Kako bih stekao utisak za koliko vas ovdje će ovo o čemu ću vam govoriti biti od praktične vrijednosti, dozvolite mi da vas zamolim da podigne ruku onaj ko ima više od 65 godina ili se nada da će živjeti više od 65 ili ima roditelje ili baku i djeda koji su živjeli tačno ili više od 65, podignite ruku, molim. (Smijeh)
To give me an idea of how many of you here may find what I'm about to tell you of practical value, let me ask you please to raise your hands: Who here is either over 65 years old or hopes to live past age 65 or has parents or grandparents who did live or have lived past 65, raise your hands please. (Laughter)
Uredu. Vi ste ljudi za koje će moj govor biti od praktične vrijednosti. (Smijeh) Ostatak prisutnih neće vidjeti ličnu povezanost sa mojim govorom ali mislim da će vam ova tema ipak biti fascinantna.
Okay. You are the people to whom my talk will be of practical value. (Laughter) The rest of you won't find my talk personally relevant, but I think that you will still find the subject fascinating.
Govorit ću o starenju u tradicionalnim društvima. Ova tema čini samo jedno poglavlje moje najnovije knjige, koja upoređuje tradicionalna, mala, plemenska društva sa našim velikim, modernim društvima uključujući mnoge teme poput odgajanja djece, starenja, zdravlja, postupanja u slučaju opasnosti rješenja rasprava, religije i poznavanja više od jednog jezika.
I'm going to talk about growing older in traditional societies. This subject constitutes just one chapter of my latest book, which compares traditional, small, tribal societies with our large, modern societies, with respect to many topics such as bringing up children, growing older, health, dealing with danger, settling disputes, religion and speaking more than one language.
Ta plemenska društva, koja su činila sva ljudska društva za većinu ljudske historije, su mnogo različitija nego naša moderna, novija, velika društva. Sva velika društva koja imaju vlade, i gdje se većina ljudi međusobno ne poznaje, neizbježno su slična jedna drugima i različita su od plemenskih društava. Plemena sačinjavaju na hiljade prirodnih eksperimenata o tome kako voditi ljudsko društvo. Oni sačinjavaju eksperimente od kojih mi sami možda možemo dosta da naučimo. Plemenska društva ne bi trebalo podcjenjivati i smatrati primitivnim i jadnim, ali ona također ne bi trebala biti romantizovana i smatrana sretnim i mirnim. Kada učimo o plemenskim običajima, neki od njih nas užasavaju, ali postoje i drugi plemenski običaji kojima se, kad čujemo za njih, divimo i zavidimo na njima i razmišljamo o tome da li bismo mogli takve običaje usvojiti i mi sami.
Those tribal societies, which constituted all human societies for most of human history, are far more diverse than are our modern, recent, big societies. All big societies that have governments, and where most people are strangers to each other, are inevitably similar to each other and different from tribal societies. Tribes constitute thousands of natural experiments in how to run a human society. They constitute experiments from which we ourselves may be able to learn. Tribal societies shouldn't be scorned as primitive and miserable, but also they shouldn't be romanticized as happy and peaceful. When we learn of tribal practices, some of them will horrify us, but there are other tribal practices which, when we hear about them, we may admire and envy and wonder whether we could adopt those practices ourselves.
Većina ljudi u SAD-u završe živeći odvojeno od svoje djece i većine svojih prijatelja iz prijašnjih godina, i oni često žive odvojeno u staračkim domovima, za razliku od tradicionalnih društava gdje stariji ljudi žive svoje živote među njihovom djecom, njihovom ostalom rodbinom, i njihovim doživotnim prijateljima. Ipak, način ophođenja prema starijim osobama uveliko se razlikuje među tradicionalnim društvima, od mnogo goreg do mnogo boljeg nego u modernim društvima.
Most old people in the U.S. end up living separately from their children and from most of their friends of their earlier years, and often they live in separate retirements homes for the elderly, whereas in traditional societies, older people instead live out their lives among their children, their other relatives, and their lifelong friends. Nevertheless, the treatment of the elderly varies enormously among traditional societies, from much worse to much better than in our modern societies.
U najgorem obliku, mnoga tradicionalna društva se rješavaju njihovih starijih na jedan od četiri sve češće direktna načina: zapostavljajući njihove starije i odbijajući da ih hrane i čiste sve dok ne umru ili napuštajući ih kada se grupa odseli ili podstičući starije osobe da izvrše samoubistvo ili ubijajući starije osobe. U kojim plemenskih društvima djeca napuštaju ili ubijaju njihove roditelje? To se uglavnom dešava u jednom od dva slučaja. Jedan pripada nomadskim, lovačko-sakupljačkim društvima koja često pomijeraju svoj kamp i koji su fizički nesposobni da transportuju starije osobe koje ne mogu hodati kada sposobne mlađe osobe već moraju da nose svoju mladu djecu i svu svoju materijalnu imovinu. Drugi slučaj je kada društva žive u marginalnim i promjenjivim okruženjima kao što su Arktik ili pustinje, gdje dolazi do povremenih nestašica hrane, i vrlo često nema dovoljno hrane da održi sve u životu. Sva hrana koja je na raspolaganju mora biti sačuvana za sposobne odrasle osobe i djecu. Za nas Amerikance, zvuči užasno da pomislimo o napuštanju ili ubijanju naše vlastite bolesne žene ili muža ili starije majke ili oca, ali šta bi ova tradicionalna društva mogla da urade drugačije? Oni se nalaze u surovim uslovima gdje nemaju izbora. Njihovi stariji ljudi su to morali uraditi svojim roditeljima i stariji ljudi znaju šta će se sada dogoditi njima.
At the worst extreme, many traditional societies get rid of their elderly in one of four increasingly direct ways: by neglecting their elderly and not feeding or cleaning them until they die, or by abandoning them when the group moves, or by encouraging older people to commit suicide, or by killing older people. In which tribal societies do children abandon or kill their parents? It happens mainly under two conditions. One is in nomadic, hunter-gather societies that often shift camp and that are physically incapable of transporting old people who can't walk when the able-bodied younger people already have to carry their young children and all their physical possessions. The other condition is in societies living in marginal or fluctuating environments, such as the Arctic or deserts, where there are periodic food shortages, and occasionally there just isn't enough food to keep everyone alive. Whatever food is available has to be reserved for able-bodied adults and for children. To us Americans, it sounds horrible to think of abandoning or killing your own sick wife or husband or elderly mother or father, but what could those traditional societies do differently? They face a cruel situation of no choice. Their old people had to do it to their own parents, and the old people know what now is going to happen to them.
Potpuno suprotan ekstrem u ophođenju prema starijim osobama, sretni ekstrem, predstavljaju društva farmera u Novoj Gvineji gdje sam radio terenski posao proteklih 50 godina, kao i većina drugih starosjedilačkih tradicionalnih društava širom svijeta. U tim društima, o starijim ljudima se vodi briga. Nahranjeni su. Zadržavaju vrijednost. I nastavljaju da žive u istim kolibama ili u kolibama blizu onih njihove djece, rođaka i doživotnih prijatelja.
At the opposite extreme in treatment of the elderly, the happy extreme, are the New Guinea farming societies where I've been doing my fieldwork for the past 50 years, and most other sedentary traditional societies around the world. In those societies, older people are cared for. They are fed. They remain valuable. And they continue to live in the same hut or else in a nearby hut near their children, relatives and lifelong friends.
Postoje dvije glavne skupine razloga za ove razlike među društvima u njihovom odnosu prema starijim osobama. Razlika ovisi naročito o korisnosti starijih ljudi i o vrijednostima unutar tog društva.
There are two main sets of reasons for this variation among societies in their treatment of old people. The variation depends especially on the usefulness of old people and on the society's values.
Prvo, kada govorimo o korisnosti, stariji ljudi nastavljaju da izvršavaju korisne dužnosti. Jedna od upotreba starijih ljudi u tradicionalnih društvima jeste ta da su oni često još uvijek efikasni u proizvodnji hrane. Još jedna tradicionalna korist kod starijih ljudi je ta da su u stanju čuvati djecu, svoje unuke, čime oslobađaju svoju odraslu djecu, roditelje tih unuka, kako bi išli u lov i sakupljanje hrane za unuke. Još jedna tradicionalna vrijednost starijih ljudi jeste u pravljenju alata, oružja, košara, posuda i tkanina. Zapravo, oni su uglavnom ljudi koji su u tome najbolji. Stariji ljudi su obično lideri u tradicionalnim društvina i ljudi koji imaju najviše znanja o politici, medicini, religiji, pjesmama i plesovima.
First, as regards usefulness, older people continue to perform useful services. One use of older people in traditional societies is that they often are still effective at producing food. Another traditional usefulness of older people is that they are capable of babysitting their grandchildren, thereby freeing up their own adult children, the parents of those grandchildren, to go hunting and gathering food for the grandchildren. Still another traditional value of older people is in making tools, weapons, baskets, pots and textiles. In fact, they're usually the people who are best at it. Older people usually are the leaders of traditional societies, and the people most knowledgeable about politics, medicine, religion, songs and dances.
Na kraju, stariji ljudi u tradicionalnim društvima imaju ogroman značaj koji nikad ne bi bio prisutan u našim modernim, pismenim društvima, gdje su naši izvori informacija knjige i internet. Sa druge strane, kod tradicionalnih društava koja ne poznaju pisanje, stariji ljudi su skladišta informacija. U njihovom znanju leži razlika između života i smrti za cijelo njihovo društvo u vremenima kriza prouzrokovanih rijetkim događajima za koja su jedino najstariji živi ljudi imali određena iskustva. To su, onda, načini na koje su stariji ljudi korisni u tradicionalnim društvima. Njihova korisnost varira i doprinosi razlikama u odnosu društva prema starijim osobama.
Finally, older people in traditional societies have a huge significance that would never occur to us in our modern, literate societies, where our sources of information are books and the Internet. In contrast, in traditional societies without writing, older people are the repositories of information. It's their knowledge that spells the difference between survival and death for their whole society in a time of crisis caused by rare events for which only the oldest people alive have had experience. Those, then, are the ways in which older people are useful in traditional societies. Their usefulness varies and contributes to variation in the society's treatment of the elderly.
Drugu skupinu razloga za varijacije u ophođenju prema odraslima je u kulturnim vrijednostima društva. Naprimjer, poseban naglasak se stavlja na poštovanje prema starijima u istočnoj Aziji vezano za Konfučijevu doktrinu dječije pobožnosti, što znači poslušnost, poštovanje i podršku za starije roditelje. Kulturne vrijednosti koje naglašavaju poštovanje prema starijim ljudima u suprotnosti su sa niskim statusom starijih osoba u SAD-u. Stariji Amerikanci su izloženi hendikepu prilikom aplikacija za posao. Izloženi su velikom hendikepu u bolnicama. Naše bolnice imaju eksplicitnu politiku koju zovu raspodjelom zdravstvenih resursa na osnovu dobi. Ova zlokoban izraz znači da ako su resursi neke bolnice ograničeni, naprimjer, ako je samo jedno srce spremno za transplantaciju, ili ako hirurg ima vremena da operiše samo određeni broj pacijenata, američke bolnice imaju izričitu politiku kojom se daje prednost mlađim pacijentima nad starijim pacijentima iz razloga što se mlađi pacijenti smatraju vrijednijim za društvo jer imaju mnogo više godina života pred njima, iako mlađi pacijenti imaju manje godina izuzetno vrijednog iskustva iza njih. Postoji nekoliko razloga za ovako nizak status starijih osoba u SAD-u. Jedan od njih je naša protestantska radna etika koja veliki značaj pridaje radu tako da stariji ljudi koji više ne rade nisu poštovani. Drugi razlog je naše američko isticanje vrlina poput samooslanjanja i neovisnosti tako da instinktivno potcjenjujemo starije ljude koji više nemaju vrline samooslanjanja i neovisnosti. Također, treći razlog je naš američki kult mladosti koji se pojavljuje čak i u našim reklamama. Reklame za Coca-Colu i pivo uvijek prikazuju nasmijane mlade ljude iako i stariji poput mlađih ljudi kupuju i piju Coca-Colu i pivo. Jednostavno razmislite, kada ste zadnji put vidjeli reklamu za Colu ili pivo koja prikazuje nasmijane ljude od 85 godina? Nikad. Umjesto toga, jedine američke reklame koje koriste sijede stare ljude su reklame za staračke domove i planiranje penzija.
The other set of reasons for variation in the treatment of the elderly is the society's cultural values. For example, there's particular emphasis on respect for the elderly in East Asia, associated with Confucius' doctrine of filial piety, which means obedience, respect and support for elderly parents. Cultural values that emphasize respect for older people contrast with the low status of the elderly in the U.S. Older Americans are at a big disadvantage in job applications. They're at a big disadvantage in hospitals. Our hospitals have an explicit policy called age-based allocation of healthcare resources. That sinister expression means that if hospital resources are limited, for example if only one donor heart becomes available for transplant, or if a surgeon has time to operate on only a certain number of patients, American hospitals have an explicit policy of giving preference to younger patients over older patients on the grounds that younger patients are considered more valuable to society because they have more years of life ahead of them, even though the younger patients have fewer years of valuable life experience behind them. There are several reasons for this low status of the elderly in the U.S. One is our Protestant work ethic which places high value on work, so older people who are no longer working aren't respected. Another reason is our American emphasis on the virtues of self-reliance and independence, so we instinctively look down on older people who are no longer self-reliant and independent. Still a third reason is our American cult of youth, which shows up even in our advertisements. Ads for Coca-Cola and beer always depict smiling young people, even though old as well as young people buy and drink Coca-Cola and beer. Just think, what's the last time you saw a Coke or beer ad depicting smiling people 85 years old? Never. Instead, the only American ads featuring white-haired old people are ads for retirement homes and pension planning.
Dakle, šta je to promijenilo status starijih ljudi danas u odnosu na njihov status u tradicionalnim društvima? Dogodilo se nekoliko promjena nabolje i mnogo više promjena nagore. Velike promjene nabolje uključuju činjenice da danas uživamo u mnogo dužim životima, mnogo boljem zdravlju u našim starijim godinama i mnogo boljim rekreacionim mogućnostima. Još jedna promjena nabolje jeste to da sada imamo specijalizirane ustanove za penzionere i programe njege za starije ljude. Promjene nagore počinju sa okrutnom stvarnošću da sada imamo više starijih ljudi i manje mlađih ljudi nego ikada u prošlosti. To znači da svi ti stariji ljudi čine veće opterećenje za manji broj mlađih ljudi i da svaka starija osoba ima manji individualni značaj. Još jedna velika promjena nagore u stanju starijih je razbijanje socialnih veza sa godinama starosti jer stariji ljudi, njihova djeca i njihovi prijatelji se svi sele i rasipaju neovisni jedni od drugih mnogo puta u toku njihovih života. Mi Amerikanci se selimo u prosjeku svakih pet godina. Stoga naši stariji ljudi imaju veću šansu da završe živeći daleko od njihove djece i prijatelja iz njihove mladosti. Još jedna promjena nagore u statusu starijih je formalno umirovljenje koje uz sebe nosi i gubitak prijatelja sa posla i gubitak samopouzdanja vezanog uz posao. Vjerovatno najveća promjena nagore jeste ta da su naši stariji ljudi objektivno manje korisni nego u tradicionalnim društvima. Rasprostranjena pismenost znači da oni više nisu korisni kao čuvari znanja. Kada želimo doći do neke informacije, potražimo je u knjizi ili je guglamo umjesto da za to potražimo i pitamo neke starije osobe. Spore tehnološke promjene u tradicionalnim društvima znače da ono što neko nauči kao dijete ostaje korisno i kada ta osoba ostari, ali izuzetno brzi razvoj tehnologije danas znači da ono što naučimo kao djeca više nije korisno nakon 60 godina. I obrnuto, mi stariji nismo vješti u tehnologijama neophodnim za preživljavanje u modernom društvu. Naprimjer, kao 15-togodišnjak, bio sam smatran izuzetno dobrim u množenju brojeva jer sam napamet naučio tablice množenja i znao sam kako da koristim logaritme i bio sam brz u korištenju računaljke. Danas, međutim, te vještine su u potpunosti beskorisne jer bilo koji idiot može pomnožiti osmocifrene brojeve precizno i u trenutku koristeći digitron. S druge strane, ja koji imam 75 godina sam nesposoban u vještinama neophodnim za svakodnevni život. Prvi televizor koja je moja porodica imala 1948. imao je samo tri prekidača koja sam brzo savladao: prekidač za paljenje i gašenje, prekidač za kontrolu zvuka i prekidač za odabir kanala. Danas, samo kako bih gledao program na televizoru u vlastitoj kući, moram da koristim daljinski upravljač sa 41-om tipkom koji u potpunosti porazi. Morao sam telefonirati mojim 25-ogodišnjim sinovima i zamoliti ih da mi pomažu dok pokušavam da pritisnem 41 bijednu tipku.
Well, what has changed in the status of the elderly today compared to their status in traditional societies? There have been a few changes for the better and more changes for the worse. Big changes for the better include the fact that today we enjoy much longer lives, much better health in our old age, and much better recreational opportunities. Another change for the better is that we now have specialized retirement facilities and programs to take care of old people. Changes for the worse begin with the cruel reality that we now have more old people and fewer young people than at any time in the past. That means that all those old people are more of a burden on the few young people, and that each old person has less individual value. Another big change for the worse in the status of the elderly is the breaking of social ties with age, because older people, their children, and their friends, all move and scatter independently of each other many times during their lives. We Americans move on the average every five years. Hence our older people are likely to end up living distant from their children and the friends of their youth. Yet another change for the worse in the status of the elderly is formal retirement from the workforce, carrying with it a loss of work friendships and a loss of the self-esteem associated with work. Perhaps the biggest change for the worse is that our elderly are objectively less useful than in traditional societies. Widespread literacy means that they are no longer useful as repositories of knowledge. When we want some information, we look it up in a book or we Google it instead of finding some old person to ask. The slow pace of technological change in traditional societies means that what someone learns there as a child is still useful when that person is old, but the rapid pace of technological change today means that what we learn as children is no longer useful 60 years later. And conversely, we older people are not fluent in the technologies essential for surviving in modern society. For example, as a 15-year-old, I was considered outstandingly good at multiplying numbers because I had memorized the multiplication tables and I know how to use logarithms and I'm quick at manipulating a slide rule. Today, though, those skills are utterly useless because any idiot can now multiply eight-digit numbers accurately and instantly with a pocket calculator. Conversely, I at age 75 am incompetent at skills essential for everyday life. My family's first TV set in 1948 had only three knobs that I quickly mastered: an on-off switch, a volume knob, and a channel selector knob. Today, just to watch a program on the TV set in my own house, I have to operate a 41-button TV remote that utterly defeats me. I have to telephone my 25-year-old sons and ask them to talk me through it while I try to push those wretched 41 buttons.
Šta možemo učiniti da poboljšamo živote starijih ljudi u SAD-u i da bolje iskoristimo njihovu vrijednost? To je veliki problem. U moje preostale četiri minute danas, mogu ponuditi samo nekoliko prijedloga. Jedna od vrijednosti starijih ljudi jeste da su sve više i više korisni kao djedovi i bake radi pružanja kvalitetne brige o djeci svojim unucima, ako odaberu da to rade, budući da sve više mladih žena ulazi u radni odnos i sve manje roditelja oba spola ostaje kući kako bi brinulo o svojoj djeci. U poređenju sa uobičajenim alternativama plaćenih bejbisiterki i dnevnih centara za djecu, djedovi i bake nude nadmoćniju, motiviraniju i iskusniju brigu o djeci. Oni su već stekli dovoljno iskustva odgajajući vlastitu djecu. Oni obično vole svoje unuke i željni su provesti vrijeme sa nijma. Za razliku od drugih njegovatelja, djedovi i bake ne napuštaju svoj posao jer su pronašli drugi posao sa većom platom za brigu o drugoj bebi. Druga vrijednost starijih ljudi je paradoksalno vezana za njihov gubitak vrijednosti kao ishoda promjenjivih uslova i tehnologija u svijetu. U isto vrijeme, stariji ljudi su dobili na vrijednosti danas konkretno radi njihovih jedinstvenih iskustava življenja u različitim uslovima koja su danas postala rijetka zbog brzih promjena, ali bi se to moglo ponovo dogoditi. Naprimjer, jedino Amerikanci koji su u njihovim 70-tim ili stariji od toga danas se mogu prisjećati iskustva življenja tokom velike depresije, iskustva življenja tokom svjetskog rata i agoniziranja da li bi bacanje atomskih bombi bilo gore ili ne od mogućih posljedica nebacanja istih. Većina današnjih glasača i političara nemaju lična iskustva u bilo kojim od ovih stvari, ali milioni starijih Amerikanaca imaju. Nažalost, sve ove užasne situacije bi se mogle ponovo desiti. Čak i ako se ne dese, mi moramo unaprijed praviti planove za njih na osnovu ranijih iskustava o tome kako su one izgledale. Stariji ljudi imaju to iskustvo. Mlađi ljudi nemaju.
What can we do to improve the lives of the elderly in the U.S., and to make better use of their value? That's a huge problem. In my remaining four minutes today, I can offer just a few suggestions. One value of older people is that they are increasingly useful as grandparents for offering high-quality childcare to their grandchildren, if they choose to do it, as more young women enter the workforce and as fewer young parents of either gender stay home as full-time caretakers of their children. Compared to the usual alternatives of paid babysitters and day care centers, grandparents offer superior, motivated, experienced child care. They've already gained experience from raising their own children. They usually love their grandchildren, and are eager to spend time with them. Unlike other caregivers, grandparents don't quit their job because they found another job with higher pay looking after another baby. A second value of older people is paradoxically related to their loss of value as a result of changing world conditions and technology. At the same time, older people have gained in value today precisely because of their unique experience of living conditions that have now become rare because of rapid change, but that could come back. For example, only Americans now in their 70s or older today can remember the experience of living through a great depression, the experience of living through a world war, and agonizing whether or not dropping atomic bombs would be more horrible than the likely consequences of not dropping atomic bombs. Most of our current voters and politicians have no personal experience of any of those things, but millions of older Americans do. Unfortunately, all of those terrible situations could come back. Even if they don't come back, we have to be able to plan for them on the basis of the experience of what they were like. Older people have that experience. Younger people don't.
Preostala vrijednost starijh ljudi koju ću spomenuti uključuje shvatanje da iako postoji mnogo stvari koje stariji ljudi više ne mogu raditi, postoje i druge stvari koje oni mogu raditi bolje od mlađih ljudi. Izazov za društvo jeste da iskoristi te stvari koje stariji ljudi rade bolje. Neke vještine, naravno, slabe godinama. To uključuje vještine u poslovima koji zahtijevaju fizičku snagu i kondiciju, ambicije i moć rasuđivanja u ograničenim situacijama poput otkrivanja strukture DNK koju je najbolje ostaviti naučnicima u njihovim 30-tim. Sa druge strane, vrijedne osobine koje se povećavaju sa godinama uključuju iskustvo, razumijevanje ljudi i ljudskih odnosa, spremnost na pomoć drugim ljudima bez ometanja od strane vlastitog ega i interdisciplinarno promišljanje o velikim bazama podataka, poput ekonomije i komparativne historije, koju je najbolje ostaviti učenjacima koji imaju preko 60 godina. Prema tome, stariji ljudi su mnogo bolji od mlađih u nadgledanju, upravljanju, savjetovanju, strategisanju, podučavanju, sinteziranju i razvijanju dugoročnih planova. Uočio sam ovu vrijednost starijih ljudi kod mnogo mojih prijatelja u njihovim 60-tim, 70-tim, 80-tim i 90-tim, koji su idalje aktivni kao menadžeri investicija, farmeri, advokati i doktori. Ukratko, mnoga tradicionalna društva bolje koriste svoje starije i pružaju svojim starijim mnogo bolje živote nego što to mi radimo u modernim, velikim društvima.
The remaining value of older people that I'll mention involves recognizing that while there are many things that older people can no longer do, there are other things that they can do better than younger people. A challenge for society is to make use of those things that older people are better at doing. Some abilities, of course, decrease with age. Those include abilities at tasks requiring physical strength and stamina, ambition, and the power of novel reasoning in a circumscribed situation, such as figuring out the structure of DNA, best left to scientists under the age of 30. Conversely, valuable attributes that increase with age include experience, understanding of people and human relationships, ability to help other people without your own ego getting in the way, and interdisciplinary thinking about large databases, such as economics and comparative history, best left to scholars over the age of 60. Hence older people are much better than younger people at supervising, administering, advising, strategizing, teaching, synthesizing, and devising long-term plans. I've seen this value of older people with so many of my friends in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, who are still active as investment managers, farmers, lawyers and doctors. In short, many traditional societies make better use of their elderly and give their elderly more satisfying lives than we do in modern, big societies.
Paradoksalno, u današnjem vremenu, kada imamo mnogo više starijih ljudi nego ikada prije, koji žive zdravijim životima i sa boljom zdravstvenom njegom nego ikada ranije, starija dob je u nekim oblicima mnogo jadnija nego ikada ranije. Životi starijih ljudi su nadaleko poznati kao činioci katastrofalnog područja modernog američkog društva. Zasigurno bismo mogli bolje postupiti učeći iz života starijih ljudi u tradicionalnim društvima. Ono što je tačno kada je riječ o životima starijih ljudi u tradicionalnim društvima tačno je i za mnoge ostale odlike tradicionalnih društava. Naravno, nisam pobornik toga da svi odustanemo od argokulture i željeznog alata i vratimo se lovačko-sakupljačkom načinu života. Postoji mnogo očiglednih aspekata u kojima su današnji životu mnogo sretniji od onih u malim, tradicionalnim društvima. Da spomenem samo nekoliko primjera, naši životi su duži, materijalno bogatiji i manje ugroženi nasiljem nego životi ljudi u tradicionalnim društvima. Međutim, postoje i stvari koje se trebaju cijeniti kod ljudi u tradicionalnim društvima i koje bi vjerovatno trebalo naučiti od njih. Njihovi životi su uglavnom socijalno mnogo bogatiji od naših života, iako su materijalno siromašniji. Njihova djeca imaju više samopouzdanja, više neovisnosti i više socijalnih vještina nego naša djeca. Oni mnogo realnije razmišljaju o opasnostima nego što to mi radimo. Oni gotovo da nikada ne umiru od dijabetesa, srčanih bolesti, infarkta i drugih bolesti koje nisu zarazne a koje će biti uzrokom smrti gotovo svih nas u ovoj sobi danas. Odlikama modernog načina života, predodređeni smo za te bolesti, a odlike tradicionalnog načina života nas od njih štite.
Paradoxically nowadays, when we have more elderly people than ever before, living healthier lives and with better medical care than ever before, old age is in some respects more miserable than ever before. The lives of the elderly are widely recognized as constituting a disaster area of modern American society. We can surely do better by learning from the lives of the elderly in traditional societies. But what's true of the lives of the elderly in traditional societies is true of many other features of traditional societies as well. Of course, I'm not advocating that we all give up agriculture and metal tools and return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. There are many obvious respects in which our lives today are far happier than those in small, traditional societies. To mention just a few examples, our lives are longer, materially much richer, and less plagued by violence than are the lives of people in traditional societies. But there are also things to be admired about people in traditional societies, and perhaps to be learned from them. Their lives are usually socially much richer than our lives, although materially poorer. Their children are more self-confident, more independent, and more socially skilled than are our children. They think more realistically about dangers than we do. They almost never die of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and the other noncommunicable diseases that will be the causes of death of almost all of us in this room today. Features of the modern lifestyle predispose us to those diseases, and features of the traditional lifestyle protect us against them.
To su samo neki od primjera šta možemo da naučimo od tradicionalnih društava. Nadam se da će vam biti fascinantno čitati o tradicionalnim društvima kao što je meni bilo živjeti u njima.
Those are just some examples of what we can learn from traditional societies. I hope that you will find it as fascinating to read about traditional societies as I found it to live in those societies.
Hvala vam.
Thank you.
(Aplauz)
(Applause)