I’m most grateful for the opportunity of answering this question. Since I began as a Google Answers Researcher, I’ve always wished to work on a question that, like this one, dealt with a significant issue, involving not just searching abilities, but also challenging ina sensible and intellectual meaning. I hope to have been at its level. First point: the word “elder.” I’ve chosen to leave aside any consideration about connotations of the word in the present culture-it seems appropriate enough to differentiate the group of people over 85 from the other “seniors” within the frame of the present research. However, when addressing to them, other options such as those suggested by Hummer-ga might be a better choice. Since you ” ve introduced this question as the third of a suite I began by carefully reading my fellow researchers previous works, and taking them as inputs for further development.
Before getting to the point, I ask you please forgive some apparent digressions that I considered necessary for a better understanding of the suggestions regarding government’s role in improving elders ” quality of life. After the excellent job done by Hummer-ga and my own research, I’ve divided the subject in these two main aspects to focus in: 1-Cultural preconceptions; capability of choice and decision. 2- Physical, psychological and economic vulnerability; dependence on the younger people and institutions. Next, I’ll develop each item in two parts: first a description and then a series of suggestions, some of which may already be part of programs being held by different governments. 1-Cultural preconceptions. Description: The mythical wish of eternal youth is as old as human’s conscience of aging and death, but in our present times this desire seems empowered by medical technology and social expectations.
While the strength, capacity and health of the young body has always been appreciated, seniors have been traditionally considered holders of knowledge, experience and wisdom, and there place and role in the communities was an important and cherished one. As an example, lets remember that the words “senior” and “senator” have the same Latin root: “sen ex”, that means “old person.” In the early Roman political system -as well as in Athena’s- the group of governmental high decision makers was integrated by the old ones. In ancient societies -as well as in surviving non “modern” ones- the age itself was an attribute to be respected. What happened in the way? The current overestimation of youth and its concomitant underestimation of the older people is a process that slowly began in the Renaissance, along with the decay of the medieval guilds-while invention and incipient industrialization was turning obsolete the ancestral methods of production. The eighteenth century’s philosophical movement known as The Enlightenment-that questioned the traditional religious vision of the world to the prevail of Reason-enhanced that change, and it started to take speed in the latter nineteenth century, as the Second Industrial Revolution took place.
The traditional respect for senior’s wisdom corresponds to a nera when the knowledge that the young needed was the same that the old had gained more experience in. But as technology innovation begun to be increasingly present in the every day life and-moreover-in labor abilities, senior people begun to remain “outdated.” The knowledge acquired by the old generation was no longer useful for the new. Theyouth’s attribute to learn faster became more important than the experience. The twentieth century did nothing but increasing the phenomenon. While in the 1950’s the pattern still was that managerial positions in a company were hold by “senior” employees who had entered the company in their first youth and were trained by their work experience in it, at the end of the century the trend-exceptions left aside-had completely changed. Young MBA nerds displacing older managers, middle-age workers thrown to unemployment by new technologies, the relative disadvantage of the older ones to learn or accept new organizational models and processes, all that reinforced the misconception of the old as useless and the young as powerful.
Along with these trends of economics, there were the changes in lifestyles, values and customs. The twentieth century brought the sexual liberation, the women’s liberation, the relaxation of religious observance, the generational gap. Again, the older ones became those who “don’t understand”, whose ideas were “outdated”, the ” narrow-minded”, the “prejudiced.” This aspect is one that differentiates the current elders from the other seniors: a person who was 25 in 1960-69 today-probably perceived that decade of major cultural changes in a different manner than another one who was 45-89 today. Of course, the above stated are rough generalizations that do not fit every individual case, but yet this is essentially how the respect that used to accompany aging, was turned into indifference or even disrespect.
Old people became not to be listened, their opinions are not to be considered, very often even on decisions about themselves, such as health treatments, care, housing, both in the family and community level. As a consequence, many “still young” people, approaching to their senior ages-sometimes even earlier-as well as seniors themselves do whatever they can afford to prolong youth beyond what’s possible. Aging is not respectable, is not productive, is not sexy, so let.