Aging 2000: A Challenge for Society

For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Morituri Salutamus We live in a society that remorselessly casts off those who are too weak, mentally or physically, to cling to the dizzy wheel of existence - a society that worships the idols of beauty, youth, and wealth whilst ruthlessly rejecting those who fall outside its narrow standards of acceptability, or exploitability. The elderly are the latest victims of an artificial life-style that tends to create artificial problems. In this respect, we have much to learn from those primitive communities that continue to revere their elders for the wisdom they have acquired in the school of life, and which have yet to make the dubious progression to a civilization that dismisses its senior members as senile old fools or a burden on taxpayers funds. It is vital to warn developing countries of the dangers of duplicating the errors of the industrial world - of which they see only the superficial trappings that mask the iceberg of disillusionment beneath.