Since ancient times, man has always wanted to live longer and better, without accepting the changes that time and age are having on their health both physically and emotionally lead to aging, and death. Diseases, illnesses, losses are processes difficult to accept in today’s culture that wants to live an eternal youth.
Different age groups are distributed life-cycle periods are not watertight compartments that have remained entrenched throughout history and among different civilizations and cultures. Rather, they have been great elasticity, surrounding himself with powers and segments according to the circumstances and interests of each type of social organization and at any given time.
Each historical period for each age has had a meaning and a certain requirements. For example, the prototypical values of youth, traditionally taken as a mere transit or learning for subsequent adult life, end up becoming an independent value, capable of prestige with his own imprint “as a kind of new King Midas – the rest of the ages. And in the opposite way, old age, previously considered as a source of prestige and wisdom, is stigmatized in their specific traditional values, oriented the same way by this mark of collective civilization. A determining factor in this process has been to increase the longevity or life expectancy, and their qualitative conditions, leading to a lengthening of their youth. (more…)
