The Elderly and Assumptions

When I taught freshman English at the University of Hawaii, I used to give the students a newspaper headline and asked them to tell me what they supposed the story was about. The headline was "Elderly Couple in Freeway Accident."

Most of them told me it would be about why more restrictions were needed for senior drivers since they were sure the senior driver was at fault. The wisest among them said they didn't know enough to form a conclusion, but that didn't stop the majority from forming opinions based, as they later admitted, on their own thoughts on the subject of who might be called "elderly."

The use of the word "elderly" is interesting because it's another one of those terms that are defined subjectively. AARP has snagged the word "senior" which they define as anyone over 55, to the great displeasure of those under 65 who wish to defer being called that. In fact, some "seniors" say they are offended when the first AARP magazine arrives in their mailboxes. I admit to being a little shocked myself, but I soon balanced it by realizing that all that had happened was I had entered the market demographic that AARP likes to target: those of us, it would seem, who have little to do except become "active seniors" on our way to choosing our pre-need burial sites and caskets.

I think my students learned something that day when I began to give them further details about the accident. I told them that the other driver involved was a teenager. I asked then what they assumed. They said the teen probably had other teens in the car and was texting and/or speeding. Boy--they were tough on their fellow teens.

Then I gave them the actual story, which involved a run-away truck that had clipped the teens' car and pushed them into the elderly couple's sedan, putting the couple into the hospital with serious injuries. My student's were chastened and I thought it was a great exercise in assumptions. Not to be beaten down, though, they became indignant over what they said was the newspaper misleading them. "Sorry, Chums," I said, "you can't blame it all on the media. You were there too."

I was thinking about this other day when I was reading an impassioned article in the Arizona paper about how politicians are "not listening" to the people. Well, I wanted to say, maybe it's because the people aren't worth listening to. If my students had been in charge, there would have been even more restrictions on drivers over 65 and on drivers under twenty, neither one of which would have made any difference to the accident as it happened. All the legislative mayhem and protests that might have followed would have been caused by jumping to conclusions and not taking the time to look at all the details.

I think this happens a great deal of the time. In my more cynical moments, I suspect the media do this in order to generate controversy and have something to report. I will say H1N1 and rest my case, although I could also point to the most famous case of all: Orson Welles and the radio broadcast about alien invasion. People died in the panic caused by that program.

Finding out what really matters takes time and most people, it seems, would prefer the comfort of unexamined assumptions that sound good on the surface and flatter whatever it is they think they already know, or at least fear. This tendency does not give me comfort when I consider it drives political forces in most democracies. My late husband used to say, "Every head a vote, no matter how empty."

I have my own assumptions about things, I will admit. I try to control them because I know better, but that doesn't stop me from assuming that politicans are for sale, that unregulated corporations and financial institutions will gamble with the national capital if it makes them short-term rewards, and that laws are fashionable rather than just (the latter opinion, expressed on a jury selection questionaire, made me the first potential jurist both defense and prosecution eliminated from the pool).

Maybe what we all need is good dose of distrust in what we are told and what we read.