As with so much contemporary legislation, the law is only seeking to fill a gap left by the vacuum in custom and manners. When we see a warning notice at a toll booth, a check-in desk, or even on a bus, saying that employees are entitled to carry out their work without being threatened by violence or verbal abuse; or when there is a sign at a post office informing customers that they must switch off their mobile telephones while speaking to the person serving them – this is the law is trying to teach manners and respect.
We should not have to be told that it is rude to conduct a phone conversation while dealing with the person behind a counter; or that it is unacceptable to swear or verbally abuse a bus driver or someone otherwise serving the public. But where manners and custom fail, the law now tries to step in. Yet the law is often blunt, and impersonal, and works with a sledgehammer effect, so that all are subjected equally, when a fine discrimination is sometimes judicious.
In the matter of age and ageing, what many older people appreciate is a sense of acknowledgement that they have lived a little, and in that living have often garnered interesting and helpful experience. They do not want to be dismissed, just because they are less attuned to a more raucous age of instant data, or because their physical powers or appearance aren't quite what they used to be.
It is nice when younger people are kind and show some respect – and many younger people can be kind and even respectful: in America, younger folk have a gratifying attitude towards seniors who have "paid their dues" and have thus earned a certain "entitlement" to be heard. It is pleasant not to be patronised and regarded as a dithering old biddy. Such social adjustments might be positive outcomes of anti-ageist attitudes.
Full article at Telegraph.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment