0:00:00.810,0:00:02.970
The more prejudiced we are against the elderly,

0:00:02.970,0:00:04.430
the more aggressively we react,

0:00:04.550,0:00:07.010
the more terrified we become of

0:00:07.090,0:00:07.650
what awaits us.

0:00:07.790,0:00:09.790
However, these behaviors

0:00:09.790,0:00:11.890
pathologize and stigmatize

0:00:12.410,0:00:14.070
old age,

0:00:14.150,0:00:16.030
and there's only one reason for this.

0:00:16.030,0:00:16.950
In my opinion,

0:00:16.950,0:00:18.430
it's the fear of one's own old age.

0:00:23.400,0:00:26.000
We invite you to listen to episodes of the new

0:00:26.000,0:00:29.680
podcast series "Spotkania Biuletynu" ( Bulletin Meetings

0:00:29.680,0:00:30.640
) titled "Engaged Polish Studies."

0:00:32.460,0:00:35.280
Polish studies aren't a helpless observation

0:00:35.280,0:00:35.780
of the world.

0:00:36.280,0:00:37.820
They provide tools

0:00:37.820,0:00:39.080
to navigate it,

0:00:39.080,0:00:40.880
help understand it, and

0:00:41.040,0:00:44.380
prevent exclusion and loneliness.

0:00:46.040,0:00:48.060
This is the kind of Polish studies

0:00:48.060,0:00:50.240
we want to showcase through our "Engaged Polish Studies" project

0:00:52.429,0:00:53.870
.

0:00:59.990,0:01:00.710
Hanna,

0:01:00.750,0:01:03.310
let's move on to old age,

0:01:03.310,0:01:05.209
to this book,

0:01:05.290,0:01:06.830
which we also have here.

0:01:07.030,0:01:09.030
The very field of research

0:01:09.050,0:01:11.850
you explored a few years ago—

0:01:11.930,0:01:13.570
we counted it about ten

0:01:13.670,0:01:15.190
years ago —is aging studies.

0:01:15.850,0:01:18.530
I've become interested in it, and I have the impression

0:01:18.530,0:01:20.610
that when a word, a concept,

0:01:20.610,0:01:21.330
a name appears

0:01:21.370,0:01:21.830
,

0:01:21.830,0:01:23.710
you begin to understand

0:01:23.710,0:01:25.390
that there really is such a thing.

0:01:25.650,0:01:27.530
We didn't notice these phenomena

0:01:27.530,0:01:29.150
until someone named them.

0:01:29.450,0:01:31.630
We have a word called ageism,

0:01:31.810,0:01:33.410
a Polonized borrowing.

0:01:33.810,0:01:36.590
Sometimes you encounter such a version.

0:01:37.490,0:01:37.990
Wiekowizm?

0:01:38.230,0:01:38.710
Wiekizm?

0:01:38.710,0:01:41.070
PESELoza (Personal Identification Number) also appears somewhere in these

0:01:41.070,0:01:42.010
new expressions.

0:01:42.110,0:01:43.150
These are all words

0:01:43.150,0:01:44.910
that somehow relate to age.

0:01:44.910,0:01:46.590
Are you familiar with the concept of PESELoza?

0:01:46.770,0:01:48.070
No, I made a note of it.

0:01:48.950,0:01:49.990
I'm talking about the PESEL (Personal Identification Number),

0:01:49.990,0:01:51.210
but of course, the part

0:01:51.270,0:01:52.670
where the date of birth

0:01:52.990,0:01:53.650
is encrypted.

0:01:54.830,0:01:56.610
And it's a concept

0:01:56.630,0:01:57.990
that names the phenomenon

0:01:58.010,0:02:00.730
that at a certain age, something is no longer appropriate.

0:02:02.639,0:02:04.580
And there's also a bit of discrimination,

0:02:04.580,0:02:05.780
in the sense of a person,

0:02:06.000,0:02:08.479
precisely. Ageism is supposed to be the name

0:02:08.479,0:02:10.800
for the phenomenon of discrimination against people based on age,

0:02:10.820,0:02:11.680
and PESELoza (Personal Identification Number)

0:02:11.700,0:02:12.200
—I have the impression

0:02:12.200,0:02:14.020
it functions somewhat humorously,

0:02:14.120,0:02:16.520
more in first-person narratives.

0:02:16.580,0:02:17.460
Oh, PESELoza,

0:02:17.480,0:02:19.660
I don't want to do something at that age anymore;

0:02:19.700,0:02:20.460
it's no longer appropriate.

0:02:20.580,0:02:22.660
I use a different term.

0:02:22.680,0:02:24.660
I'm talking, for example, about the old man's destruction.

0:02:25.100,0:02:26.880
And I'm very shocked by this,

0:02:26.980,0:02:27.880
because everyone thinks

0:02:27.920,0:02:30.400
I'm not speaking in a self-deprecating way

0:02:30.400,0:02:30.860
.

0:02:30.860,0:02:32.840
Because "dziaders" is provocative.

0:02:32.860,0:02:33.320
Like here,

0:02:33.320,0:02:36.040
as Ryszard Nycz used it publicly for the first time

0:02:36.040,0:02:36.540
.

0:02:36.860,0:02:37.840
I really liked it

0:02:37.880,0:02:38.740
when he retired,

0:02:38.740,0:02:39.080
he said, "

0:02:39.080,0:02:40.540
Here, here, "dziaders" is speaking to you.

0:02:40.780,0:02:43.120
Because "dziaders" is a very mental

0:02:43.120,0:02:43.780
term for

0:02:44.060,0:02:46.460
a certain mental state of a person.

0:02:47.080,0:02:48.900
But what is this "aging studies"?

0:02:49.040,0:02:49.960
Because the fact

0:02:50.040,0:02:51.660
that we discriminate against people based on age

0:02:51.660,0:02:54.040
is, in a way, a very unpleasant

0:02:54.040,0:02:55.300
aspect ,

0:02:55.340,0:02:56.900
of the broader phenomenon of

0:02:57.220,0:02:59.840
aging research,

0:02:59.880,0:03:01.260
which is actually something natural,

0:03:01.280,0:03:02.660
because it affects us all.

0:03:03.500,0:03:05.820
How do we understand this research area?

0:03:06.040,0:03:08.260
What exactly does it include?

0:03:08.700,0:03:11.860
It's a bit like a wagon question.

0:03:12.700,0:03:15.420
Kind of like the first one about your humanistic medicine.

0:03:16.140,0:03:18.680
Well, of course, there's research on

0:03:18.680,0:03:19.880
prejudice,

0:03:19.960,0:03:23.200
on how old age and older

0:03:23.200,0:03:24.460
individuals function in culture,

0:03:24.460,0:03:25.620
on

0:03:25.800,0:03:28.180
how this can be compared across cultures

0:03:28.180,0:03:28.880
,

0:03:29.280,0:03:31.080
but it also encompasses everything from geriatrics

0:03:31.100,0:03:31.900
and gerontology,

0:03:31.920,0:03:33.680
and there's also a large area

0:03:33.680,0:03:37.300
where we study the depiction and

0:03:37.400,0:03:39.320
presentation of people

0:03:40.170,0:03:41.250
above a certain age.

0:03:41.250,0:03:43.090
I'll move on to the

0:03:43.090,0:03:46.370
definitional blurring in culture in a moment.

0:03:46.790,0:03:47.670
While conducting this research,

0:03:47.670,0:03:49.570
I came across a few interesting,

0:03:49.570,0:03:50.310
alternative,

0:03:50.310,0:03:52.430
and non-stigmatizing proposals,

0:03:52.430,0:03:54.150
because we can talk about old age.

0:03:54.270,0:03:57.790
I remember that when I wrote "old" in English in some

0:03:57.790,0:03:59.290
article, it was corrected to "elderly,"

0:03:59.450,0:04:01.350
so it's not just our language that

0:04:01.350,0:04:01.670
says

0:04:01.670,0:04:02.590
don't use that word

0:04:02.590,0:04:03.650
because it's ugly,

0:04:03.670,0:04:04.830
right? "Old" means ugly,

0:04:05.150,0:04:05.650
worn out.

0:04:06.480,0:04:08.900
There's a Dutch writer who wrote two

0:04:08.900,0:04:11.280
memoirs translated into Polish

0:04:11.280,0:04:14.600
under the pseudonym Henryk Hrun , and I remember

0:04:14.600,0:04:15.700
there's a passage in it

0:04:15.740,0:04:20.320
where Henryk Hrun sees an advertisement for "Old

0:04:20.320,0:04:22.040
is beautiful" on a poster and says, "It's definitely about cheese."

0:04:22.340,0:04:24.100
Well, old can't be beautiful,

0:04:24.100,0:04:25.580
so it has to be ugly,

0:04:25.580,0:04:26.780
it has to be obscene,

0:04:26.800,0:04:27.640
it has to be something

0:04:27.920,0:04:31.520
that's aversive to show publicly.

0:04:32.060,0:04:35.960
Nevertheless, such projects or

0:04:35.960,0:04:36.520
ideas

0:04:36.560,0:04:37.480
for how to talk about it emerge.

0:04:37.480,0:04:38.720
You can use euphemisms,

0:04:38.720,0:04:39.360
you can say that

0:04:39.380,0:04:40.980
aging is a kind of dying,

0:04:41.120,0:04:42.220
fading,

0:04:42.280,0:04:42.960
diminishing.

0:04:43.040,0:04:43.740
It seems

0:04:43.760,0:04:47.040
that even before Tadeusz Sławek, the poet

0:04:47.040,0:04:47.920
Zbigniew Jankowski used this,

0:04:47.960,0:04:49.080
because that's the clue I came across.

0:04:49.380,0:04:49.880
U-byanie.

0:04:50.940,0:04:52.680
It's about a kind of diminuendo,

0:04:52.700,0:04:54.900
meaning our attempts to intervene in the world should be

0:04:54.900,0:04:55.540
limited.

0:04:56.000,0:04:57.960
They should be increasingly weaker and less frequent,

0:04:57.960,0:05:00.160
because otherwise, of course, we expose ourselves to all

0:05:00.160,0:05:01.880
sorts of undesirable reactions.

0:05:01.900,0:05:04.560
But there are also attempts to name this age,

0:05:04.560,0:05:06.100
mature age,

0:05:06.140,0:05:06.620
old age,

0:05:06.620,0:05:07.140
senility,

0:05:07.180,0:05:10.080
as by Helen Small.

0:05:10.340,0:05:11.360
She's a researcher...

0:05:11.360,0:05:14.360
in 2007, her book was published, and she talks

0:05:14.360,0:05:16.820
about the late phase of a long life.

0:05:17.740,0:05:18.840
The Long Life –

0:05:19.060,0:05:20.240
the late phase of a long life.

0:05:20.680,0:05:25.380
It requires a greater expenditure of words,

0:05:25.380,0:05:27.160
but it's still the late phase of a long life.

0:05:27.240,0:05:28.400
Not everyone lives a long life,

0:05:28.400,0:05:28.720
right?

0:05:28.720,0:05:30.040
Why call it old age?

0:05:30.040,0:05:31.400
It's the late phase of a long life.

0:05:31.900,0:05:34.120
If we call someone an old man,

0:05:34.120,0:05:34.820
an old,

0:05:34.820,0:05:36.100
an old geezer,

0:05:36.100,0:05:38.380
as I recently encountered

0:05:38.380,0:05:39.040
,

0:05:39.220,0:05:42.420
then we're already dealing with stigmatization,

0:05:42.460,0:05:44.420
because we're selecting one trait,

0:05:44.460,0:05:44.900
as we know,

0:05:44.900,0:05:47.340
from a whole catalog of traits, and we're making

0:05:47.340,0:05:48.920
that person inhuman,

0:05:49.020,0:05:49.780
not fully human,

0:05:49.860,0:05:51.240
because we're talking about them not as a person,

0:05:51.240,0:05:52.260
but as an old man.

0:05:52.640,0:05:53.660
The ageism

0:05:53.680,0:05:54.320
you mentioned

0:05:54.380,0:05:55.420
is also a word

0:05:55.420,0:05:59.100
we owe to American researchers,

0:05:59.100,0:05:59.600
a term

0:05:59.620,0:06:01.040
coined by Robert Butler.

0:06:01.740,0:06:04.180
Roman Tokarczyk introduced this ageism into Polish

0:06:04.180,0:06:04.660
.

0:06:04.660,0:06:05.480
I haven't heard

0:06:05.480,0:06:06.060
or seen

0:06:06.060,0:06:07.180
it used.

0:06:07.560,0:06:08.220
Rarely, I think.

0:06:08.660,0:06:09.780
People simply say "eejdżyzm." They

0:06:09.780,0:06:10.620
say "eejdżyzm,

0:06:10.640,0:06:13.440
" yes. The spelling is already Polonized.

0:06:13.760,0:06:15.720
However, these behaviors

0:06:15.720,0:06:17.840
pathologize and stigmatize,

0:06:17.940,0:06:18.300
true,

0:06:18.300,0:06:19.980
the old age of older people.

0:06:20.100,0:06:21.980
And there's only one reason for this,

0:06:21.980,0:06:22.880
in my opinion:

0:06:22.880,0:06:24.380
the fear of one's own old age.

0:06:24.380,0:06:26.200
The more prejudiced we are against the elderly,

0:06:26.200,0:06:27.660
the more aggressively we react,

0:06:27.800,0:06:30.240
the more terrified we ourselves are of what

0:06:30.320,0:06:30.900
awaits us.

0:06:31.120,0:06:31.960
In good times, of course,

0:06:32.440,0:06:32.860
right?

0:06:32.860,0:06:33.400
In good times,

0:06:33.400,0:06:36.120
because not everyone will live to see a long life.

0:06:36.460,0:06:37.560
But what about the fact

0:06:37.560,0:06:40.680
that old age was perceived as a disease?

0:06:41.000,0:06:43.200
Because it has varied throughout history.

0:06:43.800,0:06:45.760
This was due, among other things, to

0:06:45.880,0:06:49.500
Charcot's findings in his lesson clinic from

0:06:49.500,0:06:51.960
the late 19th century.

0:06:51.960,0:06:54.280
And only in reaction to this classification

0:06:54.540,0:06:55.860
did old age equal disease.

0:06:55.920,0:07:00.700
In 1911, the American physician Ignatz Leo Nascher

0:07:00.700,0:07:03.700
attempted to separate old age from disease,

0:07:03.740,0:07:05.200
founding the field of geriatrics.

0:07:05.850,0:07:08.130
I began my research,

0:07:08.130,0:07:12.110
of course, I read all the works of Filip Arie,

0:07:12.110,0:07:13.390
Jean-Pierre Abou,

0:07:13.570,0:07:14.610
Jean Ameri,

0:07:14.750,0:07:16.570
and our own Przybylski, "The Winter's Tale." I really

0:07:16.630,0:07:18.530
tried to read everything that was written on this topic

0:07:18.530,0:07:20.310
.

0:07:20.310,0:07:21.610
I've finally established

0:07:22.430,0:07:23.510
that

0:07:24.010,0:07:26.270
such a breakthrough has occurred

0:07:26.270,0:07:27.850
in writing about old age,

0:07:27.930,0:07:29.050
in thinking about old age,

0:07:29.070,0:07:31.010
thanks, of course, to Simone De Beuvoir.

0:07:31.130,0:07:32.610
You probably already know this,

0:07:32.630,0:07:33.150
listening.

0:07:33.170,0:07:33.930
"La Vieilles" was written

0:07:34.230,0:07:35.490
in the 1970s , and

0:07:35.490,0:07:37.910
"Old Age" was translated here in 2011.

0:07:38.760,0:07:41.720
And what does de Beuvoir say about these three points?

0:07:42.240,0:07:47.660
First of all, she reverses the thinking typical of the Stoics,

0:07:47.660,0:07:51.840
this "Cato Maior de Senectute" from Cicero to the almost contemporary

0:07:51.840,0:07:52.940
Norbert Bobbia.

0:07:53.080,0:07:54.380
Old age was beautiful

0:07:54.380,0:07:56.200
because it was associated with knowledge and power.

0:07:56.460,0:07:58.360
A time of such culmination,

0:07:58.380,0:08:01.340
reaching the peak of one's life's potential.

0:08:01.400,0:08:03.300
But who reaches such a peak at that time?

0:08:03.340,0:08:04.240
This referred,

0:08:04.280,0:08:05.500
as de Beuvoir states,

0:08:05.500,0:08:06.560
to male

0:08:06.760,0:08:07.920
social elites,

0:08:07.920,0:08:08.940
male elites,

0:08:08.960,0:08:10.240
male social elites.

0:08:10.580,0:08:12.380
What is it like for women?

0:08:12.400,0:08:15.680
She first speaks of all aging

0:08:15.680,0:08:16.060
people,

0:08:16.060,0:08:18.260
that something like an identity crisis occurs in

0:08:18.260,0:08:18.640
old age.

0:08:18.640,0:08:19.700
I notice

0:08:19.700,0:08:20.520
that I'm no longer

0:08:20.560,0:08:21.180
who I was,

0:08:21.180,0:08:21.760
I'm not who

0:08:21.820,0:08:22.320
I was.

0:08:23.080,0:08:23.560
And I don't know

0:08:23.560,0:08:25.480
what to replace my earlier image with.

0:08:25.500,0:08:26.940
I don't identify with

0:08:27.020,0:08:28.260
what I've become today,

0:08:28.460,0:08:28.900
do I?

0:08:28.900,0:08:30.220
Well, who is this woman

0:08:30.220,0:08:32.380
looking back at me in the mirror?

0:08:32.520,0:08:33.480
That's general.

0:08:33.700,0:08:34.260
Or the man

0:08:34.260,0:08:35.059
looking back at me in the mirror?

0:08:35.120,0:08:36.740
But when it comes to women,

0:08:36.740,0:08:38.780
de Beuvoir was particularly interested in them, of course.

0:08:38.840,0:08:39.200
She said

0:08:39.200,0:08:40.880
yes, I haven't met a woman

0:08:40.900,0:08:43.020
who would enjoy thinking about old age.

0:08:43.260,0:08:44.640
And this isn't because

0:08:44.640,0:08:45.520
they age,

0:08:45.520,0:08:46.880
we age less well,

0:08:46.880,0:08:48.460
but because

0:08:48.520,0:08:50.640
women are equated with appearance,

0:08:50.640,0:08:51.900
and men with wisdom.

0:08:52.240,0:08:53.880
Have you ever heard

0:08:53.880,0:08:55.300
anyone say that a beautiful old woman?

0:08:55.460,0:08:55.940
No,

0:08:55.940,0:08:56.920
a charming old lady,

0:08:57.080,0:08:57.580
right?

0:08:57.720,0:09:00.460
Meanwhile, some beautiful old men inspire admiration.

0:09:00.500,0:09:02.340
Well, the male gender doesn't fall prey to old age.

0:09:02.640,0:09:04.520
No one expects freshness,

0:09:04.680,0:09:05.680
sweetness, or

0:09:05.740,0:09:06.300
charm from them.

0:09:06.810,0:09:08.170
Only strength,

0:09:08.170,0:09:09.410
perseverance, and

0:09:09.510,0:09:10.670
the intelligence of a conqueror.

0:09:10.690,0:09:13.370
Susan Sontag also

0:09:13.370,0:09:13.870
wrote about this double standard of aging.

0:09:14.150,0:09:17.790
She did this two years after De Beuvoir, and

0:09:17.790,0:09:19.130
I realized,

0:09:19.130,0:09:21.490
rereading her "The Double Standard of

0:09:21.490,0:09:21.870
Aging,"

0:09:21.870,0:09:23.110
which isn't translated

0:09:23.130,0:09:23.710
(unless it is,

0:09:23.810,0:09:24.650
correct me,

0:09:24.770,0:09:26.410
because I only saw excerpts in Znak,

0:09:27.660,0:09:29.340
November 2024),

0:09:29.740,0:09:32.520
that we're still terribly behind on this.

0:09:32.520,0:09:36.040
There's no full Polish translation of this essay on

0:09:36.040,0:09:37.260
the double standard of aging,

0:09:37.320,0:09:39.440
but it seems to me that she's repeating a lot of

0:09:39.440,0:09:41.620
De Beuvoir's thinking.

0:09:41.800,0:09:43.360
It's body shaming,

0:09:43.700,0:09:44.720
or body shame,

0:09:44.780,0:09:46.940
the shame of showing off that old body,

0:09:46.940,0:09:48.200
the Iconoclasm.

0:09:48.220,0:09:50.580
You can show the faces and bodies of old men.

0:09:50.660,0:09:52.700
However, the old female body, unlike

0:09:52.700,0:09:54.860
the male body, cannot—according to popular

0:09:54.860,0:09:55.960
belief—be displayed,

0:09:55.960,0:09:56.460
offered, or

0:09:56.500,0:09:57.320
revealed.

0:09:57.660,0:09:59.200
It can be clothed,

0:09:59.200,0:09:59.820
disguised,

0:09:59.840,0:10:03.400
but even then, people looking at such a woman will

0:10:03.400,0:10:05.300
feel uneasy at the thought

0:10:05.300,0:10:07.380
that they might see something terrible

0:10:07.380,0:10:09.520
if she were to shed her mask or clothing,

0:10:09.580,0:10:11.560
right? So even the iconoclast

0:10:11.580,0:10:12.920
that embraces women in general,

0:10:12.920,0:10:14.080
not even her body,

0:10:14.100,0:10:15.800
can't be shown at all.

0:10:15.940,0:10:18.060
The 1970s did their thing, though.

0:10:18.280,0:10:21.640
Those essays by Simone De Beuvoir and Susan Sontag,

0:10:21.660,0:10:22.080
right?

0:10:22.080,0:10:22.980
And it seems

0:10:23.020,0:10:24.680
they contributed to something.

0:10:24.740,0:10:28.560
Well, I decided not to follow that path, nor that

0:10:28.560,0:10:30.180
idealized old age.

0:10:30.500,0:10:31.000
Because

0:10:31.020,0:10:35.220
that's the age of consuming the fruits of one's

0:10:35.220,0:10:35.880
achievements.

0:10:36.100,0:10:37.800
One reaches the peak of one's potential, and so on.

0:10:37.860,0:10:41.240
Nor to follow the path marked by De Beuvoir,

0:10:41.340,0:10:44.100
which reversed this centuries-old tradition and views

0:10:44.100,0:10:46.620
old age not as a time of culmination,

0:10:46.640,0:10:49.100
but as a restriction of individual freedom,

0:10:49.120,0:10:49.920
especially women.

0:10:50.720,0:10:51.420
And I thought to myself

0:10:51.500,0:10:53.660
that something different had to be done.

0:10:53.900,0:10:55.780
But how to avoid idealization?

0:10:55.860,0:10:56.220
Well,

0:10:56.220,0:10:58.220
you have to add a disease to old age.

0:10:58.540,0:11:00.700
And my choice fell on dementia,

0:11:00.740,0:11:02.500
because the 1990s were the years

0:11:02.580,0:11:05.320
when people first started writing about it,

0:11:05.320,0:11:06.300
again in America.

0:11:06.540,0:11:09.460
And so many books and films had appeared

0:11:09.460,0:11:10.780
that I had something to work with.

0:11:12.000,0:11:12.620
We talked about

0:11:12.660,0:11:13.520
what old age was,

0:11:13.600,0:11:14.520
how to define it, and

0:11:14.560,0:11:15.920
there's a problem with this periodization.

0:11:16.260,0:11:17.140
Who is old?

0:11:17.770,0:11:19.370
Well, as an expert, I can say,

0:11:19.610,0:11:20.290
I can comment,

0:11:20.310,0:11:21.110
that I'm not old

0:11:21.190,0:11:22.250
because I don't feel old.

0:11:23.050,0:11:25.090
I know how people look at me, and I know

0:11:25.090,0:11:29.230
that unfortunately, we learn about old age,

0:11:29.250,0:11:31.370
we learn about our own old age most often from

0:11:31.370,0:11:31.870
others.

0:11:32.210,0:11:32.910
That is,

0:11:32.950,0:11:35.130
the perception of others makes us aware of our old age.

0:11:35.850,0:11:37.290
Through our relationships with others,

0:11:37.330,0:11:38.270
through them.

0:11:38.290,0:11:39.550
We wouldn't know it ourselves.

0:11:39.610,0:11:40.910
Someone older than me looks at me

0:11:40.950,0:11:41.350
and says, "Oh,

0:11:41.350,0:11:44.150
even that's not quite a young woman."

0:11:44.850,0:11:46.390
So it's also relative.

0:11:46.570,0:11:47.510
The question of perception,

0:11:47.550,0:11:48.570
self-perception,

0:11:48.610,0:11:51.490
the question of the ability to fulfill social roles—

0:11:51.490,0:11:52.330
that's very important.

0:11:52.690,0:11:53.910
Can we still fulfill them,

0:11:53.910,0:11:55.290
our earlier roles?

0:11:55.910,0:11:56.790
But remember,

0:11:56.830,0:11:58.170
everyone ages differently;

0:11:58.170,0:11:59.710
it's influenced by a multitude of factors,

0:11:59.710,0:12:00.870
depending on health,

0:12:00.870,0:12:03.090
on all possible resources, on physical and

0:12:03.310,0:12:04.270
intellectual

0:12:04.270,0:12:05.010
abilities .

0:12:05.580,0:12:06.580
Do you like the word "senior"?

0:12:08.140,0:12:09.340
Because it's also appeared.

0:12:09.600,0:12:10.320
In this context,

0:12:10.920,0:12:11.320
"old man"

0:12:11.320,0:12:12.400
means an older person.

0:12:12.700,0:12:13.540
I accept it.

0:12:13.560,0:12:13.960
I prefer

0:12:13.960,0:12:15.240
being called a senior citizen

0:12:15.240,0:12:16.000
to an old woman,

0:12:16.220,0:12:17.200
to be honest.

0:12:17.240,0:12:18.160
But I wanted to say,

0:12:18.220,0:12:18.960
Grzegorz Olszański,

0:12:19.000,0:12:20.400
what a great idea he had.

0:12:21.620,0:12:22.040
Listen,

0:12:22.040,0:12:23.700
there's a problem defining it.

0:12:23.760,0:12:24.800
They call it "spectral age,"

0:12:25.020,0:12:27.400
right? Various, indefinable things.

0:12:27.540,0:12:28.960
But for me, it's—

0:12:29.140,0:12:30.400
he gave a definition of old age—

0:12:30.540,0:12:31.920
the effect of time on a person.

0:12:34.830,0:12:36.390
It works differently for everyone,

0:12:36.390,0:12:36.890
doesn't it?

0:12:37.090,0:12:37.590
Very well.

0:12:37.810,0:12:39.250
Of course, old age,

0:12:39.250,0:12:40.330
as

0:12:40.370,0:12:41.510
I discovered during my research,

0:12:41.510,0:12:42.230
is connected to,

0:12:42.390,0:12:44.710
or rather, is being referred to, the fact

0:12:44.750,0:12:47.950
that old age is an age in our lives

0:12:47.970,0:12:50.570
when we lose perspective on the future.

0:12:50.670,0:12:52.890
We can no longer undertake projects that are too big

0:12:52.890,0:12:54.590
when tomorrow isn't a project,

0:12:54.590,0:12:56.050
but a hope,

0:12:56.050,0:12:56.550
right?

0:12:56.870,0:12:59.490
And this aging process fundamentally changes

0:12:59.490,0:13:02.110
our position in relationships in this society,

0:13:02.150,0:13:03.870
right? Consequently, so do relationships with others.

0:13:04.480,0:13:09.220
And the most painful loss is precisely the loss

0:13:09.220,0:13:12.160
or destruction of our plans and projects.

0:13:12.160,0:13:13.420
It's the shrinking of the future,

0:13:13.480,0:13:14.700
the dwelling on the past,

0:13:14.700,0:13:15.860
the shrinking of the future,

0:13:15.880,0:13:18.800
time passing too quickly or sometimes too slowly.

0:13:19.870,0:13:21.930
We wait for visits from grandchildren

0:13:21.990,0:13:25.090
, or for the doctor,

0:13:25.090,0:13:27.570
or for loved ones to visit in the hospital.

0:13:27.570,0:13:30.010
But it's not just the elderly who find

0:13:30.010,0:13:30.510
time dragging on.

0:13:30.910,0:13:32.670
There's also the wicked old age.

0:13:32.670,0:13:35.890
Simone de Beuvoir

0:13:35.910,0:13:36.830
and May Sarton have written about it very well.

0:13:38.310,0:13:41.270
The quotes about this wicked old age are very interesting here

0:13:41.270,0:13:41.770
,

0:13:43.140,0:13:43.600
wicked

0:13:43.600,0:13:44.260
because it's effective,

0:13:44.260,0:13:45.960
right? An old person is expected

0:13:46.000,0:13:47.320
to be cheerful, primarily.

0:13:47.380,0:13:49.120
He doesn't need to be active anymore, he's done his job,

0:13:49.120,0:13:49.980
let him step aside.

0:13:50.040,0:13:50.840
There are young people here

0:13:50.840,0:13:52.440
waiting to take their place.

0:13:53.700,0:13:55.320
But let him be likeable at least.

0:13:55.340,0:13:56.660
He shouldn't lose his cheerfulness,

0:13:56.700,0:13:57.620
yes. Cheerfulness.

0:13:58.200,0:14:00.540
However, if an old man has some desires,

0:14:00.700,0:14:01.940
God forbid,

0:14:02.000,0:14:03.980
And so old age is lustful,

0:14:04.000,0:14:04.360
isn't it?

0:14:04.360,0:14:05.500
It causes outrage,

0:14:05.500,0:14:06.060
scandal.

0:14:06.080,0:14:07.360
It's pornographic.

0:14:08.020,0:14:09.720
It evokes disgust,

0:14:10.850,0:14:11.250
ridicule,

0:14:11.250,0:14:12.570
it's repulsive,

0:14:12.590,0:14:13.410
pathetic.

0:14:14.050,0:14:15.810
An old man should be the embodiment of all virtues.

0:14:15.830,0:14:17.910
And above all, he's expected to be cheerful

0:14:17.910,0:14:19.110
. He's supposed to have no desires.

0:14:19.210,0:14:19.890
Well, he can't.

0:14:20.230,0:14:21.730
All desires have been satisfied.

0:14:22.050,0:14:24.210
May Sarton is an American writer.

0:14:24.370,0:14:26.790
In 1973, her book was published.

0:14:26.910,0:14:29.650
I mainly dealt with it as a story about

0:14:29.650,0:14:30.550
a nursing home.

0:14:31.010,0:14:31.650
Terrible thing.

0:14:31.810,0:14:32.570
"As We Are Now."

0:14:33.470,0:14:33.870
The situation

0:14:33.870,0:14:35.030
we find ourselves in now.

0:14:35.150,0:14:36.550
You could translate it that way.

0:14:36.590,0:14:38.270
And she writes there, among other things, about these

0:14:38.270,0:14:39.660
unchaste

0:14:40.140,0:14:41.960
desires of old people.

0:14:42.240,0:14:42.880
And I think

0:14:42.960,0:14:45.180
old people fall in love incredibly easily.

0:14:45.630,0:14:46.650
And we know that,

0:14:46.650,0:14:48.890
right? Surely each of us has experienced something like that

0:14:48.890,0:14:49.250
,

0:14:49.250,0:14:52.510
when a husband or wife dies and suddenly a new partner

0:14:52.510,0:14:53.630
appears .

0:14:54.030,0:14:54.530
Father

0:14:54.790,0:14:55.790
with some woman.

0:14:56.050,0:14:57.450
Mother with some man.

0:14:57.650,0:14:58.970
Jokes about Ciechocinek,

0:14:59.090,0:14:59.530
right?

0:14:59.530,0:15:00.030
Yes,

0:15:00.110,0:15:00.650
yes, yes.

0:15:00.650,0:15:01.750
But she writes

0:15:01.790,0:15:04.690
that old people fall in love so easily

0:15:04.690,0:15:07.370
because there's little left for them to love.

0:15:07.410,0:15:08.590
Anything moves them.

0:15:08.810,0:15:09.270
A bird,

0:15:09.270,0:15:09.930
a flower,

0:15:10.030,0:15:11.270
another old man.

0:15:11.650,0:15:12.090
Listen,

0:15:12.090,0:15:13.070
I wrote down a quote,

0:15:13.390,0:15:14.070
a brilliant one.

0:15:14.070,0:15:14.930
No wonder

0:15:14.930,0:15:16.830
old men fall in love with their

0:15:16.830,0:15:17.590
caregivers.

0:15:17.790,0:15:19.490
I used to think of it with contempt.

0:15:19.530,0:15:20.030
Old children,

0:15:20.290,0:15:21.730
old, self-indulgent children.

0:15:22.030,0:15:23.230
Now I understand

0:15:23.230,0:15:24.750
that by offering them marriage,

0:15:24.770,0:15:26.790
they want to repay them for their time,

0:15:26.790,0:15:27.730
their loving care,

0:15:27.790,0:15:28.390
giving everything

0:15:28.530,0:15:29.650
they still have – themselves.

0:15:30.570,0:15:31.410
Well, that's all

0:15:31.430,0:15:32.510
they still have outside themselves,

0:15:32.510,0:15:33.350
there's still something here,

0:15:33.370,0:15:33.870
isn't there?

0:15:34.130,0:15:34.530
Disturbing.

0:15:34.530,0:15:35.430
And is there something to that about older women?

0:15:35.490,0:15:37.150
Because there was more about older men here.

0:15:37.270,0:15:38.050
About older men,

0:15:38.050,0:15:38.510
unfortunately,

0:15:38.510,0:15:38.910
yes.

0:15:38.910,0:15:40.530
Well, De Beuvoir writes about women

0:15:40.530,0:15:43.050
who still have such dreams and fantasies.

0:15:43.190,0:15:46.230
This idea of ​​old age as an illness,

0:15:46.250,0:15:47.030
which you mentioned,

0:15:47.030,0:15:48.630
was a serious thought.

0:15:48.630,0:15:49.870
It wasn't some kind of joke.

0:15:49.930,0:15:50.330
Yes,

0:15:50.330,0:15:50.870
no, no,
no.

0:15:50.870,0:15:51.370
Exactly.

0:15:51.690,0:15:52.950
And here's the PESELOSIASTIC syndrome

0:15:52.990,0:15:53.870
I mentioned—

0:15:53.870,0:15:55.610
after all, the word itself contains

0:15:55.990,0:15:57.390
that hidden "osis."

0:15:57.790,0:15:59.550
Just like in other disease names, like

0:15:59.550,0:16:00.090
scoliosis,

0:16:00.130,0:16:01.190
Lyme disease, and so on.

0:16:01.330,0:16:03.350
And PESELOSIASTIC syndrome is also understood,

0:16:03.390,0:16:04.850
albeit somewhat ironically,

0:16:04.870,0:16:07.270
as a disease,

0:16:07.270,0:16:08.150
an ailment,

0:16:08.250,0:16:10.160
where

0:16:10.200,0:16:13.160
due to age, someone doesn't do certain things,

0:16:13.360,0:16:14.480
because

0:16:14.540,0:16:15.700
it's also so vague,

0:16:15.720,0:16:16.080
because what,

0:16:16.080,0:16:17.020
because it's not appropriate

0:16:17.040,0:16:18.460
, or because they think

0:16:18.500,0:16:20.460
their future prospects

0:16:20.460,0:16:21.420
have shrunk a bit,

0:16:21.480,0:16:22.980
that at this age, it's not the right thing to do,

0:16:23.280,0:16:25.100
they shouldn't bother.

0:16:25.400,0:16:28.820
But sometimes someone gets a little tingle in their spine:

0:16:28.880,0:16:30.460
"Oh, PESELOSIASTIC syndrome is showing up."

0:16:30.780,0:16:32.380
These are such general references.

0:16:32.880,0:16:34.780
Well, it's incredibly stigmatizing,

0:16:34.780,0:16:35.280
isn't it?

0:16:35.540,0:16:38.340
Why should I be used for someone else's

0:16:38.340,0:16:39.660
ailments, for a young person

0:16:39.660,0:16:40.380
who doesn't exercise?

0:16:40.440,0:16:41.080
Well, let them exercise.

0:16:41.460,0:16:42.240
But you know,

0:16:42.280,0:16:43.520
they're actually harming those

0:16:43.600,0:16:45.900
who supposedly are older

0:16:46.040,0:16:47.760
but don't feel that way at all and aren't

0:16:47.760,0:16:48.220
bothered by anything,

0:16:48.220,0:16:49.880
right? Just like this young person.

0:16:50.320,0:16:51.080
Exactly,

0:16:51.160,0:16:54.780
because these shadows of old age are very different, and here in

0:16:54.780,0:16:57.800
the book you drew attention to dementia,

0:16:57.840,0:16:59.420
Alzheimer's disease,

0:16:59.420,0:17:00.420
dementia,

0:17:00.460,0:17:03.700
which in the common sense

0:17:03.700,0:17:06.819
is probably very much related to old age.

0:17:06.819,0:17:07.700
We think

0:17:07.720,0:17:09.000
it's something

0:17:09.060,0:17:10.700
that affects older people,

0:17:10.819,0:17:11.319
you know,

0:17:11.700,0:17:13.579
grandma can't remember, and

0:17:13.740,0:17:14.640
so on.

0:17:14.700,0:17:17.760
And you've devoted your attention to this illness.

0:17:18.220,0:17:20.500
Perhaps we could tell you a little about it.

0:17:20.520,0:17:22.660
It's such a mysterious illness.

0:17:22.740,0:17:24.020
What is it about it that

0:17:24.099,0:17:27.579
intrigues you?

0:17:28.260,0:17:31.020
What is its sociocultural reception?

0:17:31.100,0:17:33.720
What metaphorical potential does it have

0:17:33.740,0:17:36.140
to name specific phenomena

0:17:36.140,0:17:38.500
that we perceive in a specific way?

0:17:39.020,0:17:39.820
What about dementia?

0:17:39.840,0:17:40.400
You said

0:17:40.460,0:17:41.740
something snapped in my head.

0:17:41.740,0:17:42.420
"Oh, PESELoza."

0:17:42.580,0:17:43.480
We often say it like that

0:17:43.500,0:17:44.960
when we forget our keys, for example,

0:17:45.240,0:17:46.700
"I left my keys in the lock.

0:17:46.700,0:17:47.500
Oh, dementia."

0:17:48.060,0:17:52.140
It's the same stigmatizing reaction,

0:17:52.180,0:17:54.300
but we then dismiss it with a chuckle.

0:17:54.880,0:17:56.800
I say it and I do it too.

0:17:56.820,0:17:57.760
We tend

0:17:57.900,0:18:02.740
to use these illnesses as metaphors to

0:18:02.740,0:18:03.860
describe other situations,

0:18:03.880,0:18:05.060
our own weaknesses.

0:18:05.640,0:18:07.300
But as Susan Sontag said,

0:18:07.300,0:18:08.740
which we'll get to in a moment,

0:18:08.800,0:18:11.460
you shouldn't do that.

0:18:11.540,0:18:12.480
Because imagine

0:18:12.580,0:18:13.640
how the person

0:18:13.640,0:18:14.840
affected by this ,

0:18:14.880,0:18:16.420
or someone close to them, feels,

0:18:16.460,0:18:16.960
right?

0:18:17.300,0:18:17.940
A daughter or a court

0:18:17.960,0:18:19.580
who cares for someone who loses her mother,

0:18:19.600,0:18:21.300
whose mother no longer recognizes her.

0:18:21.700,0:18:23.180
You don't realize what

0:18:23.240,0:18:24.300
these people are going through,

0:18:24.340,0:18:26.080
so don't use such words,

0:18:26.080,0:18:28.000
because they cause suffering.

0:18:29.460,0:18:31.220
First of all, I'd like to make a disclaimer

0:18:31.220,0:18:34.020
: I did choose this disease,

0:18:34.040,0:18:35.400
Alzheimer's dementia

0:18:35.480,0:18:37.580
,

0:18:37.960,0:18:39.960
as an example,

0:18:40.020,0:18:41.020
a case study,

0:18:41.080,0:18:41.840
a case study

0:18:42.320,0:18:45.440
that would allow me not to idealize old age.

0:18:45.440,0:18:46.400
I chose it,

0:18:46.520,0:18:48.460
but I immediately reserved it

0:18:48.460,0:18:48.900
because I saw

0:18:48.900,0:18:52.600
that this is the practice of authors of books and films

0:18:52.600,0:18:53.380
I've studied:

0:18:53.420,0:18:56.770
very often, the variety of this dementia is not

0:18:56.770,0:18:58.130
defined,

0:18:58.270,0:19:00.430
it's not presented, and the divisions

0:19:00.430,0:19:02.170
into different varieties of the disease are not observed.

0:19:02.250,0:19:03.610
That is, from the perspective of a doctor

0:19:03.610,0:19:04.270
watching:

0:19:04.270,0:19:05.050
look,

0:19:05.050,0:19:05.930
what a mistake,

0:19:05.930,0:19:06.690
this isn't it,

0:19:06.750,0:19:08.610
and this variety of dementia doesn't manifest itself this way,

0:19:08.730,0:19:11.750
this isn't it. Therefore, it's a complete,

0:19:11.750,0:19:15.010
complete fictionalization and often an overlap of

0:19:15.010,0:19:16.410
different symptoms,

0:19:16.410,0:19:18.510
different varieties of damning diseases.

0:19:18.570,0:19:22.090
But Alzheimer's appears most often because

0:19:22.230,0:19:24.050
it's the most common variety of dementia.

0:19:25.450,0:19:27.750
There's an early-onset variety,

0:19:28.050,0:19:28.950
the early-onset one,

0:19:29.150,0:19:29.470
right?

0:19:29.470,0:19:32.170
And in connection with this,

0:19:32.170,0:19:32.750
a term

0:19:32.850,0:19:35.750
appears in my book , which, of course, was also proposed by the Americans –

0:19:35.750,0:19:36.450
ADRD.

0:19:36.470,0:19:40.230
The acronym is Alzheimer's Disease and Related

0:19:40.230,0:19:40.830
Dementias

0:19:41.630,0:19:43.650
.

0:19:43.790,0:19:45.410
And ADRD solves the problem for us,

0:19:45.550,0:19:46.730
right? Because authors,

0:19:46.730,0:19:47.330
writers,

0:19:47.450,0:19:50.010
filmmakers don't adhere to these divisions,

0:19:50.010,0:19:50.410
they don't say

0:19:50.410,0:19:51.290
what we're dealing with.

0:19:51.690,0:19:52.490
This one,

0:19:52.570,0:19:55.390
this shortcut here, solves the problem.

0:19:56.170,0:19:57.390
Perhaps I should just take a moment,

0:19:57.410,0:19:58.970
since I'm talking so long,

0:19:58.970,0:20:01.050
say a few words about films,

0:20:01.050,0:20:01.890
because, Prince,

0:20:01.890,0:20:04.090
when I looked at the table of contents of your book,

0:20:04.150,0:20:05.470
I also got dizzy

0:20:05.470,0:20:06.910
when I read all of it?

0:20:07.490,0:20:09.330
But I must have been very passionate

0:20:09.330,0:20:09.910
about reading it,

0:20:09.990,0:20:12.500
but a later,

0:20:12.500,0:20:15.240
perhaps even extended, consequence of these interests was

0:20:15.280,0:20:17.420
that I still watch and describe films to this day.

0:20:17.420,0:20:20.060
I even devoted some articles to films

0:20:20.080,0:20:21.280
that no longer had space,

0:20:21.280,0:20:22.840
or were written after my book.

0:20:23.560,0:20:25.300
I wanted to look at it,

0:20:25.340,0:20:26.700
because it's easier for me

0:20:26.700,0:20:28.200
to identify,

0:20:28.220,0:20:30.920
mark, and

0:20:30.980,0:20:31.800
identify

0:20:31.800,0:20:32.520
certain tendencies,

0:20:32.520,0:20:34.920
general trends in these films , when it comes to stories about dementia.

0:20:35.040,0:20:36.560
One tendency,

0:20:36.560,0:20:38.160
the most traditional,

0:20:38.160,0:20:39.800
the oldest in dementia films,

0:20:39.820,0:20:40.340
is what

0:20:40.440,0:20:43.580
Americans call patronizing or

0:20:43.980,0:20:45.820
glamorizing.

0:20:46.380,0:20:46.880
Patronizing—

0:20:46.900,0:20:48.200
when a film is dedicated,

0:20:48.200,0:20:49.160
as in "Still Alice,"

0:20:49.400,0:20:50.620
the famous film,

0:20:50.620,0:20:52.120
or "A Song for Martin,

0:20:52.260,0:20:53.480
"

0:20:53.520,0:20:57.240
when the focus falls on the caregiver and

0:20:57.300,0:20:58.700
their suffering.

0:20:58.900,0:21:01.480
This is also a trend present in literature from the 1990s,

0:21:02.440,0:21:04.800
primarily American,

0:21:04.820,0:21:07.260
namely: the poor caregiver,

0:21:07.540,0:21:09.840
showing the exceptional sacrifice,

0:21:09.840,0:21:12.200
often illness, and early death of the caregiver,

0:21:12.260,0:21:14.300
if they entrusted themselves to the care of, for example, their mother,

0:21:14.320,0:21:15.200
only they themselves,

0:21:15.280,0:21:18.040
often the caregiver, do not outlive the patient.

0:21:18.120,0:21:20.160
It is precisely this emphasis on the caregiver,

0:21:20.180,0:21:22.740
their suffering, and their sacrifice that

0:21:23.180,0:21:23.860
causes

0:21:23.860,0:21:25.700
the patient to be taught

0:21:25.760,0:21:28.180
that the patient is being relegated to the background.

0:21:28.600,0:21:29.160
Glamorizing—

0:21:29.160,0:21:29.480
because

0:21:29.480,0:21:31.500
in "Still Alice" and

0:21:31.720,0:21:35.760
"A Song for Martin," we have a sick person

0:21:35.780,0:21:37.160
who is exceptional.

0:21:37.200,0:21:38.040
They are a celebrity.

0:21:38.360,0:21:41.000
In "Still Alice," we have a world-renowned linguist

0:21:41.450,0:21:44.250
who, ironically, loses her ability to speak

0:21:44.250,0:21:46.350
during a conference, and a word

0:21:46.350,0:21:46.750
she says

0:21:46.750,0:21:48.770
she had on the tip of her tongue

0:21:48.770,0:21:49.930
but couldn't recall

0:21:49.970,0:21:51.910
because she was thinking, she drank too much wine at dinner.

0:21:51.950,0:21:56.230
These weren't the first symptoms of dementia, unfortunately,

0:21:56.230,0:21:57.410
or early-onset Alzheimer's.

0:21:57.650,0:22:01.430
And in the case of "Song for Martin," it's a world-

0:22:01.430,0:22:02.550
famous conductor.

0:22:02.990,0:22:04.830
Therefore, we have this tendency toward glamour.

0:22:05.010,0:22:06.110
Why celebrity?

0:22:06.750,0:22:07.870
The fall is greater

0:22:07.870,0:22:09.470
if it's from such a height,

0:22:09.490,0:22:10.690
more spectacular,

0:22:10.710,0:22:11.550
more painful.

0:22:12.830,0:22:14.810
The conductor's humiliation is greater

0:22:14.810,0:22:16.050
when

0:22:16.050,0:22:20.670
his wife has to escort him out of the concert hall

0:22:20.670,0:22:21.170
because

0:22:21.430,0:22:23.510
he mixed up the pieces or notes.

0:22:24.060,0:22:26.000
So we ourselves feel ashamed

0:22:26.040,0:22:27.240
when we watch this scene.

0:22:28.400,0:22:29.000
Another trend,

0:22:29.080,0:22:29.520
the second one,

0:22:29.520,0:22:31.080
is very typical.

0:22:31.840,0:22:34.500
I would call this a transformative event.

0:22:34.520,0:22:35.200
This is the term

0:22:35.220,0:22:38.180
Milchman and Rosenberg proposed in

0:22:38.180,0:22:38.940
reference to the Shoah.

0:22:41.060,0:22:42.360
Dementia in the family changes everyone,

0:22:42.820,0:22:43.680
not just the patient.

0:22:43.840,0:22:45.120
And here we have two films:

0:22:45.630,0:22:47.690
"Away From Her" and "The Savages."

0:22:48.050,0:22:50.390
And in these two films, we actually see very

0:22:50.390,0:22:53.130
profound changes in different directions.

0:22:53.190,0:22:54.550
It's not necessarily a happy ending,

0:22:54.890,0:22:57.830
but this disease can upend the lives

0:22:57.830,0:22:58.330
of everyone,

0:22:58.370,0:22:58.830
everyone,

0:22:58.830,0:23:00.290
every family member.

0:23:01.430,0:23:02.970
And finally, an exception—

0:23:02.990,0:23:05.030
when I was looking for new trends, and this is already

0:23:05.030,0:23:05.950
beyond my book,

0:23:05.950,0:23:06.870
because these are new things—

0:23:06.930,0:23:09.520
namely, the dementia google technique

0:23:09.540,0:23:10.240
(that's what it's called

0:23:10.320,0:23:11.260
—dementia googles)

0:23:11.320,0:23:12.700
in a film

0:23:12.700,0:23:14.580
that I think won an Oscar for,

0:23:14.640,0:23:15.780
starring Anthony Hopkins,

0:23:16.160,0:23:16.660
"The

0:23:16.800,0:23:17.560
Father."

0:23:18.180,0:23:18.700
Zeller, Zeller

0:23:18.880,0:23:19.460
,

0:23:19.700,0:23:20.380
a Frenchman,

0:23:20.400,0:23:22.900
first directed a play

0:23:22.900,0:23:24.420
because he's a theater director,

0:23:24.440,0:23:28.100
and then made a film based on his own play

0:23:28.100,0:23:28.600
.

0:23:28.620,0:23:30.480
Well, the cast is obviously top-notch,

0:23:30.580,0:23:31.780
because we have Olivia.

0:23:32.639,0:23:34.340
Colman plays the daughter,

0:23:34.380,0:23:35.460
but she's not the only one;

0:23:35.500,0:23:38.060
I'll get to that in a moment. And we have Anthony Hopkins.

0:23:38.340,0:23:40.520
Why this dementia google technique...

0:23:40.880,0:23:41.320
Someone,

0:23:41.320,0:23:45.460
a film critic, probably had a different term in mind here

0:23:45.460,0:23:46.560
and was saying,

0:23:46.560,0:23:47.680
quoting Kurosawa.

0:23:47.960,0:23:52.380
And this portrayal of events from the murderer's perspective,

0:23:52.460,0:23:54.180
from this wylen's perspective,

0:23:54.280,0:23:55.700
right? And we'll never know

0:23:55.700,0:23:56.360
what really happened,

0:23:56.420,0:23:57.440
because he won't tell us the truth.

0:23:57.500,0:23:59.000
And here again,

0:23:59.020,0:24:00.740
those dementia-related Googles are used.

0:24:01.520,0:24:04.600
And we become disoriented along with the protagonist,

0:24:04.600,0:24:05.180
right? We see

0:24:05.180,0:24:08.340
the interior of the house undergoing a metamorphosis, and the people changing

0:24:08.340,0:24:08.820
,

0:24:08.820,0:24:10.060
who play the same roles.

0:24:10.220,0:24:10.620
Therefore,

0:24:10.620,0:24:12.300
it's as if we were looking from the head,

0:24:12.580,0:24:14.620
from inside the protagonist,

0:24:14.620,0:24:15.120
the patient.

0:24:15.540,0:24:16.240
Two different,

0:24:16.260,0:24:18.260
or even three different actresses play the daughter.

0:24:18.540,0:24:19.260
And we no longer know

0:24:19.260,0:24:19.700
who is who,

0:24:19.700,0:24:20.560
because suddenly someone

0:24:20.580,0:24:21.800
we haven't seen before enters.

0:24:21.860,0:24:23.320
And we see the astonishment.

0:24:23.560,0:24:25.580
Anthony – his name is also the same

0:24:25.600,0:24:26.300
as Anthony Hopkins's.

0:24:26.620,0:24:28.260
We see the astonishment on Anthony's face.

0:24:28.360,0:24:29.220
He says, "Is that you,

0:24:29.320,0:24:29.820
Ann?

0:24:29.950,0:24:30.770
What are you doing?

0:24:30.770,0:24:31.950
Are you doing this on purpose?

0:24:31.950,0:24:32.950
I'm going crazy."

0:24:33.290,0:24:34.190
The viewer feels

0:24:34.210,0:24:35.090
how one can perceive,

0:24:35.090,0:24:37.750
literally shivers at the thought of

0:24:37.770,0:24:39.910
experiencing such disorientation

0:24:39.910,0:24:41.850
when we don't quite know

0:24:41.910,0:24:43.070
whether this is my daughter

0:24:43.070,0:24:44.570
or not. After all, this is a stranger.

0:24:44.650,0:24:45.930
Or whether this man

0:24:45.930,0:24:48.330
sitting in the living room,

0:24:48.330,0:24:49.410
in slippers, reading the newspaper,

0:24:49.410,0:24:50.510
is really my son-in-law.

0:24:50.530,0:24:51.370
What are you doing here?

0:24:51.630,0:24:52.390
The kitchen decor,

0:24:52.410,0:24:53.070
which is changing.

0:24:53.190,0:24:54.030
Is this my house

0:24:54.110,0:24:54.510
or not?

0:24:54.510,0:24:55.170
Am I home?

0:24:55.310,0:24:57.170
We don't find out until the end.

0:24:57.790,0:24:59.230
This disorientation remains,

0:24:59.240,0:24:59.880
it's with us;

0:24:59.900,0:25:03.260
we won't know the true situation.

0:25:04.200,0:25:07.960
As original and moving as this

0:25:07.960,0:25:10.100
film is, and as it truly has the potential to show

0:25:10.100,0:25:11.920
how it can be experienced,

0:25:11.920,0:25:13.420
how a person with dementia experiences it,

0:25:13.540,0:25:17.220
I still have to cling to something.

0:25:17.240,0:25:20.200
This film shows dementia as a loss.

0:25:20.750,0:25:22.310
It shows Alzheimer's as a loss,

0:25:22.330,0:25:25.050
and yet that's not what it all boils down to.

0:25:25.070,0:25:26.290
It shows the negative aspects,

0:25:26.430,0:25:28.850
meaning the stereotypes and somehow still

0:25:29.070,0:25:31.990
stigmatizes care for people

0:25:31.990,0:25:33.810
with dementia,

0:25:33.970,0:25:35.270
various forms of dementia,

0:25:35.330,0:25:37.970
but especially Alzheimer's disease. In recent years,

0:25:37.970,0:25:39.110
maybe even in the last decade,

0:25:39.150,0:25:40.570
a completely different trend has dominated:

0:25:40.630,0:25:41.950
an emphasis on

0:25:42.010,0:25:42.770
what's left.

0:25:43.070,0:25:45.770
You can still make colorful cutouts.

0:25:46.110,0:25:47.070
We're happy about that;

0:25:47.130,0:25:49.190
we all make these colorful cutouts with you.

0:25:49.959,0:25:50.900
I won't focus on

0:25:50.960,0:25:52.140
what you no longer have.

0:25:52.140,0:25:53.060
Don't you recognize me?

0:25:53.100,0:25:53.840
It's me,

0:25:53.900,0:25:54.460
your son,

0:25:54.560,0:25:55.060
right?

0:25:55.340,0:25:55.740
Mom,

0:25:55.740,0:25:56.120
you don't know,

0:25:56.120,0:25:57.240
Dad died a long time ago.

0:25:57.540,0:25:58.660
You don't do

0:25:58.700,0:25:59.360
or say such things. I hope

0:25:59.360,0:26:01.220
this is already present in the basic knowledge,

0:26:01.220,0:26:02.180
in the knowledge of people

0:26:02.260,0:26:05.180
who have a family member with the disease.

0:26:05.220,0:26:06.880
But there's another beautiful thing

0:26:06.940,0:26:07.620
I wanted to mention.

0:26:07.760,0:26:08.960
It's about texts about dementia,

0:26:08.960,0:26:10.080
namely graphic novels,

0:26:10.120,0:26:11.280
and speaking of graphic medicine.

0:26:12.120,0:26:13.120
There's something

0:26:13.140,0:26:15.380
that appeared in 2013.

0:26:15.560,0:26:17.080
I didn't bring it with me;

0:26:17.080,0:26:20.060
I used a library copy.

0:26:20.360,0:26:21.580
Alice Heimer,

0:26:21.720,0:26:25.140
a cross between "Alice" and "Alzheimer's."

0:26:25.700,0:26:27.400
"Alzheimer's through the looking glass."

0:26:27.740,0:26:30.180
And of course, the story of Alice in Wonderland

0:26:30.180,0:26:31.080
is used here.

0:26:31.180,0:26:33.040
Alice is the real name of the mother,

0:26:33.500,0:26:34.480
this illustrator,

0:26:34.480,0:26:36.740
the author of the graphic novel.

0:26:36.900,0:26:39.280
The idea of ​​the book is based on the principle

0:26:39.280,0:26:41.220
of crossing the bridge

0:26:41.220,0:26:44.720
between the worlds of the healthy and

0:26:44.720,0:26:45.180
the sick.

0:26:45.180,0:26:47.840
This is, in fact, Arno Geiger's idea in "The Old King in

0:26:47.840,0:26:48.340
Exile."

0:26:48.380,0:26:49.620
He made the decision

0:26:49.620,0:26:52.080
to live in the land of his father's delusions,

0:26:52.200,0:26:53.320
so as not to separate him,

0:26:53.320,0:26:55.060
so as not to say every time, "Dad,

0:26:55.060,0:26:56.000
you don't see this,

0:26:56.100,0:26:56.880
you see something else."

0:26:56.960,0:26:57.460
Yes.

0:26:57.770,0:26:58.530
Dad sees it.

0:26:58.610,0:26:59.850
I see it too.

0:26:59.930,0:27:03.290
And here we have the same idea realized in

0:27:03.290,0:27:04.270
graphic novel format.

0:27:04.370,0:27:06.030
A recurring scene from Mom,

0:27:06.090,0:27:06.970
illustrating this,

0:27:07.030,0:27:08.390
when the mother,

0:27:08.390,0:27:09.890
who has Alzheimer's and

0:27:09.910,0:27:12.530
is cared for by our author and narrator,

0:27:12.530,0:27:13.710
this sick Alice,

0:27:13.790,0:27:15.350
is shown by her deceased husband,

0:27:15.390,0:27:15.890
Dave.

0:27:16.390,0:27:17.470
And suddenly Alice…

0:27:17.650,0:27:18.370
Dave,

0:27:18.430,0:27:19.750
sitting somewhere in a tree,

0:27:19.750,0:27:21.870
on a branch, stretching his arms toward her.

0:27:22.050,0:27:23.510
And she screams,

0:27:23.550,0:27:24.050
Alice,

0:27:24.070,0:27:24.430
sick,

0:27:24.430,0:27:25.450
screams to her daughter, "

0:27:25.470,0:27:25.970
Look,

0:27:25.970,0:27:26.450
Dave,

0:27:26.450,0:27:27.170
up in the tree."

0:27:27.600,0:27:28.580
And guess

0:27:28.620,0:27:30.160
what the daughter's reaction would be,

0:27:30.160,0:27:30.620
right?

0:27:30.620,0:27:31.640
Most people's reaction:

0:27:31.700,0:27:32.400
"Come on, Mom,

0:27:32.400,0:27:32.820
don't you know

0:27:32.820,0:27:33.820
Dad's dead.

0:27:34.120,0:27:35.080
What tree?"

0:27:35.100,0:27:35.440
Yes,

0:27:35.440,0:27:36.880
the daughter's reaction.

0:27:36.920,0:27:39.120
It's not just about the daughter's reaction to her mother,

0:27:39.140,0:27:40.600
but more generally about her doubts about

0:27:40.600,0:27:42.060
whether her father really isn't there,

0:27:42.100,0:27:45.100
whether her mother's mind doesn't have metaphysical access to

0:27:45.100,0:27:46.140
some other reality

0:27:46.160,0:27:46.940
we can't see.

0:27:47.060,0:27:48.360
Respecting this state,

0:27:48.360,0:27:50.020
and above all, her fantastic reaction,

0:27:50.080,0:27:51.840
instead of increasing the mother's suffering,

0:27:51.840,0:27:54.340
bringing her back to the reality of the healthy

0:27:54.340,0:27:55.580
by saying "Dad's dead,"

0:27:56.280,0:27:57.940
which she would have to repeat over and over again,

0:27:57.940,0:27:58.860
because he shows up,

0:27:58.860,0:28:01.180
Dave, up in the tree all the time, and she would have to

0:28:01.180,0:28:02.900
hurt the mother all the time. By telling her

0:28:03.180,0:28:03.920
"Dad's gone,"

0:28:03.920,0:28:05.680
she would say, "Cool,

0:28:05.880,0:28:06.600
great,

0:28:06.620,0:28:07.580
great."

0:28:07.960,0:28:08.740
He's with his mother,

0:28:08.980,0:28:09.600
standing with his mother,

0:28:09.600,0:28:11.500
embracing her, and they're staring at the tree

0:28:11.500,0:28:14.260
from which Dave is reaching out to them.

0:28:14.260,0:28:15.380
Therefore, it's important to confirm,

0:28:15.480,0:28:16.140
reinforce,

0:28:16.220,0:28:17.100
reassure, and

0:28:17.420,0:28:19.020
not constantly repeat that Dad is dead,

0:28:19.040,0:28:22.640
because this is the suffering of hearing new news

0:28:22.640,0:28:23.220
for the first time.

0:28:23.580,0:28:23.900
A person

0:28:23.900,0:28:24.700
suffering from dementia

0:28:24.740,0:28:26.820
won't retain this information,

0:28:26.820,0:28:27.340
won't remember it,

0:28:27.420,0:28:28.540
it will be repeated.

0:28:28.760,0:28:30.420
It's a lesson in empathy,

0:28:30.420,0:28:33.760
isn't it? It's like entering this perspective,

0:28:33.800,0:28:36.280
this way of perceiving this sick person,

0:28:36.620,0:28:37.860
a resignation,

0:28:37.900,0:28:38.460
isn't it? From what

0:28:38.460,0:28:39.460
I assume.

0:28:39.460,0:28:40.140
Extremely difficult.

0:28:40.240,0:28:41.280
Extremely difficult.

0:28:41.420,0:28:42.380
But it's wonderful

0:28:42.400,0:28:43.220
that you're talking about it,

0:28:43.220,0:28:43.880
because it might

0:28:43.980,0:28:45.640
help someone, it might

0:28:45.680,0:28:47.720
serve as some kind of guidance for someone.

0:28:47.860,0:28:48.800
That moved me,

0:28:48.860,0:28:51.320
because really, how many times can you tell a sick mother

0:28:51.320,0:28:52.340
that Dad is dead?

0:28:52.440,0:28:55.670
Every time, it's as if she's being forced to experience

0:28:55.670,0:28:56.510
shock

0:28:56.810,0:28:57.990
at this news,

0:28:58.170,0:29:00.230
and then simply let it go,

0:29:00.510,0:29:01.410
like imagining

0:29:01.530,0:29:04.030
that Dave is actually up there in that tree,

0:29:04.090,0:29:05.150
let's look at him together,

0:29:05.230,0:29:06.210
or even asking

0:29:06.270,0:29:08.250
what he told you last time?

0:29:08.830,0:29:11.030
It's a kind of entrance into the story,

0:29:11.030,0:29:12.210
a way of perceiving it.

0:29:12.370,0:29:13.410
She reacts exactly like that,

0:29:13.410,0:29:15.190
because it seems to be about meals

0:29:15.190,0:29:16.330
prepared together with the father,

0:29:16.330,0:29:17.430
the whole story unfolds,

0:29:17.590,0:29:18.870
the mother suddenly gains some, well

0:29:19.190,0:29:19.590
,

0:29:19.590,0:29:20.250
I'm not saying

0:29:20.250,0:29:21.210
some

0:29:21.210,0:29:23.510
kind of memory path, and she starts telling something about their past

0:29:23.510,0:29:24.270
.

0:29:24.270,0:29:25.410
So it affects her,

0:29:25.410,0:29:26.230
her emotions.

0:29:26.230,0:29:28.370
It's known that positive emotions improve our well-being.

0:29:28.390,0:29:29.350
Memory too,

0:29:29.350,0:29:29.730
right?

0:29:29.730,0:29:30.170
Stress,

0:29:30.170,0:29:30.730
memory,

0:29:30.730,0:29:31.170
nothing.

0:29:31.170,0:29:31.670
Of course,

0:29:31.790,0:29:33.030
because we were talking about movies here.

0:29:33.030,0:29:33.810
I wonder

0:29:33.830,0:29:37.930
if such strategies could be applied

0:29:37.930,0:29:38.910
to a novel,

0:29:38.950,0:29:40.590
to this Alzheimer's novel,

0:29:40.590,0:29:42.110
precisely which narrative to choose,

0:29:42.600,0:29:44.660
because the caregiver's narrative is probably the most obvious

0:29:44.660,0:29:46.120
,

0:29:46.200,0:29:46.700
right?

0:29:46.820,0:29:47.720
Most often, the child's.

0:29:47.720,0:29:48.440
The most common.

0:29:48.440,0:29:49.420
The most common.

0:29:49.520,0:29:51.520
What if we imagined a

0:29:51.520,0:29:52.020
situation

0:29:52.020,0:29:53.980
where a sick person was writing,

0:29:53.980,0:29:56.540
right? Well, it's hard to take it seriously,

0:29:56.580,0:29:57.260
to believe it,

0:29:57.420,0:29:57.740
isn't it?

0:29:57.740,0:29:58.680
Because if we know

0:29:58.680,0:29:59.940
that, well, I can't imagine it,

0:30:00.020,0:30:01.900
a sick person is writing a novel,

0:30:01.900,0:30:03.040
right? His memoirs,

0:30:03.040,0:30:03.560
then probably not.

0:30:03.620,0:30:04.560
There is such a case,

0:30:04.560,0:30:05.280
you know, there is one.

0:30:05.440,0:30:06.560
Thomas DeBaggio

0:30:06.680,0:30:08.040
was a journalist,

0:30:08.040,0:30:09.020
probably a gardener.

0:30:09.040,0:30:11.120
He

0:30:11.450,0:30:15.430
wrote about various plant varieties, and when he developed

0:30:15.430,0:30:17.590
early-stage Alzheimer's,

0:30:17.590,0:30:20.150
he could probably still write for a while

0:30:20.150,0:30:22.170
, but it progressed very quickly.

0:30:22.560,0:30:24.200
I was, of course, outraged

0:30:24.260,0:30:26.580
that it was presented as his book,

0:30:26.640,0:30:28.660
but perhaps it was a tribute to him,

0:30:28.740,0:30:29.480
to his agency,

0:30:29.560,0:30:30.740
that he might still be dictating something,

0:30:30.800,0:30:33.300
or perhaps they talked with him and wrote it down.

0:30:33.400,0:30:36.400
But the book is clearly styled to resemble a narrative

0:30:36.420,0:30:38.620
penned by someone already afflicted

0:30:38.620,0:30:39.120
with dementia,

0:30:39.120,0:30:42.460
because even on the cover we see Thomas DeBaggio,

0:30:42.500,0:30:43.500
where the letter "o" is missing,

0:30:43.700,0:30:46.020
and in "Losing My Mind" there's no "n."

0:30:46.240,0:30:48.660
Consequently, he seems to be forgetting letters, and

0:30:48.660,0:30:49.780
writing is difficult for him,

0:30:49.800,0:30:51.660
yet at the same time, a completely

0:30:52.290,0:30:54.930
stylistically coherent narrative from A to Z,

0:30:55.090,0:30:56.390
with a beginning and an end.

0:30:56.690,0:30:59.170
In the film "Song for Martin,"

0:30:59.230,0:31:01.450
Martin is still trying to compose and

0:31:01.490,0:31:03.390
has a concert contract.

0:31:05.190,0:31:05.990
I don't remember,

0:31:05.990,0:31:07.170
it was already a big event,

0:31:07.230,0:31:10.570
very important, and of course he's sitting there,

0:31:10.630,0:31:11.050
pretending

0:31:11.050,0:31:11.530
to be sitting,

0:31:11.530,0:31:13.730
trying to compose something, and at one point,

0:31:13.770,0:31:14.550
she checks.

0:31:15.000,0:31:16.620
Because I can't believe

0:31:16.620,0:31:19.260
he's still capable of doing it, and he sees such terrible

0:31:19.260,0:31:19.920
scribbles

0:31:20.220,0:31:20.720
.

0:31:20.860,0:31:21.980
Oh, it looks terrible.

0:31:22.020,0:31:25.080
It's one of the most painful traits of this film,

0:31:25.080,0:31:26.560
probably even worse than the scene

0:31:26.560,0:31:28.460
where he, in a restaurant,

0:31:28.460,0:31:29.580
instead of going to the restroom,

0:31:29.580,0:31:32.520
starts using a

0:31:32.600,0:31:34.440
flower pot as a urinal.

0:31:36.030,0:31:37.070
It's almost funny,

0:31:37.090,0:31:37.450
isn't it?

0:31:37.450,0:31:39.050
Half-humiliating,

0:31:39.070,0:31:40.370
but that scene is terrible.

0:31:40.950,0:31:43.410
He's incapable of composing.

0:31:43.470,0:31:44.070
Those scribbles

0:31:44.090,0:31:46.530
we see on a blank piece of paper

0:31:46.570,0:31:47.210
that says,

0:31:47.250,0:31:48.090
"Listen, I'm done,

0:31:48.130,0:31:49.190
put it in an envelope,

0:31:49.230,0:31:50.610
send it to that impresario."

0:31:50.970,0:31:52.090
Something moves her,

0:31:52.090,0:31:52.950
she stops the car,

0:31:52.950,0:31:54.130
takes it out of the envelope, and sees

0:31:54.130,0:31:55.110
what's inside.

0:31:55.330,0:31:59.490
Do we have any examples of Polish

0:31:59.490,0:32:00.810
Alzheimer's novels?

0:32:00.810,0:32:01.410
Well, we do,

0:32:01.850,0:32:06.560
and it seems the caregiver narrative dominates there.

0:32:07.720,0:32:08.320
Yes,

0:32:08.320,0:32:09.060
I don't know any others,

0:32:09.140,0:32:09.880
to be honest.

0:32:11.380,0:32:13.760
The short story "Dunes" by Magda Tulli,

0:32:13.820,0:32:14.680
I don't know if you've read it,

0:32:14.680,0:32:16.060
from the collection "Italian High Heels."

0:32:16.200,0:32:18.840
There's something extraordinary about this short story:

0:32:18.860,0:32:21.920
it uses such traditional

0:32:21.920,0:32:24.240
metaphors, and we're probably finally slowly moving on

0:32:24.240,0:32:25.020
to this topic

0:32:25.020,0:32:25.940
. It also

0:32:25.940,0:32:28.620
uses such traditional tropes

0:32:28.640,0:32:30.980
to talk, write, and think

0:32:30.980,0:32:31.400
about dementia

0:32:31.400,0:32:32.020
.

0:32:32.560,0:32:34.480
And at the same time, it reverses itself,

0:32:34.580,0:32:37.880
because here the narrator describes her mother's dementia,

0:32:37.900,0:32:39.460
where the mother's dementia is, of course, superimposed on

0:32:39.460,0:32:40.140
the past.

0:32:40.160,0:32:41.600
It's known that a traumatic past,

0:32:41.600,0:32:46.080
well, gives a traumatized person a greater chance of suffering from various,

0:32:46.220,0:32:46.680
various,

0:32:46.680,0:32:47.420
various illnesses,

0:32:47.440,0:32:48.480
practically all illnesses.

0:32:48.580,0:32:49.580
This is a mother

0:32:49.580,0:32:51.000
who has a past in a

0:32:51.000,0:32:51.820
concentration camp.

0:32:52.220,0:32:54.840
And the narrator describes her mother's dementia.

0:32:55.240,0:32:56.940
Using these metaphors,

0:32:56.940,0:32:59.380
really commonly used for all

0:32:59.380,0:33:00.320
possible illnesses,

0:33:00.320,0:33:01.500
a natural disaster,

0:33:01.700,0:33:02.660
warfare,

0:33:02.760,0:33:05.100
but she shifts the emphasis,

0:33:05.100,0:33:07.220
also transforms these images of armed conflict

0:33:07.220,0:33:07.720
as Sontag

0:33:07.860,0:33:09.180
talks about them,

0:33:09.300,0:33:10.360
or thinks about them.

0:33:10.640,0:33:13.940
And by reaching for this war metaphor, she does something

0:33:13.940,0:33:14.340
different with it,

0:33:14.340,0:33:16.160
right? And we observe not The battle,

0:33:16.180,0:33:17.140
as if the emphasis

0:33:17.140,0:33:18.480
weren't on the battle itself,

0:33:18.540,0:33:20.040
but on the landscape after the battle.

0:33:20.480,0:33:22.000
And that's what my mother looks like today,

0:33:22.100,0:33:23.200
isn't it? It's ruins,

0:33:23.200,0:33:23.720
destruction,

0:33:23.860,0:33:24.640
falling dust.

0:33:24.860,0:33:25.840
But what's interesting

0:33:25.840,0:33:27.460
is what's left of her,

0:33:27.460,0:33:27.960
isn't it?

0:33:28.000,0:33:30.040
Those ashes of my mother are my mother today.

0:33:30.300,0:33:32.180
And we focus our attention again on

0:33:32.220,0:33:33.260
what's left.

0:33:33.280,0:33:35.100
That is, from the figure of loss and emptiness,

0:33:35.120,0:33:35.900
because remember

0:33:35.920,0:33:37.200
that in the early years,

0:33:37.200,0:33:39.780
when Alzheimer's was being written about, and even serious researchers,

0:33:39.780,0:33:41.440
even sociologists and doctors,

0:33:41.440,0:33:42.400
unfortunately,

0:33:42.400,0:33:44.100
used the term "zombie."

0:33:44.320,0:33:47.220
This zombification of people with dementia was

0:33:47.220,0:33:47.860
terrible.

0:33:48.360,0:33:50.320
And it wasn't until the first years of this century that

0:33:50.320,0:33:51.280
Susan Bechuniak,

0:33:51.280,0:33:53.020
an American researcher,

0:33:53.040,0:33:56.220
tackled this writing and thinking about people with

0:33:56.220,0:33:57.300
dementia as zombies,

0:33:57.380,0:33:59.400
because they perceive the person as empty,

0:33:59.400,0:34:00.240
right, hollowed out,

0:34:00.240,0:34:01.220
dead inside.

0:34:01.220,0:34:01.620
Yes,

0:34:01.620,0:34:02.680
a living corpse.

0:34:03.020,0:34:03.840
A terrible,

0:34:03.840,0:34:04.660
terrible comparison,

0:34:04.660,0:34:05.460
a terrible description.

0:34:05.480,0:34:06.180
And actually,

0:34:06.240,0:34:08.300
what gerontology is doing right now, and what

0:34:08.360,0:34:11.860
works like Magda Tulli's "Fusy" (The Leaves) are doing,

0:34:11.880,0:34:14.480
is completely shifting the focus from the image

0:34:14.480,0:34:15.040
of destruction

0:34:15.610,0:34:16.389
to the ashes

0:34:16.389,0:34:17.449
that remain and to

0:34:17.530,0:34:18.570
what we have,

0:34:18.670,0:34:19.870
right? We focus on

0:34:19.929,0:34:20.790
what remains.

0:34:20.830,0:34:22.929
From the figure of emptiness, we move towards

0:34:22.989,0:34:23.710
what has survived.

0:34:24.250,0:34:25.889
A greater focus on embodiment,

0:34:25.889,0:34:27.050
on the memory of the body.

0:34:27.110,0:34:29.409
I remember that the body has many memory centers.

0:34:29.429,0:34:29.889
For example,

0:34:29.889,0:34:31.550
if someone has played the piano before,

0:34:31.790,0:34:34.690
even if they are already in some phase of dementia,

0:34:34.710,0:34:35.969
they sit down at the piano and

0:34:35.969,0:34:36.730
start playing,

0:34:36.730,0:34:38.110
right? The fingers remember.

0:34:38.150,0:34:38.710
It's like

0:34:38.750,0:34:39.590
riding a bicycle.

0:34:39.610,0:34:40.690
You never forget that.

0:34:40.830,0:34:43.090
This new perspective allows us to view the sick person

0:34:43.090,0:34:44.750
as an object

0:34:44.909,0:34:47.570
endowed with an identity and a body capable of expression.

0:34:47.590,0:34:48.790
Even if I no longer speak,

0:34:48.830,0:34:50.010
even if this phase ends,

0:34:50.010,0:34:53.210
I can still express myself in some way, and something

0:34:53.210,0:34:53.810
remains.

0:34:53.850,0:34:56.449
What I really like about Magdalena Tulli's

0:34:56.449,0:34:57.170
story

0:34:57.190,0:34:58.870
is this shift in emphasis.

0:34:59.330,0:35:02.930
There's something fascinating about the combination of metaphor and

0:35:02.930,0:35:03.710
illness.

0:35:03.830,0:35:05.250
I wonder

0:35:05.350,0:35:07.670
why we need metaphors

0:35:07.670,0:35:09.250
to talk about illness?

0:35:09.880,0:35:11.780
Can't we express this experience

0:35:11.780,0:35:15.320
differently, without other concepts?

0:35:15.320,0:35:16.520
This is an old question,

0:35:16.580,0:35:18.900
one that many researchers have tried to answer.

0:35:19.760,0:35:21.820
Take Susan Sontag, for example, and her postulates

0:35:21.840,0:35:25.500
to completely de-metaphorize cancer,

0:35:25.520,0:35:27.480
to talk only about its biological aspect.

0:35:27.820,0:35:29.920
But I think we, as humans, simply can't do

0:35:29.920,0:35:32.440
that. We want

0:35:32.440,0:35:33.960
to conceptualize this experience somehow.

0:35:34.560,0:35:35.500
How do you think about this?

0:35:35.500,0:35:38.820
Can we think about illness without metaphor?

0:35:38.820,0:35:39.600
And on the other hand,

0:35:39.640,0:35:40.480
how does this happen?

0:35:41.050,0:35:44.010
That the illness itself often becomes a metaphor

0:35:44.370,0:35:45.590
for other phenomena.

0:35:45.710,0:35:47.950
It actually works both ways.

0:35:48.090,0:35:49.370
I always ask myself:

0:35:49.370,0:35:52.350
is this illness the more familiar one,

0:35:52.350,0:35:53.730
or the more unknown one,

0:35:53.730,0:35:54.550
what am I looking for—

0:35:54.810,0:35:56.390
the language and means of expression?

0:35:56.610,0:35:57.650
Both.

0:35:57.710,0:35:58.090
Exactly

0:35:58.090,0:35:58.490
.

0:35:58.490,0:35:59.370
And I'm most delighted

0:35:59.370,0:36:00.890
when I see metaphors

0:36:00.890,0:36:03.290
that seem to juxtapose two illnesses.

0:36:03.350,0:36:05.130
An example escapes me now,

0:36:05.190,0:36:06.590
but... Imagine

0:36:06.650,0:36:08.990
this illness is like this illness,

0:36:09.070,0:36:10.810
but it's not a pure analogy,

0:36:10.810,0:36:12.650
but a transference of some kind.

0:36:13.150,0:36:14.670
I remembered an example recently.

0:36:15.260,0:36:17.300
I'm talking about the discourse on endometriosis;

0:36:17.360,0:36:19.600
it's also one of those mysterious illnesses.

0:36:19.760,0:36:22.980
In this medical description, endometriosis begins to be referred to

0:36:22.980,0:36:24.900
as a tumor,

0:36:24.900,0:36:25.420
a cancer.

0:36:25.460,0:36:27.180
And there are points of convergence,

0:36:27.220,0:36:29.680
that the endometrium grows in exactly the same way

0:36:29.680,0:36:32.100
as these cancer cells grow,

0:36:32.140,0:36:35.140
So, it's as if there are these points of contact, and suddenly cancer

0:36:35.140,0:36:37.220
becomes a simpler experience,

0:36:37.220,0:36:39.140
one that we use to explain this disease,

0:36:39.140,0:36:41.040
which is harder for us to grasp.

0:36:41.669,0:36:43.850
That's precisely what Sontag does,

0:36:43.910,0:36:44.610
isn't it? She says

0:36:44.610,0:36:46.690
that the less we know about a given disease ,

0:36:46.710,0:36:48.130
the more often we reach for metaphors.

0:36:48.170,0:36:49.550
And what was metaphorized earlier

0:36:49.710,0:36:51.530
no longer needs to be metaphorized.

0:36:51.650,0:36:53.790
No one needs to metaphorize tuberculosis anymore.

0:36:54.390,0:36:54.790
Especially

0:36:54.790,0:36:58.010
if we've identified the etiology and if we know

0:36:58.030,0:36:58.450
how to treat it,

0:36:58.450,0:36:59.990
then metaphors are completely excluded.

0:37:00.050,0:37:02.310
It's just this biomedical discourse, and that's it.

0:37:03.130,0:37:05.890
But you're provoking me with your question, of course,

0:37:05.890,0:37:10.250
because metaphor belongs to the story of

0:37:10.250,0:37:10.750
illness.

0:37:11.440,0:37:14.220
But it's also probably a figure of language and narrative in

0:37:14.220,0:37:17.200
general, if not a framework for our

0:37:17.200,0:37:17.760
thinking,

0:37:17.760,0:37:19.820
because I mean, we're capable

0:37:19.820,0:37:21.340
of communicating without metaphors at all.

0:37:21.360,0:37:24.120
But Sontag is an interesting case,

0:37:24.120,0:37:27.260
a very interesting case with her aversion to

0:37:27.260,0:37:27.960
metaphor.

0:37:28.799,0:37:30.160
On the one hand, aversion,

0:37:30.160,0:37:30.900
on the other hand, the texts

0:37:30.920,0:37:31.520
she cites

0:37:31.540,0:37:33.040
all use metaphors.

0:37:33.120,0:37:33.560
The examples

0:37:33.560,0:37:35.560
in this essay are metaphorical.

0:37:35.680,0:37:37.840
She herself uses the metaphor about the famous

0:37:37.840,0:37:38.780
double passport,

0:37:38.820,0:37:39.520
but no,

0:37:39.620,0:37:40.320
metaphors are forbidden.

0:37:40.380,0:37:40.880
Why?

0:37:40.900,0:37:42.520
Because it was about this war metaphor,

0:37:42.520,0:37:44.720
in all of her works, I think.

0:37:44.720,0:37:45.680
Both about photography

0:37:45.680,0:37:47.020
and about the opposition to interpretation,

0:37:47.040,0:37:48.060
about suffering.

0:37:48.330,0:37:49.470
The sight of someone else's suffering.

0:37:49.610,0:37:52.670
In all of her works, somewhere at the back

0:37:52.670,0:37:54.670
of her mind, is her opposition to imperialism.

0:37:54.730,0:37:56.030
And these war metaphors,

0:37:56.050,0:37:58.850
which she sees used to describe illnesses,

0:37:58.850,0:37:59.570
that's her problem.

0:37:59.730,0:38:01.730
Even in this essay, writing about illness as a

0:38:01.730,0:38:02.270
metaphor.

0:38:02.760,0:38:05.520
I will try to protest against this American imperialism

0:38:05.520,0:38:07.280
in some way .

0:38:07.340,0:38:08.820
On the other hand, let's remember

0:38:08.880,0:38:12.860
that Sontag had multiple relapses of illnesses,

0:38:12.860,0:38:13.360
various,

0:38:13.780,0:38:16.440
oncological, and eventually one of them

0:38:16.440,0:38:17.580
defeated her.

0:38:17.720,0:38:20.340
However, she never spoke about her illness or

0:38:20.340,0:38:21.400
admitted it,

0:38:21.440,0:38:23.580
and even less so, of course, in this essay.

0:38:23.660,0:38:26.900
She draws attention to this figurative use of illness

0:38:26.900,0:38:28.980
to speak about something else, and that this causes,

0:38:28.980,0:38:29.680
as we have discussed,

0:38:29.880,0:38:31.580
the suffering of the patient,

0:38:31.580,0:38:32.040
consent.

0:38:32.040,0:38:33.300
If I have a mother

0:38:33.320,0:38:34.780
with Alzheimer's,

0:38:34.780,0:38:35.740
I wouldn't want

0:38:35.760,0:38:36.940
anyone laughing in my presence,

0:38:36.960,0:38:38.260
using the disease,

0:38:38.260,0:38:39.660
saying, "Oh, I have dementia,

0:38:39.700,0:38:40.540
I forgot my keys."

0:38:41.400,0:38:42.360
But the way

0:38:42.460,0:38:44.460
she opposes this metaphor,

0:38:44.500,0:38:47.200
used to talk about illness,

0:38:47.220,0:38:48.320
makes us think that

0:38:48.360,0:38:51.280
the metaphor bothers her more than the illness itself, and

0:38:51.280,0:38:53.600
that the main cause of suffering is language,

0:38:53.600,0:38:55.340
not the pathology.

0:38:56.580,0:38:58.560
Many people, of course, disagreed with this

0:38:58.600,0:38:59.120
,

0:38:59.280,0:38:59.960
because if anything,

0:39:00.020,0:39:01.420
if we abandon metaphors,

0:39:01.440,0:39:03.500
we are left entirely with,

0:39:03.560,0:39:06.020
as Broiart said,

0:39:06.060,0:39:10.460
Hemingway's writing or language.

0:39:10.960,0:39:13.200
Or we are condemned to silence.

0:39:13.280,0:39:14.920
The book "Intoxicated by Illness" is an example of

0:39:14.920,0:39:17.980
a fantastic way of navigating the thicket of metaphors.

0:39:17.980,0:39:20.240
These metaphors are a way for him to come to terms with

0:39:20.240,0:39:20.800
this illness,

0:39:20.820,0:39:23.540
to find himself in this oncological disease.

0:39:23.620,0:39:25.600
Moreover,

0:39:25.600,0:39:28.620
when the patient himself is unable to

0:39:28.620,0:39:30.160
somehow create and

0:39:30.160,0:39:30.880
integrate this new identity,

0:39:30.960,0:39:32.280
he sees everything as metaphor.

0:39:32.340,0:39:33.580
Something strange happens to him.

0:39:33.940,0:39:35.180
Consequently, he takes medication,

0:39:35.200,0:39:38.420
accepts metaphors, and,

0:39:38.420,0:39:39.120
as Brojart writes,

0:39:39.120,0:39:39.720
removing metaphors from

0:39:39.780,0:39:43.670
Maladic language means condemning the sufferer to describe pathology

0:39:43.670,0:39:45.550
solely in biomedical terms.

0:39:45.610,0:39:46.990
Essentially, he is left with nothing.

0:39:47.070,0:39:48.390
At least he has his own language.

0:39:48.390,0:39:49.210
He'll name it

0:39:49.230,0:39:50.050
how he feels.

0:39:50.110,0:39:51.270
Unlike another patient

0:39:51.270,0:39:52.430
with a similar illness.

0:39:52.690,0:39:55.170
Therefore, metaphors are essential in language

0:39:55.190,0:39:56.690
because they offer something to the patient.

0:39:56.710,0:39:58.810
They give the patient a sense of comfort.

0:39:58.830,0:40:00.550
They're like their own dressing gown and slippers,

0:40:00.590,0:40:01.470
in which they can dress.

0:40:01.510,0:40:03.670
They're a kind of escape from medical terminology.

0:40:03.710,0:40:04.670
And there are various benefits.

0:40:04.730,0:40:07.290
Even Oliver Sacks, in the introduction to this book

0:40:07.290,0:40:08.030
, writes

0:40:08.030,0:40:08.990
that they refer to Sacks

0:40:09.030,0:40:11.410
as the most outstanding poet of contemporary medicine.

0:40:12.140,0:40:14.000
This book makes

0:40:14.000,0:40:15.100
us see

0:40:15.100,0:40:16.500
why metaphor is necessary,

0:40:16.520,0:40:18.080
that it allows us to domesticate and

0:40:18.080,0:40:20.360
make this illness our own,

0:40:20.460,0:40:21.360
because when we're ill,

0:40:21.500,0:40:23.320
we have to talk about it,

0:40:23.340,0:40:25.820
create its narrative,

0:40:25.820,0:40:28.060
and therefore create its metaphor.

0:40:28.750,0:40:29.490
I've always been surprised

0:40:29.510,0:40:32.230
that Susan Sontag doesn't quote Virginia Woolf, and I guess

0:40:32.230,0:40:33.230
the fact that she doesn't quote her must

0:40:33.270,0:40:34.290
mean she couldn't have been unfamiliar with it;

0:40:34.350,0:40:35.570
it's impossible, after all –

0:40:35.850,0:40:36.490
"On Being Ill."

0:40:36.690,0:40:37.990
And why don't I quote her?

0:40:38.050,0:40:39.570
Well, I have my own conspiracy theory,

0:40:39.670,0:40:40.090
one

0:40:40.090,0:40:40.990
that I won't quote

0:40:41.010,0:40:43.670
because metaphorization and

0:40:43.670,0:40:44.610
word formation are the foundations.

0:40:45.210,0:40:47.450
There are beautiful passages from Woolf's essay "On Being Sick" from

0:40:47.450,0:40:47.950
the 1930s

0:40:48.110,0:40:49.090
,

0:40:49.090,0:40:52.650
where Virginia Woolf writes

0:40:52.710,0:40:54.970
that illness brings us together anew,

0:40:54.970,0:40:57.050
that is, brings our body and mind together,

0:40:57.070,0:40:59.150
but it's unspoken

0:40:59.150,0:41:00.750
because there are no words in language.

0:41:01.030,0:41:03.930
In Shakespeare, we don't find these words, and it causes

0:41:03.930,0:41:04.270
us

0:41:04.270,0:41:04.830
to see

0:41:04.830,0:41:07.610
that our brains were locked away in an ivory tower

0:41:07.610,0:41:08.110
,

0:41:08.110,0:41:12.590
that they weren't in contact with the body, and there's a need for

0:41:12.590,0:41:13.510
new words.

0:41:13.510,0:41:13.970
So

0:41:13.970,0:41:14.650
what do we do?

0:41:14.730,0:41:16.890
We can create these words in such

0:41:16.890,0:41:18.030
an incredibly physical way.

0:41:18.070,0:41:18.890
This is a beautiful,

0:41:18.890,0:41:21.210
beautiful scene from that essay "On Being Sick."

0:41:22.290,0:41:23.670
We take sound,

0:41:23.670,0:41:24.690
pure sound.

0:41:24.970,0:41:27.530
And we also take pain from our bodies.

0:41:27.590,0:41:30.010
And by rubbing these two things together,

0:41:30.010,0:41:31.790
something new emerges.

0:41:31.950,0:41:32.850
Crushing pain.

0:41:35.090,0:41:37.570
That's Woolf.

0:41:38.150,0:41:40.050
Sontag must have ignored her.

0:41:40.130,0:41:42.750
There was no reference to it

0:41:42.850,0:41:43.310
in either her work

0:41:43.310,0:41:44.230
or the later one.

0:41:44.230,0:41:46.650
There's no reference to Woolf about AIDS metaphors either.

0:41:47.290,0:41:49.530
So clearly, these metaphors were meant to be

0:41:49.530,0:41:50.570
blocked here.

0:41:50.690,0:41:52.150
But I had something else in mind.

0:41:52.150,0:41:55.070
When I was dealing with dementia and

0:41:55.070,0:41:55.530
dementia metaphors,

0:41:55.530,0:41:56.530
because the time had come for that, too,

0:41:57.230,0:41:57.970
I thought

0:41:58.070,0:41:59.170
that when I read Sontag,

0:41:59.310,0:42:01.830
she confuses the poles of metaphors in such a way

0:42:01.870,0:42:03.690
that she doesn't consider it important

0:42:03.690,0:42:04.190
to say,

0:42:04.250,0:42:05.970
"Okay, here we have this source domain

0:42:05.990,0:42:06.690
and this target domain;

0:42:06.790,0:42:10.650
here, let's say, the disease is a vehicle for something,

0:42:10.650,0:42:11.870
and here we use other,

0:42:12.250,0:42:15.310
some figures to describe dementia."

0:42:15.410,0:42:17.170
For her, these poles are interchangeable;

0:42:17.310,0:42:18.330
the source domain and

0:42:18.390,0:42:19.950
the target domain are one and the same,

0:42:19.990,0:42:22.390
but they are not one and the same, and whether

0:42:22.390,0:42:24.610
we place the disease at one pole or the other,

0:42:24.650,0:42:26.270
we get a different result.

0:42:26.540,0:42:27.760
Depending on

0:42:27.760,0:42:30.300
whether the disease is a source for describing other phenomena

0:42:30.300,0:42:31.080
that are not a disease,

0:42:31.120,0:42:33.360
or whether it is a target to be described and defined.

0:42:33.620,0:42:36.860
And I began to search and collect these cases

0:42:36.860,0:42:39.320
where dementia sometimes finds itself at one

0:42:39.320,0:42:40.380
extreme, sometimes at the other.

0:42:40.640,0:42:43.220
There, I used Max Black's theory

0:42:43.540,0:42:45.360
of the interactive theory of metaphor,

0:42:45.440,0:42:46.900
which argues that the way

0:42:47.120,0:42:51.540
we use different figures and different

0:42:51.540,0:42:53.380
references is not indifferent.

0:42:54.230,0:42:57.770
What we used them for, and the categories of description, and

0:42:57.770,0:42:59.650
the categories of these metaphors, no longer remain

0:42:59.650,0:43:01.210
the same after this encounter,

0:43:01.270,0:43:01.770
right?

0:43:01.770,0:43:02.830
Both are active.

0:43:02.830,0:43:03.830
Both are active,

0:43:03.950,0:43:05.790
yes. And I searched for such metaphors,

0:43:05.830,0:43:06.910
but I'll limit myself to that.

0:43:06.950,0:43:08.290
Because, of course, there are plenty of them.

0:43:08.390,0:43:09.730
There's a journey,

0:43:09.730,0:43:11.090
a catastrophe,

0:43:11.090,0:43:11.910
an epidemic.

0:43:12.170,0:43:12.610
Everything

0:43:12.610,0:43:13.750
we can imagine.

0:43:14.010,0:43:15.330
Anne Hunsaker-Hawkins,

0:43:15.490,0:43:17.050
the author of the term "pathography,"

0:43:17.090,0:43:19.770
pointed out to you that it's interesting

0:43:19.830,0:43:22.510
that descriptions of illnesses often feature

0:43:22.510,0:43:23.490
tropes

0:43:23.530,0:43:27.150
that appeared in earlier centuries in

0:43:27.150,0:43:28.530
sacred texts,

0:43:28.530,0:43:32.310
or in some descriptions of religious experiences,

0:43:32.350,0:43:33.530
as evidence

0:43:33.570,0:43:35.650
that these structures no longer appear in stories and

0:43:35.650,0:43:37.150
had to be replaced.

0:43:37.170,0:43:38.570
Therefore, both the journey

0:43:38.570,0:43:39.210
and the struggle,

0:43:39.210,0:43:41.290
which were typical of earlier sacred

0:43:41.290,0:43:42.030
narratives,

0:43:42.050,0:43:43.890
appear in stories about illness.

0:43:44.320,0:43:45.560
So we have war,

0:43:45.580,0:43:46.240
we have combat,

0:43:46.240,0:43:46.840
we have a journey,

0:43:46.880,0:43:47.880
we have a sea voyage,

0:43:47.920,0:43:48.420
we have everything

0:43:48.440,0:43:50.620
you could imagine in various texts about

0:43:50.620,0:43:51.120
dementia,

0:43:51.140,0:43:52.420
but we also have,

0:43:52.540,0:43:53.520
let's say,

0:43:53.520,0:43:58.240
a specific figure for describing dementia,

0:43:58.260,0:43:59.460
namely the topos of snow.

0:44:01.000,0:44:01.920
A beautiful thing.

0:44:02.080,0:44:03.980
In my book, there are examples of these texts

0:44:03.980,0:44:05.180
where snow,

0:44:05.180,0:44:07.820
some kind of melting of snow, is used.

0:44:08.460,0:44:09.620
Falling snow,

0:44:09.620,0:44:11.420
falling so thickly and for so long

0:44:11.420,0:44:12.160
that it silences everything.

0:44:12.720,0:44:15.040
You see, everything is so pristine,

0:44:15.060,0:44:15.480
right?

0:44:15.480,0:44:16.280
And now, yes,

0:44:16.320,0:44:18.280
the first association based on the example of this snow.

0:44:18.340,0:44:20.000
I'm thinking of Bernlef's book,

0:44:20.080,0:44:21.140
one of the earliest,

0:44:21.140,0:44:22.940
if not the first, novels about dementia.

0:44:23.180,0:44:24.760
Dutch author Jan Bernlef.

0:44:24.760,0:44:26.960
The book was translated into Polish as "Ungrateful Memory."

0:44:26.960,0:44:29.560
Using this 1984

0:44:29.560,0:44:33.040
novel about Bernlef's ungrateful memory as an example

0:44:33.040,0:44:37.420
, you can see how Max Black's interactive mechanism works,

0:44:37.420,0:44:38.920
right? So, from the target domain,

0:44:39.400,0:44:40.740
those features

0:44:40.780,0:44:43.020
that imply a feeling of emptiness and cold were selected.

0:44:44.020,0:44:44.600
Someone

0:44:44.600,0:44:45.100
who thought

0:44:45.140,0:44:46.780
they would use snow to describe dementia

0:44:46.860,0:44:47.580
thought,

0:44:47.660,0:44:49.280
dementia is precisely this zombie figure

0:44:49.440,0:44:50.540
—emptiness,

0:44:50.540,0:44:50.900
cold,

0:44:50.900,0:44:51.500
freezing, shrinking,

0:44:51.620,0:44:52.120
dying

0:44:52.200,0:44:52.720
.

0:44:52.920,0:44:54.040
Well, snow

0:44:54.040,0:44:54.480
is ice,

0:44:54.480,0:44:54.900
right?

0:44:54.900,0:44:57.020
And that's probably where the idea came from:

0:44:57.020,0:44:58.400
trying to imagine

0:44:58.480,0:45:01.200
what's going on in the mind of a person suffering from dementia

0:45:01.200,0:45:01.840
,

0:45:01.920,0:45:03.400
to use the figure of snow.

0:45:03.540,0:45:06.400
But snow is also my association,

0:45:06.420,0:45:07.120
from my childhood,

0:45:07.120,0:45:07.860
when there was still snow.

0:45:07.900,0:45:08.300
Just look

0:45:08.300,0:45:09.440
how this metaphor has aged.

0:45:09.480,0:45:10.740
How do you explain to young people today

0:45:10.740,0:45:11.360
what snow is?

0:45:11.620,0:45:12.980
But snow,

0:45:12.980,0:45:20.220
with its other qualities,

0:45:20.220,0:45:21.560
such as purity,

0:45:21.640,0:45:23.120
impeccability,

0:45:23.360,0:45:24.440
the silence

0:45:24.440,0:45:25.120
it evokes

0:45:25.120,0:45:25.660
when it falls—

0:45:25.740,0:45:26.780
the falling snow

0:45:26.780,0:45:27.500
silences everything—

0:45:28.040,0:45:31.020
can direct our attention to other paths,

0:45:31.020,0:45:33.940
right? So it's not emptiness or freezing or freezing at all,

0:45:34.000,0:45:36.940
but rather can suggest other experiences of

0:45:36.940,0:45:37.500
dementia,

0:45:37.500,0:45:38.880
for example, peace,

0:45:38.900,0:45:39.800
relief from

0:45:39.800,0:45:40.200
pain and

0:45:40.200,0:45:40.700
fear,

0:45:40.740,0:45:41.360
stillness,

0:45:41.620,0:45:42.540
fulfillment.

0:45:42.900,0:45:43.460
Filling.

0:45:43.580,0:45:44.360
Why emptiness?

0:45:44.400,0:45:45.360
Snow falling—

0:45:45.360,0:45:46.820
even in one of these stories, there's a line about

0:45:46.860,0:45:47.540
snow falling

0:45:47.850,0:45:49.230
inside my head.

0:45:49.290,0:45:51.010
Well, I guess Bernlef has a scene like that.

0:45:51.450,0:45:53.130
So we're at the antipodes,

0:45:53.130,0:45:56.370
if we accept this interpretation of this

0:45:56.370,0:45:59.030
snow figure here to describe the experience of dementia,

0:45:59.070,0:46:01.250
then we're at the antipodes of this

0:46:01.250,0:46:01.930
unwanted zombification,

0:46:01.930,0:46:03.670
this stigmatization of the sick

0:46:03.690,0:46:04.190
as someone

0:46:04.210,0:46:05.530
hollowed out inside,

0:46:05.550,0:46:07.290
a living corpse.

0:46:07.290,0:46:09.230
And also at the antipodes of other,

0:46:09.370,0:46:09.770
right,

0:46:09.770,0:46:13.870
stigmatizing figures like, say, an epidemic,

0:46:13.870,0:46:17.200
or "Alzheimer's can be contagious"?

0:46:17.320,0:46:17.880
An epidemic,

0:46:18.020,0:46:20.060
or some natural disaster.

0:46:20.160,0:46:22.600
So I was really captivated by this snow,

0:46:22.600,0:46:25.380
which appears in so many stories about

0:46:25.380,0:46:25.880
dementia.

0:46:26.020,0:46:26.800
But not in Polish,

0:46:26.800,0:46:27.820
right? Not in Polish-language ones?

0:46:28.340,0:46:29.100
You know what,

0:46:29.240,0:46:29.920
we have it like this.

0:46:29.960,0:46:33.600
In Klara Obermüller's German collection, there's an

0:46:33.600,0:46:35.460
Italian poem,

0:46:35.560,0:46:38.800
Robert Dapunt, and in the Belgian Erwin Mortier's

0:46:38.800,0:46:41.360
Polish translation of the beautiful,

0:46:41.400,0:46:41.940
beautiful,

0:46:41.940,0:46:43.220
beautiful "Songs of Babble."

0:46:43.610,0:46:44.530
Something beautiful.

0:46:44.590,0:46:45.610
It's a kind of acrobatics,

0:46:45.610,0:46:46.650
a wonderful book,

0:46:46.650,0:46:47.130
I recommend it,

0:46:47.130,0:46:48.230
fantastically translated.

0:46:48.330,0:46:49.250
"Songs of Babble"

0:46:49.290,0:46:49.930
by Erwin Mortier.

0:46:50.050,0:46:51.170
There's snow there too.

0:46:51.530,0:46:52.370
This snow,

0:46:52.370,0:46:53.170
when I think of it

0:46:53.230,0:46:55.450
as a conceptual space,

0:46:55.510,0:46:57.390
well, it still has many qualities

0:46:57.390,0:46:59.050
that can be exploited.

0:46:59.090,0:47:00.650
After all, you can mold something from snow,

0:47:00.750,0:47:01.790
create something.

0:47:02.480,0:47:03.040
We also have,

0:47:03.080,0:47:03.460
I don't know,

0:47:03.460,0:47:04.000
snowdrifts,

0:47:04.000,0:47:05.120
a bit of a threat here,

0:47:05.160,0:47:06.020
maybe too much snow,

0:47:06.080,0:47:08.100
well, that's a bit of a problem for us,

0:47:08.100,0:47:10.540
but it can actually have its own quantity, enough

0:47:10.640,0:47:11.660
to cover up the void.

0:47:11.660,0:47:12.880
Well, you can build a snowman.

0:47:13.140,0:47:14.260
Build a snowman

0:47:14.300,0:47:14.680
,

0:47:14.680,0:47:16.140
or throw a snowball at someone,

0:47:16.300,0:47:16.800
right?

0:47:17.220,0:47:18.220
You can have fun.

0:47:18.220,0:47:19.300
You can play with it.

0:47:20.020,0:47:20.660
Exactly,

0:47:20.680,0:47:21.080
snow,

0:47:21.080,0:47:21.900
playing in the snow.

0:47:21.900,0:47:23.260
We have a lot of associations

0:47:23.260,0:47:24.300
like that, with childhood,

0:47:24.640,0:47:25.940
with some kind of fun.

0:47:26.000,0:47:27.000
Let's go sledding.

0:47:27.920,0:47:29.780
I wasn't familiar with that metaphor,

0:47:29.780,0:47:30.740
and now I think about it.

0:47:31.120,0:47:32.740
It really does have something to it.

0:47:34.000,0:47:36.240
We sometimes need metaphor precisely

0:47:36.280,0:47:38.440
to create a new language,

0:47:38.440,0:47:40.460
to break the pattern

0:47:40.460,0:47:42.460
we've been stuck in.

0:47:42.900,0:47:43.660
You're right

0:47:43.660,0:47:44.160
that it depends

0:47:44.200,0:47:45.460
on which way we look,

0:47:45.520,0:47:48.920
because it's this opposition to military metaphors.

0:47:49.020,0:47:49.960
Not only in Sontag's writings,

0:47:50.020,0:47:52.640
but now I also see and hear in many such

0:47:52.640,0:47:54.300
voices of sick patients, simply

0:47:54.320,0:47:55.480
patients

0:47:55.480,0:47:56.900
who don't want

0:47:56.900,0:47:58.120
to be called

0:47:58.200,0:47:59.140
fighters.

0:47:59.180,0:48:00.680
They don't want to fight all the time.

0:48:00.720,0:48:01.640
There are especially certain illnesses,

0:48:01.660,0:48:02.980
moments in illness,

0:48:03.000,0:48:05.500
when you simply can't fight it.

0:48:05.520,0:48:06.480
If the illness is like this,

0:48:06.940,0:48:08.360
a chronic illness, for example.

0:48:09.960,0:48:10.380
Autoimmune disease,

0:48:10.380,0:48:11.040
right? That's what

0:48:11.040,0:48:12.040
often affects women.

0:48:12.180,0:48:13.580
You can't fight it

0:48:13.620,0:48:15.400
because you're in a losing position.

0:48:16.140,0:48:16.640
Of course,

0:48:17.060,0:48:17.560
yes.

0:48:17.600,0:48:20.780
So it's like you have to immediately find some other

0:48:20.780,0:48:21.500
concept,

0:48:21.660,0:48:22.980
some other idea.

0:48:23.120,0:48:25.360
But this fight is so deeply rooted in our

0:48:25.360,0:48:26.980
conscious and subconscious.

0:48:27.000,0:48:27.980
It's absolutely incredible.

0:48:28.360,0:48:29.080
You have to fight,

0:48:29.100,0:48:29.740
not give up.

0:48:29.820,0:48:31.920
In everyday language, this fight is everywhere.

0:48:32.000,0:48:32.400
You give,

0:48:32.400,0:48:32.820
you give,

0:48:32.820,0:48:33.580
right? You can do it.

0:48:33.580,0:48:34.840
No, because it's not a single statistic.

0:48:35.420,0:48:38.040
In your research, could you

0:48:38.040,0:48:38.540
conclude

0:48:38.560,0:48:41.020
that this is the most common metaphor?

0:48:41.100,0:48:41.800
Yes, of course,

0:48:41.800,0:48:43.040
the most popular one.

0:48:43.280,0:48:44.620
And journey,

0:48:44.620,0:48:46.920
and besides that, there are various alternative models,

0:48:47.000,0:48:50.660
which, like a well-prepared doctor.

0:48:50.890,0:48:52.190
Such a flexible,

0:48:52.190,0:48:53.430
linguistically, I would say,

0:48:53.490,0:48:55.430
how can one shape such a doctor,

0:48:55.510,0:48:58.210
can develop their own metaphorical model with the patient

0:48:58.210,0:48:59.030
,

0:48:59.110,0:49:01.790
in which they will place the experience of the patient's illness.

0:49:02.050,0:49:04.190
I dream of a situation

0:49:04.190,0:49:05.830
where a doctor would listen,

0:49:05.830,0:49:06.710
listen, and learn

0:49:06.730,0:49:08.650
that this patient, for example, enjoys a sport

0:49:08.650,0:49:09.310
or

0:49:09.310,0:49:10.630
enjoys hiking.

0:49:10.690,0:49:11.330
Your illness could be like climbing.

0:49:11.630,0:49:13.710
Exactly,

0:49:13.770,0:49:14.270
why

0:49:14.270,0:49:16.290
are these problems here?

0:49:16.330,0:49:18.550
Anyway, I believe in metaphor.

0:49:20.120,0:49:21.840
That we do need it.

0:49:21.840,0:49:22.340
But of course,

0:49:22.400,0:49:24.700
if it's used well,

0:49:24.720,0:49:26.360
as if evoked judiciously.

0:49:27.120,0:49:28.520
I've just stumbled upon this,

0:49:28.720,0:49:31.420
perhaps you'll also want to read Stella

0:49:31.420,0:49:32.060
Bolaki's book

0:49:32.260,0:49:34.380
"Illness as Many Narratives." It's about redirecting

0:49:34.380,0:49:37.780
attention from linguistic texts to all those

0:49:37.780,0:49:39.560
iconic films,

0:49:39.560,0:49:39.920
dance,

0:49:39.920,0:49:40.660
everything you can imagine...

0:49:40.740,0:49:42.260
shifting attention to the description of illness

0:49:42.280,0:49:43.580
.

0:49:43.600,0:49:44.260
And photography,

0:49:44.260,0:49:46.120
the chapter on photography

0:49:46.120,0:49:47.220
devoted to illness is very interesting.

0:49:47.740,0:49:50.260
Why isn't this important book so new

0:49:50.260,0:49:50.660
anymore

0:49:50.660,0:49:51.580
? It's already something...

0:49:51.600,0:49:53.020
Admittedly, 2016...

0:49:53.040,0:49:54.120
It'll be 10 years soon.

0:49:54.680,0:49:56.780
And this is a proposal for critical

0:49:56.780,0:49:57.560
humanist medicine,

0:49:57.580,0:49:59.400
so perhaps we can return to that starting point

0:49:59.420,0:50:00.460
if we still have a minute.

0:50:01.200,0:50:02.820
This critical humanist medicine,

0:50:02.820,0:50:03.900
writes Stella Bolaki,

0:50:04.000,0:50:05.260
can make

0:50:05.260,0:50:07.100
us read a text

0:50:07.100,0:50:08.840
differently than Rita Charon said,

0:50:08.840,0:50:11.040
that it's a linear narrative.

0:50:11.240,0:50:11.980
What's more,

0:50:12.060,0:50:14.680
all these texts about illness are also

0:50:14.680,0:50:16.020
realistic and

0:50:16.020,0:50:16.700
coherent.

0:50:17.400,0:50:19.960
As if illness could be

0:50:19.960,0:50:20.660
written about this way.

0:50:20.660,0:50:22.420
We just talked about

0:50:22.460,0:50:24.920
how this metaphor is sometimes necessary.

0:50:25.480,0:50:27.880
But texts about illness are also full of

0:50:27.880,0:50:29.340
chaos,

0:50:29.340,0:50:29.940
disruption,

0:50:29.980,0:50:31.300
interrupted,

0:50:31.320,0:50:31.860
broken.

0:50:32.060,0:50:33.260
She preferred,

0:50:33.280,0:50:34.860
Charon preferred, this kind of reading,

0:50:34.860,0:50:36.220
this kind of close reading,

0:50:36.320,0:50:38.940
applying the criticism she learned from it and

0:50:38.940,0:50:41.280
constructing an entire approach to literature in

0:50:41.280,0:50:42.780
a very traditional,

0:50:42.800,0:50:43.840
traditionalist way.

0:50:44.240,0:50:46.500
These narratives are supposed to be linear and coherent.

0:50:46.620,0:50:47.580
They aren't,

0:50:47.680,0:50:48.200
they aren't;

0:50:48.260,0:50:50.640
they can be improvised.

0:50:51.370,0:50:54.970
Various forms of delivery are also possible.

0:50:55.170,0:50:58.210
However, the critical humanist medicine

0:50:58.230,0:50:59.890
she proposes

0:50:59.910,0:51:01.990
can, in her opinion, make

0:51:01.990,0:51:04.050
me read a text,

0:51:04.050,0:51:05.410
watch a film,

0:51:05.690,0:51:07.710
participate in a performance,

0:51:07.710,0:51:09.790
as something

0:51:09.790,0:51:12.190
that is more than a private record.

0:51:12.210,0:51:15.370
For example, this cultural text can have a

0:51:15.370,0:51:16.010
public dimension.

0:51:16.400,0:51:19.900
It can engage in a discussion with the perception of illness,

0:51:19.940,0:51:21.140
often

0:51:21.500,0:51:23.260
on a meta level,

0:51:23.400,0:51:24.620
with representation,

0:51:24.620,0:51:25.740
omissions,

0:51:25.780,0:51:26.620
silences,

0:51:26.620,0:51:28.440
misconceptions about a topic

0:51:28.600,0:51:29.860
or a subject.

0:51:29.940,0:51:32.020
It can argue with the social context,

0:51:32.020,0:51:33.200
our perception of something,

0:51:33.480,0:51:34.480
everything that

0:51:34.580,0:51:35.680
influences illness.

0:51:36.040,0:51:37.440
And it influences the patient,

0:51:37.440,0:51:39.180
right? And their recovery.

0:51:39.300,0:51:40.980
In other words, it's not a completely private text,

0:51:41.020,0:51:43.520
because we've become accustomed over the past few years or decades

0:51:43.520,0:51:45.940
to pathography and autopathography,

0:51:45.960,0:51:48.440
right? That somewhere in the subtext, there's a first-person

0:51:48.440,0:51:49.220
experience of illness.

0:51:49.620,0:51:50.860
But beyond that

0:51:50.860,0:51:52.600
, there might be plenty of that, too—

0:51:52.600,0:51:54.580
let it be personal experience,

0:51:54.580,0:51:56.040
but there can also be that other layer,

0:51:56.060,0:51:56.900
that other level,

0:51:56.900,0:51:58.540
right? It can counter such

0:51:59.040,0:52:00.280
neoliberal,

0:52:00.280,0:52:03.380
individualized views on health and

0:52:03.380,0:52:04.560
health management,

0:52:04.560,0:52:06.160
managing the risk of illness.

0:52:06.600,0:52:07.720
And above all,

0:52:07.780,0:52:09.420
something that really struck me recently,

0:52:09.480,0:52:12.700
it can question, for example, subjectivity,

0:52:12.700,0:52:13.120
right?

0:52:13.120,0:52:14.640
Well, it doesn't have to be something obvious,

0:52:14.640,0:52:16.440
or the agency of a given sick subject.

0:52:16.720,0:52:19.140
It can have an open ending,

0:52:19.140,0:52:20.620
it can be chaotic,

0:52:20.620,0:52:21.120
tangled,

0:52:21.160,0:52:22.520
this text can build tension

0:52:22.520,0:52:23.220
between what is said and

0:52:23.240,0:52:25.950
what is unsaid. I came across a text

0:52:25.990,0:52:29.050
that I recently arranged into some kind of article.

0:52:30.210,0:52:32.970
This text is, of course, devoted to depression,

0:52:32.990,0:52:34.430
my latest interest,

0:52:34.430,0:52:35.170
my latest.

0:52:35.230,0:52:37.710
It's a text by Polish writer Salcia Hałas,

0:52:37.850,0:52:39.050
Which you're probably familiar with

0:52:39.110,0:52:40.070
is called "The Deluge."

0:52:40.170,0:52:41.310
And this text

0:52:41.310,0:52:43.430
is ideally suited to illustrating

0:52:43.430,0:52:44.070
critical

0:52:44.490,0:52:45.890
humanist medicine,

0:52:45.890,0:52:46.930
or narrative medicine,

0:52:46.950,0:52:48.570
but in its critical version,

0:52:48.570,0:52:49.860
because the first thing

0:52:49.860,0:52:51.880
the author abandons

0:52:51.880,0:52:54.780
is the main achievement of narrative medicine:

0:52:54.780,0:52:57.940
the validation and emphasis on

0:52:57.940,0:52:59.400
valuing the patient's voice,

0:52:59.440,0:53:00.780
so that they speak for themselves.

0:53:01.280,0:53:02.460
She suffers from depression,

0:53:02.500,0:53:03.160
but here we go,

0:53:03.300,0:53:04.740
she chronicles the subsequent phases.

0:53:04.780,0:53:06.100
Here we have a

0:53:06.120,0:53:06.800
silent protagonist. She

0:53:06.920,0:53:09.320
only speaks a few lines.

0:53:09.320,0:53:12.820
The rest of the narrative is entrusted to

0:53:13.240,0:53:15.000
the simple women from the neighborhood.

0:53:15.180,0:53:15.740
The question is,

0:53:15.740,0:53:18.540
why are we abandoning this great achievement of

0:53:18.540,0:53:19.220
narrative medicine?

0:53:19.240,0:53:21.060
Why isn't the patient's voice valued?

0:53:21.580,0:53:23.220
Well, after interpretation, of course,

0:53:23.500,0:53:24.300
my theory is

0:53:24.420,0:53:27.760
that it shifts attention to the environment,

0:53:27.860,0:53:29.220
which at a certain point,

0:53:29.340,0:53:31.840
in a situation of serious threat to the lives of people

0:53:31.840,0:53:34.660
suffering from depression, must take action,

0:53:34.660,0:53:35.980
must contact a doctor,

0:53:36.000,0:53:37.320
must take the hand and lead them,

0:53:37.380,0:53:38.280
because untreated,

0:53:38.340,0:53:40.920
such severe clinical depression ends in death.

0:53:41.550,0:53:43.850
In this regard, the simple women from the neighborhood have

0:53:43.850,0:53:45.570
a huge role to play.

0:53:45.690,0:53:47.590
I'd like to end here.

0:53:47.850,0:53:48.330
Hanna,

0:53:48.330,0:53:50.730
thank you so much for this meeting.

0:53:51.430,0:53:52.770
I learned a lot,

0:53:52.770,0:53:54.030
I took a lot of notes, and

0:53:54.130,0:53:56.470
I have a lot to think about.

0:53:57.290,0:53:58.690
Thank you so much again.

0:53:58.690,0:53:59.190
Thank you so much.

0:54:05.450,0:54:09.150
The "Engaged Polish Studies" podcast series was produced

0:54:09.150,0:54:11.390
as part of the "Polish Studies and the Challenges

0:54:11.390,0:54:12.450
of the Modern World" project.

0:54:13.070,0:54:15.750
It was co-financed from the state budget under the "Science

0:54:15.750,0:54:18.850
for Society 2" program of the Minister of Education and Science

0:54:18.850,0:54:19.930
.

0:54:20.010,0:54:21.930
The project number is in the description.

0:54:22.830,0:54:25.770
We invite you to listen to subsequent episodes

0:54:25.770,0:54:27.890
available on Spreaker,

0:54:28.070,0:54:31.550
Spotify, and YouTube, as well as in the online

0:54:31.550,0:54:32.350
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0:54:32.870,0:54:34.390
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