This seems to have been a common part of most cultures until recent times. Now, not much in evidence. Why?
Of course my initial assumption is itsef open to debate. (I once saw a quote from some Ancient Greek Smart Guy complaining about how nowadays these youth have no respect for their elders etc.) But I’m assuming that it is indeed the case. I am proposing two reasons for this.
The rapid advances in technology. This, in turn, causes society itself to change at a relatively rapid pace. Back in the good old days, things pretty much remained the same. Change was barely perceptable over the course of a person’s lifetime. Hence, when a person finally reached old age, they had accumulated a lifetime of experience and knowledge which was relevent to life as it was still being lived. Now, by contrast, there is little resemblence between the world today and the world as it was a few decades ago. Of course there are still some eternal truths which remain valid, but a large percentage of an old person’s experience has been in rendered completely useless and irrelevent. Meanwhile, many old people have been slow to adapt to the new world that exists today, making them, well, out of it.
As a corollary to this, it is likely that the mass media has sped up the pace of cultural and societal change, to which older people are often slow to adapt.
The concept of retirement. This is a relatively new concept, though it is taken for granted in our times. In the olden days, people worked until they were no longer capable, or died. Now, people are expected to have some liesurely “golden years”. This is in many ways a positive development. However, it also removes most older people from having much responsibility and authority. This has the impact of changing the image of an older person from a senior authority figure to some old duffer pottering around his garden in funny pants.
This is not entirely new and probably began in the 50s. I think another important reason is that corporations have realized young people have huge spending power and market directly to them by creating an image that being young is the best thing you can be.
Increased life expectancies? That is, old people used to be quite a bit rarer than they are now, so the mere fact of surviving to an advanced age was seen as more of an achievement?
Decline of the joint family or clan in which authority (and often property) is retained in the control of the senior member(s)? Adult offspring are now supposed to be financially, geographically, and (often) socially autonomous, so the practical importance of their elders in their lives has diminished.
I believe the elderly still have more buying power then teens and people in their early 20’s. The problem is that people over a certain age have pretty much decided on which brands they like and are unlikely to switch to a new dish soap. Marketing is aimed at the younger folks because they haven’t developed brand loyalty.
As long as the AARP is as powerful a lobbying group as it is, we will have respect for our elders in this society.
Sometimes, to a fault, such as with legislation to curb older drivers whose skills have eroded from continuing to be licensed drivers (another debate).
Yer pal,
Satan
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Three months, three weeks, one day, 19 hours, 30 minutes and 2 seconds.
4552 cigarettes not smoked, saving $569.06.
Life saved: 2 weeks, 1 day, 19 hours, 20 minutes.
This increased life expectancy stuff is blown out of proportion. People see extremely low average ages for ancient times and assume that everyone was dying at those ages. Actually, they had extremely high child mortality, which had enormous impact on the average age. Someone who survived past childhood had a very good chance of living to a ripe old age. The Bible says “the days of our lives are 70 years, and if with strength, 80…”, not much less than nowadays.
Is this true? Actually, it is my impression that the onset of adulthood has actually increased over the past century or two, with children delaying taking financial responsibility for themselvesd until their mid 20s. This luxury has not been available until recent generations.
Of course, this financial dependence does not stop teenagers from being quite convinced that their parents are total fools.
Izzy: *Someone who survived past childhood had a very good chance of living to a ripe old age. *
True, although not so true for childbearing women.
*Actually, it is my impression that the onset of adulthood has actually increased over the past century or two, with children delaying taking financial responsibility for themselvesd until their mid 20s. *
Yes, but isn’t adult autonomy now more complete when we do attain it? Aren’t we living more geographically distant from our elders, less likely to follow them into the family business or profession, and so forth?
The answer seems to lie in an understanding of the question. What did young 'uns respect about their elders? Their ability to run the 100 yard dash? Their stunning geriatric good looks? Probably not. The trait which was respected was wisdom. Within wisdom is incorporated the idea of ‘knowing what is right’. In times past, and in generally homogenous societies, the idea of what was ‘right’ was fairly static and widely shared. A process of discovery of what were believed to be truths was gained through experience and learning.
Enter the late twentieth-century, with its independent heterogenous value systems and rejection of generally-accepted truths. Suddenly the elder’s ‘wisdom’ is not something to be sought. Rather, ethical pluralism argues for a self-discovery of one’s own wisdom. The reason there is no respect for elders is because there’s no respect for the elder’s belief systems. In fact, the two may not even be able to relate to each other. What does a gay grandson who’s having relationship problems with his partner have to learn from his grandfather when he asks for advice, when the grandfather is nearly put into cardiac arrest by the description of the grandson’s problems? Probably not much. Ignoring all imprecise generalizations made above, I’d say this goes far in answering the question.
Another thing that probably enters into this deals with how much people move around today, thus undoing some of the familial bonds that have traditionally been so valued in cultures where the extended family lives with or really near the nuclear family. Kids don’t get to visit with grandparents or other relatives nearly as much as they used to, and it’s much more difficult to impart wisdom when you’re trying to get a jist of what’s been going on in the family since you talked 2 weeks ago.
While I agree with the this quote, I point out that the situation changed after that biblical tradition began getting handed down. Jared Diamond points out in Guns, Germs, and Steel that when humans began domesticating animals they also began regular contact with the germs that those animals carried. Some of these germs began evolving into diseases which shorten the life expectancy of adults. This downward trend was only reversed by advancing medical science. Excuding child mortality, lives were much shorter over the last few centuries than here in the 20th.
It is my understanding that childhood ( junior adulthood actually ) was lasting longer because of the increasingly complex skills needed by a full adult.
I am not certain of this however.
I’d like to argue against the “rapid technology” argument. The world has always been changeing. Heck, think of how different life in 1900 was than life in 1800. Distance has made it harder for us to see the subtleties of the the past, but the world has always been a’changeing.
I think the main reason that respect for elders has gone down was the rise of the nuclear family. Before the nuclear family, life was more communal and grandparents were a lively part of the family group. With the nuclear family as the ideal, in-laws are generally unliked and rarely live under the same roofs as their children. Instead of living with Grandma, kids go to see grandma, who is often hundreds of miles away. Nuclear families send young people out to “make their life” without the advice of their elders and take elders away from the position of power they command over the family once they no longer command power at work and other fields.
Here in the Miami-Dade area, we often see TV news reports detailing accidents caused by people drag racing on the streets. Often enough, those accidents involve people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have yet to hear of anyone older than twenty-five engaging in these drag races on the street. I believe but have no cite that the majority of the particpants in these races are under the age of twenty.
As a teenager, I participated in illegal street racing. As an adult, I am aware of just how irresponsible such things are. As a consequence of my increased awareness of responsibility, I pay far less in insurance premiums than any teenage driver you care to mention. Believe me, if people in my age group were poorer risks than teenagers, the insurance industry would reverse their rate policy in a heartbeat.
As to the numbers of “elderly” drivers versus teenage drivers involved in accidents, I will attempt to locate some statistics. But I would be willing to bet a dollar or two that you have the proportions exactly backwards.
Oh, please define “elderly” so we may locate meaningful statistics. “Teenage” is pretty well defined, I think.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Satan *
**As long as the AARP is as powerful a lobbying group as it is, we will have respect for our elders in this society.
Sometimes, to a fault, such as with legislation to curb older drivers whose skills have eroded from continuing to be licensed drivers (another debate).
I haven’t noticed any respect coming my way as a result of anything the AARP has done.
At what age do you suggest I have my license revoked? You might want to consider that I got my first drivers license when I was fourteen years of age and that I am now sixty and have never been involved in a traffic accident. I did pay out a lot of money for traffic tickets, nearly all of which were for speeding. But the last ticket of any sort that I received was at the age of twenty-five or so. That one was for an illegal left turn.
I don't think any of the legislation is meant to revoke a license at a certain age. The ones I've heard about require retesting at some point,which I don't really have a problem with.You say you got your license at 14 , are now sixty and have never had an accident. I can believe that. I also know my grandfather got a license when he was young( probably not when he was 16,don't think cars were too common then) and drove until he was about 80. In all those years, his driving skills were never retested, his hearing was never tested, and his eye examination consisted of a note from his doctor saying his vision was good enough to drive. He finally stopped driving when he hit someone on a motorcycle and injured him badly enough to put him in the hospital for months.Gramps had a stop sign, and went through it because he neither saw nor heard the motorcycle.Was this his first accident? No. Is he no longer driving because his license is revoked? No, still has it at 87. Does he believe it's no longer safe for him to drive? No. He doesn't drive because no one would take him to a dealer to buy a car and he was told not to bother calling if he bought a car and had another accident.
I sure loused up the bolding in my first post. Sorry for that.
Well, doreen, during my career, I have lived in seven states and each time that I have moved, I have had to pass a vision test in order to obtain my new license. My most recent vision test was three years ago, when I moved back to Florida. Had I lived my entire life in one spot, I know that I would not have been re-tested for anything in order to renew my license. That is, IMHO, just plain wrong. I would happily agree with some policy requiring routine testing of both vision and driving ability after a certain age, although I do not know what that age should be. How we would implement such a plan is also unknown. The cost would be horrendous and it would be taxes on younger people that would pay for it, so I suppose it will never come to pass.
My father surrendered his license because of poor vision at eighty, although he had not driven for three years prior to that. I hope that I will have the good sense to surrender mine when I can no longer safely drive.
I would call into question whether this is truly as true as we think. I would point to some cultures in the orient. These still have the high level of technology, but respect towards one’s elders seems to be a very evident trait. Indeed, age is a thing that many look forward too.
But, for all I know this might have changed in the recent years.
So perhaps some of the youth of those particular cultures would be more adapt at answering the validity of this claim of mine.
As for our own culture. If you ask me, I’d say it is the whole deconstructionist theme that seems to have caused it.
Our world is a postmodern world of relativism. All fundamental Truths have been slowly striped away till the only one remaining is, “all truths are equal.” Unfortunately, such a claim pretty much reduces Truth to utter meaninglessness.
There is no external rule that can be appealed to anymore and one is able to act as one pleases so long as it doesn’t infringe upon another’s so called “truth”. We become so busy trying to justify everyone else’s “truth” that we relegate Truth to mere opinion.
From here on out, all sort of concepts like God, Morality, and of course respecting your elders, become “personal beliefs” they no longer have the power they once had. People are afraid to proclaim them as absolutes in a world that no longer accpets absolutes. And of course this leads to those who do… unsavory actions.
Those who would normally be reprimanded in the past are now justified. So long as their actions don’t do any immediate harm, or visible harm, we are ok with it. Infact, if we’re not ok with it, we are often accused of being an unsavory person ourselves. Over time certain rules in the way we act erode. Those that don’t have a direct visible effect (an usually immediate effect as well) are the first to go. Respect, esp. towards the elderly, tends to be one of these. The only morality we really have now is, “it’s ok so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
Of course this is just my opinion. And one still needs to examine how the postmodern culture arose in the first place. Whether it be a throwback of the failed modern one, or something much more subtle such as artistic influences upon society.
Personally, I vote for the art… but that’s just because I don’t like Jasper Jones =)
I guess it could be true for the family farm, come to think of it. I’d be curious to know to what extent this was indeed the case.
It should be borne in mind that due to advances in communication and transportation, we are frequently better in touch with our families around the world than the ancients were with their families in the next town.
2sense:
You might wish to recheck your timelines. Animals were well domesticated in biblical times. Has there been any great move towards increased animal domestication in the last few thousand years? Not that I’m aware of.
even sven:
This is historically false. Actually the opposite effect takes place. When we study history, we study centuries at a time, making change seem far more rapid than it actually was.
While I do indeed show respect for my elders, I also show respect for EVERYONE. I don’t think that just being older automatically makes you special…some older people (not all) think that they have special rights and priviledges and are entitled to treat me like dirt because they are 55+ and I am only 22. THAT is where I draw the line.
You think I’m joking, get a job in retail.
I’ve had people dump on me over rules because I’m “young”, which pisses me off. http://www.customerssuck.com/forums/cgi/dcboard.cgi?az=list&forum=DCForumID3&conf=DCConfID2
The majority of older people I meet are very nice. It’s the few that demand special treatment because they are older are the ones that really get to me.