Pre-industrial societies considered the elderly as the repositories of wisdom. They were a valuable and valued resource for the community, since they had seen everything before and knew how situations that could be presented again had been overcome. In societies characterized by large ramified families of different ages, the old had vital functions, not only as repositories of popular experience and knowledge, but as teachers of the youngest and keepers of cattle.
Cultural prejudices towards the elderly
In many current societies, families are smaller, their range of activities has been reduced and jobs are more specialized. Money has supplanted dexterity, and general functions are in the hands of specialists. In societies that have made youth an obsession, the elderly find themselves increasingly denied the ordinary dignities and privileges they deserve as equal human beings. In the East, life and death are considered a part of the total cycle of life and, thus, the older a person is, the more wisdom is attributed to them. In the West, attitudes are different. Especially since the 1960s, the tendency has been to underestimate the experience, to question the professional or political authority of the elderly and to overestimate youth.
Although there are undeniable physical changes that occur when aging, such as gray hair, wrinkles and muscle weakness. Old age is a role imposed by a convention that assumes that "the old" are achacosos, uneducable, useless, asexual and dependent. All these assumptions depend on the elders representing the role expected of them. People, too often, think that retirement from work and withdraw from life are the same thing and treat others, as well as himself, according to this criterion. But it has been shown that many of the alleged disadvantages of old age are imaginary or that they arise from the expectation that this will happen.
