How I think the “aging population” will make us a more compassionate nation, probably overnight.

As a result of our aging population, I think Australia might wake up one morning and find itself more compassionate.  

Last week I was urging some young indigenous undergraduate marketing students to think about the not-so-obvious future social & marketing changes associated with an aging population. All the usual stuff came up: death becomes a growth market, housing requirements will change, the need for increased health care, pets as therapy, etc. Then we got onto how society's attitude will change as a portion of the population starts to disappear. This was where it got interesting.

For a few years now I've been dismayed at the lack of compassion shown by almost all our political leaders and the popular press on issues like refugees, gay marriage, the support of indigenous peoples and the needy in our community. The thing is, I struggle to see the allegedly large portion of our community who hold these values dear to their hearts.

True, I don't read News Limited newpapers and yes I do live in the rarefied air of a leafy suburb in Brisbane's north, but when I walk down the street I generally speak to compassionate people. People who don't care if you're gay, who would welcome someone who has gone through terrible hardship to get here, and who see great value in our indigenous peoples whom we've marginalised for so many years.

So when our political leaders speak about these issues in such harsh terms, whom are they speaking to and if these people are in the majority, why don't I run into them, even occasionally?

One group of people in the community I know are more likely to hold these beliefs are the aged - people like my Mum. She's 80 something and when asked recently if she would help knit a blanket for "the homeless", she looked aghast and said something along the lines of "Why would I do that for those bludgers?". Mum's always been like this, especially when you talk about de-identified groups in society. But on a personal basis she's as compassionate and welcoming as I am, if she had been asked to knit for a neighbour or the Salvo's, she would instantly have said "Where's my needles?"

My theory about Mum's attitude (and that of many of her contemporaries) is that having experienced the depression as a child (quite literally the "worst of times"), she learnt an extreme lesson in self reliance that in modern Australia we've never had to learn. That you personally had to take responsibility for yourself and your family, otherwise you/they could starve. Importantly there is another side to this, that if you couldn't look after yourself or chose not to, you were a burden on everyone else, a bludger. This lesson, learned early, has shaped her thinking through her life.

We've found this attitude very hard to shift with Mum, so rather than battle with her in these last years of her life, I sort of quietly ignore it and say "Oh Mum that's not right", or we change the subject. That's how I'm going to continue to play it too.

So here's my point. I think there is a segment of society who have strongly held views about this stuff and it's not shifting, it's ingrained and was put there a long time ago by a powerful experience. On the positive side I think many parts of Australian society have changed their views to be more progressive and compassionate on these issues and that's why we seem to be nearer and nearer to a tipping point. But now we are down to the "rump", the unchangeable.

So let’s be blunt, there's a good portion of the "rump" in our aged community and this group is dying at a higher rate than everyone else. So I reckon one morning in the not too distant future Australia will cross the compassion line as regards refugees, gay marriage and acceptance of indigenous peoples, mainly because there will be fewer of us responding to the political dog whistle.

A final and important point, I am not saying that all aged people have negative attitudes towards refugee, gay, or indigenous communities. What I am suggesting is that these attitudes are more likely to be found in the aged.

How’s that for a first effort?