🚀 go-pugleaf

A hippie movement of the aged.  Hmmm ... I'm not sure but I do like very much
the idea that older people need to speak out more, particularly on issues about
which their views could not be dismissed as merely a statement of their
economic interests.  The aged have always had a considerable moral authority,
almost an aura of wisdom, that persists despite dwindling power in other areas.
Occasionally we hear from an aged public figure (the recent conversations with
David Brinkley come to mind), which prove  almost always to be occasions that
are good "to think with," so to speak.  I fear, though, that we are less likely
to consider the ideas and conversations of those old people we meet during the
course of our daily lives as similarly good to think with.  With age, there
seems to be a flattening of affect, a diminishing of strong emotion, that is
manifest positively as a "mellowing" or, even, as wisdom.  So I return to the
earlier idea, drawn from sociological work on the constructed nature of
emotion, that a fine sense of outrage from an old person need not diminish and,
when it occurs, is almost invariably compelling given the aura of moral
authority that many aged still possess.



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                             J. J. Dowd
                       Department of Sociology
                        University of Georgia
                        Athens, GA 30602-1611
                           (706) 542-2421

          "It is not necessary to hope in order to undertake,
                nor to succeed in order to persevere."
                                            -Pascal
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