ABSTRACT
It is natural to feel slight disquiet about the physical signs of ageing reflected in the mirror, but this private and often silent unease has become a public preoccupation of governments in most developed countries today. Official pronouncements and the mass media present the rising number of people over the age of 65 not as an achievement but as a critical national problem. It is pessimistically branded population ageing. Lest we believe this is the natural order of things, exploring history sets us right. The characterization of the older members of a community or country (henceforth seniors or the senior cohort) has not always been negative. The public image of ageing and of the senior generation varies across historical periods in every culture. For the classical image of seniors in Western civilization we may refer to the Roman philosopher Cicero (106-43 BC) who saw as his main goal ‘to transmit Greek ideas to Roman thought’ emphasizing that ‘the principles of right and justice are eternal’ (Gettell, 1932: 75-6). Cicero’s work plan was ‘to set forth a theory of the perfect state’ (Sabine, 1939:162) following the foundations set by Aristotle. With this in mind, in his treatise De Senectute Cicero emphasized ‘wisdom and respect as the dues of old age’ and it appears that his is the earliest recorded discussion of the social role of seniors (Taunton, 2006: 21-22) in Western philosophical thought. Interestingly, the same respectful depiction of the senior generation and filial piety were promoted some centuries earlier by Confucius (551-479 BC) as part of the basic principles of Chinese thought.
