cruel

Feminists rightly stress that we are dependent on others through all of our life,
but we are most dependent when we are very young, and when we are very old.

The young, of course, do not recognize their dependence. The elderly do; and it
is an added burden if they feel somehow guilty because they require help.
As Plato pointed out in the "Philebus", it is a very special pain to recognize that
one is losing an ability one once possessed. And that pain is very much part of
the daily life of the old. Why must they be burdened, in addition, with some
kind of fanatical and unrealistic ideal of "independence"? 'That ideal is no less
erroneous and destructive than puritan attitudes toward sex.

And, what do I say of a society which conjures up such guilt in the elderly? It is a cruel society.

The United States of America is a cruel society.