Date of event: Tue Nov 17 2009, 6 p.m.

Pulitzer-prize winning author Jared Diamond will speak on the Vancouver campus.

Treatment of older people by traditional societies: Lessons and warnings for us today

Abstract:

Our treatment of the elderly is widely acknowledged as a disaster area of modern American society. Traditional solutions in small-scale hunter/gatherer and farming societies ranged from much happier (old people living with children and relatives, remaining useful, and maintaining lifelong friendships) to much worse (abandonment or killing) than our solutions. Much of this variation can be understood from each society’s economic roles and societal values. Can we learn anything useful to us from this knowledge of how traditional societies treated their elderly?