On Killing Our Elders

No traditional community has ever existed without an internal community of elders. In fact, we modern Westerners may be the first people in history to attempt to flourish without such a community. We place the elderly in ‘homes’ to be cared for—and increasingly, it has been discovered, abused—by foreign arrivals dressed up as healthcare professionals. The ethic of the ‘self-discovering individual’ leaves no room for elders, who are increasingly discussed as either a potential or a real burden, especially by those who are themselves entering that time of life which would have, in a traditional society, placed them among the elders.