Delphic Maxim 126: Respect the elder
I’ve set myself the challenge of responding to each of the Delphic Maxims for 15 minutes a day.
126. Respect the elder
This maxim is one of those ones that seems on the surface to be obvious — but we live in a time, and a country in particular, where ‘respect for elders’ is way more complicated. Let me explain what I mean.
Respect is a funny verb. At its most basic form, it is a way of conducting ourselves with politeness and care — it is a way of acknowledging the dignity we all have as members of a community. It is an acknowledgement that somebody has value in that community, that we recognise their worth both as a person, but also as someone who has contributed and can contribute to the growth of our collective enterprise.
But it’s funny because sometimes it gets used in place of stronger words like ‘obey’ or ‘comply’, as though it were possible to force people through social obligation to do the bidding of another. It’s a kind of way to use the soft guilt of respect to make someone do something they don’t necessarily want to do. Way back at maxim number 4, I talked about the need to respect your parents, and one of the tricky things about parsing the idea of respect is understanding where the line is between respect (politeness, admiration, reverence, and what we owe to those who know more than us) and obedience (which doesn’t always come out of respect, but instead from authority and compliance).
I think it is important to have respect for our elders. This is an old cultural practice, and in part it comes from the fact that respect is earned across the course of a person’s life. Our elders have the wisdom that comes with age, and more often than not they are prepared to share that wisdom so that younger people can benefit.
Respect is a two-way street though, and there’s a small few who exploit this idea of respect for elders. Those are the people for whom the collapse of our natural environment, or the hugely unequal distribution of wealth across generation, or the political power that accrues to our elders (for a while, until they become very senior and then are ignored), is just part of the normal operation of society. Respect for our elders is premised on the idea that our elders have respect for us — that the learned experience of life teaches people not only humility and good character (the kinds of things these maxims are all about), but also that the goodness of a society depends on the wellbeing and respect paid to everyone.
One of the saddest and most unfortunate things that can happen to a society is that it doesn’t pay sufficient respect to its elders. We all become old one day, and we will all one day be the elders to generations that follow. So the standard of respect that we set in our youth will be the one we should expect to be paid back down the line: respect is reciprocal, as I said before, it’s a two-way street.
But more than just a matter of self-interested quid pro quo, or an investment in our personal future (which would be greedy), I think respect for elders is a way to acknowledge what we can learn from people have seen more of the world and of life. As long as that concern for the good of everyone is reciprocated, which most often it is, the elders of a society can teach and guide us with the practical wisdom that comes from life.
