THE ELDERLY IN SOCIETY
A Paper by Carol Davenport
The basis of a talk to the Philosophy & Anthropology Group 17 June 2013
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 In this paper I seek to uncover the value that society places on the elderly, the roles they have & to explore what being in our later years may mean for us. The topic is huge has the potential for deeper exploration of aspects next year if members wish it. This paper is only an introduction.
1.2 My illustrations & quotations are numbered in brackets in the text & sources are listed at the end [p15 & 16] together with a list of appendices [some of the additional material collected in preparing the paper], all of which are available on the group’s web page for 2012-13.
1.3 To illustrate this isn’t a topic only of modern interest; we’ll start with some observations by some ancient worthies:
Take Sappho, a Greek lyric poetess of the 6th century BCE:
In one poem [1] referring to old age, she cites her own experience of ageing & she tells herself that growing old is part of the human condition and there is nothing you can about it. It is set in a mythical context, a popular tale of the goddess Eos who wished her new husband to become immortal. But she forgot to ensure that he stay young forever. It must have been very disappointing that he just grew ever older and feebler: Poem read by Greta Guest
"You for the fragrant-blossomed Muses’ lovely gifts
be zealous, girls, and the clear melodious lyre:
but my once tender body old age now
has seized; my hair’s turned white instead of dark;
my heart’s grown heavy, my knees will not support me,
that once on a time were fleet for the dance as fawns.
This state I oft bemoan; but what’s to do?
Not to grow old, being human, there’s no way.
Tithonus once, the tale was, rose-armed Dawn,
love-smitten, carried off to the world’s end,
handsome and young then, yet in time grey age
o’ertook him, husband of immortal wife."
Socrates [2], [the classical Athenian philosopher born in 4th century BCE] was imprisoned under a death sentence when he was 70. According to his pupil, Xenophon, he thought it was better to die before senility set rather in than to escape execution & one of his intimate acquaintances, Hermogenes records him saying: Read by Tom Brookes
‘And now if my age is still to be prolonged, I know that I cannot escape paying the penalty of old age, in increasing dimness of sight and dullness of hearing. I shall find myself slower to learn new lessons, and apter to forget the lessons I have learnt. And if to these be added the consciousness of failing powers, the sting of self- reproach, what prospect have I of any further joy in living? It may be, you know," he added, "that God out of his great kindness is intervening in my behalf to suffer me to close my life in the ripeness of age, and by the gentlest of deaths….’ [2]
Finally, Seneca, the 1st century Roman Philosopher reflected the Stoic view of the soul as the principle of life & closely related to physical functions as distinct from the differentiation of mind & body in contemporary philosophy. He wrote in his publication: ‘On the Shortness of Life’ [3]
‘It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it ….. Why do we complain about nature? She has acted kindly: life is long if you know how to use it.’
2 EARLY & TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES
2.1 In building a picture of the value & roles of the elderly, I’ll look first at early & traditional societies:
Hunter-Gatherer Types of Human Subsistence
2.2 Archaeological evidence gives us an idea of how long people lived in the Upper Palaeolithic period over 10,000 years ago in the Mediterranean & parts of Eurasia and Africa as Neanderthal man disappears to be replaced by a variety of Homo Sapiens such as Cro-Magnon man. It suggests that half of people died before they were 20 [4] thereafter would survive to 54 years of age. [5]
2.3 With the beginnings of communal hunting fishing, one imagines that if part older members of the group were unable to take full part, would fashion stone tools, some of which were finely worked, & have a role in the earliest forms of ceremonies, dancing, music, the use of masks etc. & in the organisation of society into patterns that were then apparently fairly complex.
2.4 We have some insight into how our ancestors lived for millions of years from the recent book ‘The World until Yesterday’ [6]. Over the last 50 years, Professor Jared Diamond lived worked with highland villagers in Papua New Guinea as well as undertaking studies in other countries & calling on research by other anthropologists.
2.5 Fijian elders often live with their children who even pre-chew food for them if teeth are worn down to the gum line. One Fijian, who had been to the US, was disgusted at the treatment of the elderly; many in care homes, visited only occasionally by their children: ‘you throw away your own parents’. Some traditional societies hold the elderly in even higher esteem than the Fijians, allowing them to tyrannise their grandchildren & prevent sons marrying till in their 40s. Others have even lower status than in the West: starving, abandoning or actually killing them.
2.6 He puts the wide variation down to:
· material aspects of society that make the elderly more or less useful to society & make it feasible for younger members to support them
· & cultural values if handicapped elderly bring whole group into danger e.g.
o nomadic hunter gatherers who must shift camp from time to time & without beast of burden, they have to carry everything on their backs. Adding old people who may be unable to walk is impossible
o in arctic & desert areas where food shortages periodically occur & where food surpluses to carry them through cannot be accumulated. If the society is to be kept fit or alive with adequate food, they must sacrifice their least valuable or productive members.
2.7 From a cold-blooded, adaptive perspective, where old people do remain productive; societies do prosper if they care for the elderly. When men can no longer spear a lion & women cannot trot many miles with a heavy load to & from nut groves, they can continue to obtain food for their grandchildren & help the group by other means e.g.
· some South American hunter gatherers in their 60s concentrate on small animals, fruits, & palm products & help with breaking trail when the group moves camp.
· Men of the Kung of the Kalahari Desert gather plants, set animal traps, interpret tracks on hunts & propose strategies.
· Of the Hadza hunter gatherer women of Tanzania, the age group working hardest are the post-menopausal grand mothers who spend an average of 7 hours a day foraging for tubers & fruit – the more time she spends, the faster her grand children will gain weight. Baby sitting frees up older children & women to forage for them. Making things for the family to use; tools, weapons, baskets, pots & woven textiles.
2.8 This is an area where older members not only hold on to earlier abilities but are likely to excel:
· Traditional midwives & medicine men are often old as are the magicians, priests, prophets, sorcerers, leaders of songs, games, dances & initiation rites.
· Old people enjoy huge social advantages from spending a lifetime of building up a network of relationships into which they can introduce their children.
· Political leaders are usually older – ‘tribal elders’ has become the synonym for ‘tribal leaders’ even in modern state societies.
2.9 If we westerners want to ascertain some fact, we look it up in some written source or online, but pre-literate societies must rely on human memories, hence the minds of older people are the society’s encyclopaedias & libraries. In New Guinea many who can’t answer a question, often say ‘let’s ask the old man or woman’.
2.10 Diamond concludes that how much traditional societies care for their older people & whether they are respected or scorned, depends on how useful they are & on the group’s social values. He steers us away from romanticising the past … sometimes the elderly were regarded with more respect than now & sometimes less. He suggests how we in the West might learn from these studies of traditional societies & I will come back to this later.
More Pre-Literate & Mythical Types of Communities
2.11 One might speculate that, as pre-literate & mythical types of communities increasingly practiced farming & settled into one place, the elderly might gain more respect of the group being able to carry on more work less physically demanding than hunting. They would be able to carry on more work, less physically demanding than nomadic hunting. They would also continue to contribute their experience to the group’s wellbeing.
2.12 In present day rural India we know that one of our group, Paul Schur has experience of working in a small hamlet where subsistence farming is supplemented by cash cropping. Work in the fields is unmechanised & the blacksmith makes & adapts equipment like ploughs. Old people live into their 70s & 80s & remain very active, unless ill & undertake house & farm work. It seems the elderly are still a small proportion of the population. They are respected by the community & seem to be well looked after by their families – even being carried up & down the hills on the backs of their strapping grandsons, should the need arise because other transport is unavailable. They are the responsibility of the eldest son; much of the care falling upon his wife. Daughters become the carers for their husband's parents. If there is no family, there can be considerable problems for the elderly.
2.13 other members, Bryan & Bernice Halson spent much time in Namibia, Africa between 1992 & 2005. The culture was one of the extended family being important, the church a major influence & benefactor, no state welfare but with basic education for all children. Livelihoods were made in farming but needing men to go away to the cities or mines for work; some having been involved in the struggle for independence.
2.14 Grandparents, as part of the extended family, were a mark of stability. The elderly continued working in the fields & making wooden utensils, pots & baskets. AIDS however brought great change to family structure & the roles of the elderly. Initially, they found that AIDS was an issue under wraps & it was openly acknowledged only once almost all families lost many members. Because extra-marital sex was common, mostly both parents died. With grandfathers still mostly working, the role of caring for orphaned children fell to grandmothers; a situation still pertaining today.
2.15 In Ghana [15] one study has suggested that ‘Family is very important in the traditional Ghanaian society … [but] the nuclear family is increasingly gaining importance whereas the influence of the extended family is decreasing. The main role for the elderly has been to function as an advisor in every day matters, as well as in important decisions & caring for grandchildren. This role has changed & ... only when there are important issues are the elderly consulted. The elderly say: ‘The elderly … do not feel that there is .. respect … just because they are old. Instead, respect is given according to achievement …for example, as an elder in church & believe that elderly in Ghana will be even more marginalized in the future’. [Also that] ‘young people have higher status in society than the elderly as a result of education and wage-jobs’ & they ‘are lonely and are alone during long periods’
2.16 Our tutor, Sonia Gregson has told us about the Cretan mountain village from the 1980s. The subsistence farming of sheep, potatoes, olives & orchard fruits was supplemented through seasonal tourism & gift exchange. There, the elderly were given respect within the norms of their socio-cultural status but without sentimentality. For example, the women who bear male children had a high status. There was one ancient, bent widow, Adriani, who, despite being the mother of 2 sons, was still given the task of going uphill to the village spring to redirect the irrigation water to the family’s fields – at 1am in the morning, the most inconvenient time to the men! It seems to me that the old women worked very hard indeed in that community.
2.17 So we can start to appreciate that the value & role of the elderly in traditional societies raises complex issues & questions which may equally apply today in the West.
3 CHANGE FROM FARM LABOURING & COTTAGE INDUSTRY TO MILL & FACTORY WORKING & URBAN LIVING [8]
3.1 When work changed in England from farm labouring & cottage industry with the development of large water-powered mills, this had massive social consequences. Initially mill owners had to go in search of workers for their mills mostly from rural areas where lack of jobs arose largely from mechanisation in farming & there was abject poverty; a parish survey [9] showing whole families in receipt of aid.
3.2 For example, at his remote Cromford Mill in Derbyshire, Arkwright provided housing, a school, shop & church for the workers. At first women operated the spinning machines whilst the men worked the hand looms in the top floor of their homes - did this then mean grandmothers did the housekeeping & childminding for the family?
3.3 John Lane in the Art of Ageing [10] has said