Aging Thoughtfully by Martha C. Nussbaum

Author:Martha C. Nussbaum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2017-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Looking Back

WE WANT TO learn from experience, but what is gained from regret, and how serious is the danger of living in, or being captured by, the past? In contrast, what is wrong with living in the moment? How is disgust connected to age discrimination? How should we think about retirement communities that seem hedonistic to outsiders and are often segregated, and not just by age?

Living the Past Forward

THE PRESENT AND FUTURE VALUE OF BACKWARD-LOOKING EMOTIONS

Martha

They live by memory rather than by hope; for what is left to them of life is but little as compared with the long past; and hope is of the future, memory of the past. This, again, is the cause of their loquacity; they are continually talking of the past, because they enjoy remembering it.

—ARISTOTLE, RHETORIC, II.12, ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ELDERLY

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