Gray Tsunami: A Dangerous Metaphor in Aging Discourse?
Michael Gordon MD, MSc, FRCPC is a geriatrician working at Baycrest Health Science System. He is medical program director of the palliative care program, co-head of the clinical ethics program and a professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Late Stage Dementia, Promoting Compassion, Comfort and Care; Moments that Matter: Cases in Ethical Eldercare, Brooklyn Beginnings: A Geriatrician's Odyssey, and Parenting Your Parents. Over the past few decades, most individuals, academics, and writers have learned that certain terminology which was once linguistically and culturally acceptable are not longer to be used and, in fact, are often the subject of scorn and sometimes legal recourse when they are used. The recent scandal with the use of the “N” word by Donald Sterling, owner of the basketball team LA Clippers, is an indication of just how sensitive we have become to language and how strongly we react to certain terms that are no longer considered acceptable, polite or suitable in a refined population although everyone knows that at other levels such language and terminology are commonly used—just not in public, the press or contemporary literature. Just remember the controversy that surrounded contemporary editions of Mark Twain’s classic novel Huckleberry Finn, which took the liberty of expunging the “N” word, thereby to many distorting the power of the novel within its historical context. Of course there are many other terms that get used negatively to describe groups of people by religion, racial characteristics, colour of skin and country of origin- these two one rarely would use publically but we all know that they are part of many people’s regular vocabulary and conceptual framework of humanity.
So what about this term “Gray or Silver Tsunami” that has come into even polite parlance to describe the growingly aged population primarily in the western world. Following such natural disasters as the Indonesian and Japanese tsunamis, which were associated with horrendous geographical and human damage, one began to see the term used in the popular media especially to encapsulate the perceived and primarily negative impact of what could just as well be deemed the actual miracle of modern medicine and society - the growing human longevity. Rather, the term began to be used even in small local papers, such as The Press Democrat; for example, their article published on February 10, 2013, titled “Aging baby boomers will create 'silver tsunami' for Sonoma County” merely reflects the kinds of articles in publications with much larger distributions.
Even organizations that purportedly have the well-being of the aged high on their agenda may inadvertently use terms like tsunami or other similes to make the point of the urgency in addressing the many challenges that society is facing associated with the aging of the population, even when that aging process is the result of all the wonderful advances that we have achieved in medical and other healthcare-related practices. For example the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada produced a very comprehensive report called The Rising Tide, which is directed to policy makers to help them understand that planning must occur to make sure that our aging population received the care it deserves. A Toronto Dominion Bank (one of the largest banks in Canada) reported on the challenges of aging also using the negative term in their 2010 report, Navigating the Storm Ahead.
All this was beautifully encapsulated in a comprehensive exploration on the use of such terms as tsunami and other categorizations of aging especially as expressed in the media and in literature in an article written by Andrea Charise, now an Assistant Professor of Health Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough, titled “Let the reader think of the burden”: Old Age and the Crisis of Capacity” published in Occasion: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities in 2012
In it she notes, “the language of ageism is promiscuous. Its terms are not confined by discipline. Yet the literary study of older age provides an opportunity to witness the ethical stakes of the metaphors we live by”: a point she elaborates upon specifically for a medical and healthcare professional audience in her widely cited 2012 podcast for the Canadian Geriatrics Society—"Rising Tide, Grey Tsunami: Charting the History of a Dangerous Metaphor”. “Is the progressive aging of society really equivalent to the instantaneous devastation of cities?” Charise asks. “What is at stake when they’re held up as equivalent?” Her answer should be a wake-up call for health professionals and media alike. “The grey tsunami metaphor has the potential to endanger the validity of caring for elderly: if the elderly are like a dangerous tsunami, then why would we work to prolong or improve quality of life for this threatening population?”
Charise offers a solution that involves a multi-part, interdisciplinary alliance between medicine, health care, media, and culture to unite against ageism. “To prevent this kind of logic from taking stronger hold, we must work improve our awareness of how rhetoric works to frame public discussion around aging… and how the imaginative language we use can legitimize prejudice against older persons.” It seems that as part of this process we will have to alert the media writers to refrain from the use of such terms in the same way that it took time for the media to become accustomed to a change of language when it came to discussing various population categories.
It is important that all of us, especially healthcare professionals committed to eldercare in all the various domains, stay attuned to the use of language, often in subtle forms to diminish the intrinsic, human and societal value of our aged population: they who are our mothers and fathers, and grandparents, and us in the years to come. It is “they” that have built the world we live in and carry the narrative of our world with them for all of us to enjoy, bemoan, but most of all learn from, recognize, and, in most instances, admire.
