Spinozaauthor's Blog

Articles on Ageing

spinozaauthor — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 20:07:21 +0000

Struggling to be Happy – Even When I’m Old

Published in The Journal of Applied Philosophy Vol.19 Issue 1 pp. 17-30 2002

Read online at http://spinozaauthor.wordpress.com/books-by-spinozaauthor-margaret-gullan-whur/articles-on-spinoza-by-margaret-gullan-whur/struggling-to-be-happy-even-when-im-old/

Abstract

My thesis seeks to reduce what may be a natural human antipathy to ageing
and/or the elderly by working with one distinctive and consistently approved
feature of some older people. This feature is a bold and cheerful struggle
within a self-chosen project. The argument opens by distinguishing short-term
gratification from lasting, fulfilling happiness, and showing the link between
gratification and dependence. Three kinds of struggle (non-voluntary,
part-voluntary and positive) are then outlined and exemplified. Gerontological
and anthropological research suggest that attitudes to struggle are fixed early
in life, and while in the past they mitigated for or against successful
survival, they now influence happiness and coping in later life. I argue that
the negative effects of the first two kinds of struggle – which are often
misguided, grudging or ‘no-win’ struggles – are responsible for the rigidity,
narcissism and resentment disliked in some older people. Self-respect,
contrasted with self-righteousness, is shown to accrue only from the positive
(voluntary and congenial) struggle that seems at any age to deflect or
compensate for depression, disappointment, loneliness and illness.

Struggling to be Happy – Even When I’m Old

spinozaauthor — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 17:32:40 +0000

Published in The Journal of Applied Philosophy Vol.19 Issue 1 pp. 17-30 2002

Read online at http://spinozaauthor.wordpress.com/books-by-spinozaauthor-margaret-gullan-whur/articles-on-spinoza-by-margaret-gullan-whur/struggling-to-be-happy-even-when-im-old/

Abstract

My thesis seeks to reduce what may be a natural human antipathy to ageing
and/or the elderly by working with one distinctive and consistently approved
feature of some older people. This feature is a bold and cheerful struggle
within a self-chosen project. The argument opens by distinguishing short-term
gratification from lasting, fulfilling happiness, and showing the link between
gratification and dependence. Three kinds of struggle (non-voluntary,
part-voluntary and positive) are then outlined and exemplified. Gerontological
and anthropological research suggest that attitudes to struggle are fixed early
in life, and while in the past they mitigated for or against successful
survival, they now influence happiness and coping in later life. I argue that
the negative effects of the first two kinds of struggle – which are often
misguided, grudging or ‘no-win’ struggles – are responsible for the rigidity,
narcissism and resentment disliked in some older people. Self-respect,
contrasted with self-righteousness, is shown to accrue only from the positive
(voluntary and congenial) struggle that seems at any age to deflect or
compensate for depression, disappointment, loneliness and illness.

Spinoza and the Equality of Women

spinozaauthor — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:15:30 +0000

Abstract On the last page of A Political Treatise Spinoza denies that women are subject to men by convention only. He excludes females from participation in politics on the grounds that they are “by nature … necessarily” (that is, by the logical and causal necessity which are for him equivalent) unequal to men “in strength of mind and intellectual ability”. This claim is examined in relation to four of Spinoza’s foundational principles. It is found to be in tension with all four, and with the psychological, social, political and moral deductions Spinoza makes from them, and is moreover an internally weak argument.

Spinoza on religion in public life

spinozaauthor — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 12:01:47 +0000

Spinoza’s proposals for calming sectarian tensions.

Margaret Gullan-Whur Homepage

spinozaauthor — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:28:13 +0000

Homepage and blogsite of the author of Within Reason: A Life of Spinoza (Jonathan Cape 1998; Pimlico 2000)

ARTICLES on Spinoza by Margaret Gullan-Whur

spinozaauthor — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:51:36 +0000

See the full list of Margaret Gullan-Whur’s articles on Spinoza, and find a link to her Ph.D. thesis.

The longevity revolution of the past half-century

spinozaauthor — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:36:18 +0000

How the age-shift developed in Britain 1951-2008.

View pie charts showing the UK population by age group, using data from the Census reports of 1951, 2001 and 2008.

The advanced nations where growing old is changing

spinozaauthor — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:32:09 +0000

See the group-order of rich-world life expectancy at the age of 60 (both sexes) due to high distribution of GDP per capita.

20 REASONS YOU WON’T GROW OLD LIKE THlS: HOW AGEING IS CHANGING IN THE 21ST CENTURY by Margaret Gullan-Whur

spinozaauthor — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:05:37 +0000

20 Reasons – a report on how the generation that defied society in the 1960s is shattering stale images of ageing. An eye-opener for people in their forties who are already sensitive to ageism and gloomy about the idea of working on to seventy. A stimulating read for age-defying 50-60-pluses who still see being old as their own aged parents’ thing, not their own. A wake-up call for policymakers, health-care professionals and manufacturers who plan on treating the old of the future as more of the same, with the same old attitudes and needs.

Start reading online … the jacket note, Chapter Content list, what people who read the first draft had to say, and the INTRODUCTION

THE FOUR ELEMENTS

spinozaauthor — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:28:51 +0000

The traditional theory of psychological types (head-in-air, earthy, fiery, wet) and their place in religion, myth and modern-day personality profiling. A rare and valuable analysis used by students of homeopathy and central to all New Age philosophies.