CR5 Issue 161 Oct 2018

Life Begins
R-E-S-P-E-C-T … is it too much to ask? By Kate McLelland
“All I’m askin’ for is a little
respect.” The words of Aretha
Franklin’s song, first released in
1967, may be about a cheating
boyfriend, but so powerful is
the emotion behind the music
that these days it has become
something of an anthem for
individuals and groups who feel
disrespected by society. If you
were young at the time when
Aretha’s single reached No. 1 in the
charts, and are now in your sixties
or seventies, you may find yourself
wondering where the respect for
old age has gone.
Once upon a time, according to
Pulitzer-prize winning author
Jared Diamond, respecting your
elders and betters was a matter of
survival. During his life-long study
of traditional societies and their
attitudes towards older people,
Diamond – an award-winning
professor from ULCA in America –
has observed that elders who are
no longer able to contribute fully
to community life still command
respect because of their ability
to recall information that is
important to the tribe.
“Older people in traditional
societies have a huge significance
that would never occur to us in
our modern, literate societies,”
Diamond has claimed. “In
traditional societies without
writing, older people are the
repositories of information. It’s
their knowledge that spells the
difference between survival and
death for their whole society.”
That information might include
anything from advice on how to
survive an earthquake, find water
in a drought or cure an unusual
medical condition.
Since the prehistoric times this
remembered knowledge has
been crucial to human progress,
so perhaps it’s no wonder
that the elders who were the
gatekeepers of such wisdom
were granted high status and
respect. Nowadays – in an age of
information overload – it seems
that older voices are neither
heeded nor needed. Sadly, at a
time when healthcare advances
are helping people to live longer
and the world has more wise and
experienced senior citizens than
ever before, older people are
having to fight for the respect
they believe is their due.
Highly industrialised Western
societies are often identified
as the worst offenders when it
comes to disrespecting old age,
but many of the world’s cultures
continue to revere and respect
their older citizens. In China an
“Elderly Rights Law” dictates
the way older people should
be treated, while in East Asia
respect for the elderly, fathers
and ancestors is deeply rooted in
society.
In African and Mediterranean
countries family culture has also
remained strong, but in other
parts of the world there are signs
of change. Harish Mamgain, who
runs a charity in New Delhi, says:
“We should love (our elders) as
dignified and proud travellers. I’m
from India and most of us shower
all reverence on our elders, but
modernity has marred this spirit
here, too.”
According to the Oxford
Dictionaries, respect is “A
feeling of deep admiration for
someone or something elicited
by their abilities, qualities, or
achievements”. But if older
people have lost their status as
advisors, mentors and guardians
of our communal knowledge,
can they demand respect on the
grounds of age and experience
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alone? Twenty-something Lifestyle
blogger Michael Tawiah expresses
the views of many young people
today when he says: “Respect
should be a choice and not a
forced thing ... personally, I’m not
going to respect someone just
because they tell me to. We should
all appreciate and be accepting
and understanding of each other.”
Angie Jardine, a commentator on
the website Soapboxie.com, says
“Modern life has changed out
of all recognition in a very short
time and the memories of my
1950s childhood, for instance, are
now a history of another way of
life; a life that may seem almost
unbelievable to the technologyladen
youth of today.” However,
Angie believes that young people
can still benefit from listening
to the stories of parents and
grandparents: “Would we have
learnt anything about how a
civilised society should be run if
the survivors of two world wars
and, in particular the Holocaust,
had not told their stories to
someone who listened? There is
usually some tantalising nugget of
information in the reminiscences
of old folk from which something
can be learned about the past and
where we came from.”
Today it’s not just warm words of
wisdom that older people bring
to the table. In 2010 the charity
WRVS estimated that over-65s
contributed over £40bn to the UK
economy through taxes, spending
power, volunteering and caring,
and this figure is predicted to
reach £77bn by 2030. 40,000 of
WRVS’ own volunteers are over
sixty-five years old, serving people
in different ways, from offering
trips to hospital to arranging social
activities.
So maybe, if we’re looking for
respect, we simply need to be
more proactive in flagging up the
good things that our caring and
committed older citizens already
contribute to society.