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A. Stanley Dreyfus
“Ouo in genere est in primis senectus, quam ut adipiscantur omnes optant, eandem accusant adepti.”” —Cicero , De Senectute 11
he patrons of the New York subway system are
regularly admonished to refrain from chatting with
strangers, to avoid eye contact with other passengers, to safeguard their valuables from prying fingers, and to show consideration for the overburdened, the elderly, and the handicapped by not taking seats in areas reserved for their exclusive use. This last appeal, unfortunately, is generally ignored; few of the fit are willing to diminish their own comfort to accommodate a mother trying to corral her frisky brood or an aged person desperately clutching a brace of packages and an overhead strap as the train hurtles into a sharp curve. And yet, on several recent occasions(I being encumbered with bundles), young people, young women—mind you—rose to offer me a seat. For that favor I was much taken aback, because I had not supposed that I appeared incapable of maintaining my balance, however violently the train pitched.
At the same time, I marvel that in our society, with its empty
| Synagogues and churches, with its schools acknowledging very little
Success in teaching the rudimentary techniques for which they were commissioned, much less the abstract virtue of civility, some still defer to the aged and the incapacitated even in the subway, where
. Stampeding for a seat has become the normal gait. If not in school or
church, whence are these refinements of conduct
NT————————————————— From birth on, all hope to live till old age; but when they finally reach it they curse the | Very thing they had so long hoped for.