.

And how does rankism entrench. What factors foster rankism. Can it be reined in before the costs, human and financial, of the Disregarded overwhelm the globe. Add the Disregarded's discontent, leading to warfare and other conflict, and the circle of malignancy is complete.

How about rankism and disposing of people. Look at the lady in Croatia next time you visit the nursing home with the resident-client-patient-inmates slump:

a) often in posey restraints,
b) in a daze, medication or mental or whatever
c) in wheelchairs,
d) in the hallways, while
e) horrid purees and white bread and cold tea,
f) on trays,
g) slide in and out of the rooms where
h) there are more -
i) inmates, slumped in a daze in wheelchairs, but in their own rooms.

And the TV's. People don't talk when the TV is on, to their toddlers or to each other, so there is more isolation. Thanks, Fox, for the poison in the ether, ideas sliding in the old ears, ready for the absentee voter people next time.

Romania, near Putna. Village men.Longevity: and diet, water, purpose.

1. Exercise.

2. Acceptance - a place among people.

3. A place in an ongoing life including choices, with sustenance.

Groups. Other people. Swinging their rank around. And, eventually the rankists pay the financial price for sustaining people they have shunted.

Go back and look at this face, its good will, hope, cheer, as this site delves into malignancy
on groups, as they grow larger and entrench; when they do that, they have to use their perceived rank to buttress the privilege they seek to retain.

We know nothing of the lives of these people. We just know we felt welcome, and they appeared content. Hellie in the nursing home here is not content.