Longevity: The True Wealth Of Nations with Theodore Roszak, Ph.D.

Program Description

Centenarians are the fastest-growing age group in the industrial world, and the founding members of history’s first senior-dominant society.  Rather than seeing the aging population as a burden on society, Theodore Roszak views it as a precious spiritual resource.  The same generation that invoked massive social change in the 1960s will soon have the leisure time to apply that same “passion that people had for justice and goodness in their youth,” tempered with maturity and wisdom, to “achieve that good society they wanted.”  Roszak foresees the day when the social Darwinism that applauds the survival of the fittest will give way to a “very different kind of social ethic that says we value the survival of the gentlest, because they indeed make our life worth living.”  (Hosted by Michael Toms)

BIO

Roszak (1933-2011) was the author of numerous books including:

• The Voice of the Earth (Simon & Schuster 1992)
• Ecopsychology (Sierra Club 1995)
• America the Wise, Longevity and the Culture of Compassion (Houghton-Mifflin 1998)

Topics Explored in this Dialogue:

• Wisdom vs. information overload
• How Medicare has changed the face of society
• The inexplicable phenomenon of the baby boomer generation
• What’s happening to the media’s fixation on youth and beauty
• How a medical crisis can be a rite of passage
• The future of Western philosophy
• Why our society is beginning to leave social Darwinism behind
• The task of becoming a responsible elder
• Why today’s elders have the power to make enormous change

Host: Michael Toms               Interview Date: 6/17/1998              Program Number: 2729