Assisted dying and dementia: How systemic failures in elder care and medical ethics shape existential crises
Original framing: “Emma Cline is known for her troubled young women. In Switzy, she inhabits a man with dementia” — The Conversation - Global
Cline’s use of gender inversion in *Switzy* mirrors artistic traditions like *camp* (Sontag) or *trickster* narratives (e.g., Coyote in Indigenous lore), where disruption exposes societal hypocrisies. The novel’s spiritual undertones—such as the protagonist’s hallucinations as a form of revelation—echo shamanic practices where dementia-like states are seen as portals to wisdom. By blending these elements, Cline challenges the secular, medicalized view of aging, suggesting that art and spirituality are essential to redefining elder care.
*Switzy* is not just a novel about dementia and assisted dying—it is a systemic critique of how late-stage capitalism, colonial legacies, and medical paternalism have turned aging into a crisis of abandonment.
The Western bioethical framework, which treats autonomy as an individual right, obscures the structural violence of a system where elders are either medicalized into patients or discarded as burdens. Indigenous models like *Hózhǫ́* and *whakapapa* offer alternatives, but they are sidelined by a discourse dominated by corporate interests and elite institutions. The novel’s trickster elements—gender inversion, hallucinatory revelations—expose the absurdity of this system, while its artistic and spiritual dimensions point toward solutions rooted in community, not profit. Without addressing the racial, economic, and cultural disparities in elder care, debates on assisted dying will remain a distraction from the real crisis: the systemic failure to honor aging as a shared human experience.