We Don't Need Another Elder

Took this from my blog. Would love to have a conversation about it:

We Don’t Need Another Elder

One of the elements of culture commonly discussed in rewilding involves this notion of “elders,” specifically their purpose in an indigenous context. The concept of elders has not evaded civilized cultures entirely (the word originating through Christianity) though the “elders” in civilization teach a very different structure than those of indigenous peoples.

To call an elder simply an old person with wisdom, does little justice to what elders actually do. “Wisdom” varies from world view to world view. In a world based on direct experiences in a particular landbase, elders would have the most time spent observing that land through their years. It makes sense that they would hold the key to cultural transmission. Elders occur more organically from that kind of system. They do not force their knowledge or perception of the land on people younger than them. The younger people merely realize these older people can give them insights into how to live on that particular piece of land, in that particular way. In a way of life that continually destroys its landbase, we can rest assured that the “elders” have no land-based wisdom.

In rewilding, often we hear that we need elders; that elders help keep their communities intact. We know that a tactic of white civilizationists, used to assimilate Native Americans involved removing the young from their elders. So an elder from a natives perspective, does not look like someone with generic “wisdom,” but someone with a special kind of wisdom that relates to living closely with their particular landbase.

Noticing that some elderly people in civilization do not have special, landbase wise qualities, and do not act as keepers of a sustainable culture, people have made the distinction between these civilized “Olders” and native “Elders.”

I find it funny when older people use the phrase, “You act childish.” Children have a nature of their own for sure, but mostly they mimic the adults and culture around them. So they act out how they see their parents act. They reenact their parents. Therefore, children don’t act childish, they act adultish. And as children have proved… most adults seem to act like crazy, controlling assholes.

What happens when you take a bunch of crazy, controlling asshole-olders and tell them they need to live as elders? All hell breaks loose. I have noticed that within a culture based on domination it seems all too easy to simply project domination onto an egalitarian system and call it egalitarian. Without fully articulating an elder’s social position, we see a bunch of olders who now think of themselves as elders. I only know one word to describe such a person; a fraud.

I see olders adultishly attempt to market themselves as elders the way nerdy children in middle school flounder while trying to act “cool” (myself included there). Rather than have comfort with themselves, olders want to have something they don’t. They can fake it for a while, but in the end it will bite them in the ass, when the younger people realize they have been deceived by the olders and take their friendship away, leaving the older worse off than before. Rich, childless olders seem the like the worst of this batch. They can’t even hold a conversation with someone younger than them without pointing out their age, as if positioning themselves into a place of power. And there you have it. To olders, people within a domination-based civilization, an elder looks to them like someone in a position of power. Power the older never had. And when young people buy into that… The results look disastrous, let me tell you!

I have seen no one project this hierarchical version of elders as much as the Wilderness Awareness School and its creator Jon Young, who constantly refers to elders as “the over 50 crowd,” as though the age of 50 signifies something. Perhaps in the cultures he’s studied with, but it does not apply to civilization’s olders… at all. His Art of Mentoring has produced many vampiric olders who seek nothing but power. The kind of advice they give you? “Get a job.” I find this laughable, until they start trying to suck my blood!

Both olders and elders remain defined through age. Ageism, prejudice based on age (both towards old and young alike), works as one of the most common and invisible prejudices within civilization. I can’t tell you how many times someone has told said to me, “You have wisdom beyond your years,” and, “You act so wise for your age,” and the worst, “You must have an old soul.”

Age does not dictate experience. Experience dictates experience. Age relates to experiences since the more you age, the more experiences you have. However, the kinds of experiences you have determine what you know, how you know, what you have learned from certain experiences. Experience foundations wisdom, not age. Age relates to wisdom only as far as the number of possible experiences.

You can see the blatant ageism when I change these common “compliments” a little:

“You act wise for having black skin.” “You must have a white soul.”

It seems like older people feel entitled to praise & respect from youth, despite their potential lack of experiences or wisdom over the youth. I feel both terms olders and elders inadequately translate within civilizations hierarchical structures and I think we need a new word to more accurately describe what function an elder serves.

If experience foundations wisdom, and indigenous cultures worked well at regulating experiences through yearly rituals, it makes sense that they would have a group of people who had reached a certain age and had gone through all of the same rituals and rites and shared similar experiences that the youth had not yet undergone. The group we refer to as elders became members of that group not because they aged, but because they went through similar rituals together on a particular piece of land and then led those rituals for the younger people.

If we understand that an elder means someone who has gone through many rites and rituals, and has had experiences that we know we will have one day, it makes sense that they would know and feel things beyond our recognition. Since civilization has such a vastness of (or more accurately lack of) experiences and a complete disconnection from the land and from the self, we cannot produce elders the way indigenous cultures did. It means that elders happens organically as cultures get more specific and congeal on a particular piece of land.

If we see how age creates an elder in this kind of indigenous culture, and how age relates to power within civilization, we can easily see how a civilized person would project their world view onto another’s. The term elder does not allude to an unarticulated hierarchical structure, with which elders sit atop. If elders get some sort of special treatment, in involves their dependency on the younger. I don’t get an elder a plate of food because they have a special status in a hierarchy, but because they have trouble walking. It almost seems as if their powerlessness in physicality has given them power in sociality and/or spirituality. This leads to another quality of an elder; humility. It seems that elders carry humility, both because of years of nature tricking them and also because, like children, they require help from people younger and healthier than they.

The age of seeking elders ended for me a few years ago after receiving many burns from olders. If the term elder refers to someone with humility that has gone through experiences I want to go through, who has rewilded in my particular bioregion and has wisdom of living in it over a long period of time, well… none exist. Bits and pieces of wisdom exist here and there in different people and in books. I use those to create my future. Perhaps someday we’ll have elders again, but it will probably just happen without anyone noticing the change. I think the key to having a successful culture does not involve mimicking what we see natives doing, but truly understanding how their cultures functioned. A highly-functional culture produces elders who than teach the young how to have a highly-functional culture. In a world without elders, I don’t think rewilding humans need not try to act like them or fill in their social position. I think we need to learn how to live off the land. Those who experiment living with the land, regardless of their age reveal the people that I have something to learn from. And when these people have aged with the land and have much knowledge and experience, if they have young people who want to know how to follow in their footsteps, and these young people help the older person get food because they no longer can get it themselves, we’ll know we’ve got an elder.

Maybe we tend to expect too much from elders. They’re just people. I have been lucky to know a few people that I would call “elders”. Most of them have knowlege and experience and are truly gifted in certain areas. For some of them the rest of their life is a train wreck.
It really doesn’t diminish the beauty of their gifts.

Many times I hear people talk about a person with gifts and say well if they’re so great how come they’ve had four wives or how come they’re an alcoholic or how come their kids in a gang or in jail or whatever. Because they’re human beings just like the rest of us. But the gift that they have to offer is still beautiful and real.

The hollywood version of elders is like they’re some enlightened being or something. Like Christ. The elders I have been fortunate to work with are amazing people but they’re people just like the rest of us. They have all kinds of problems and shit they don’t know how to fix. They expect they’re knowlege, experience and gifts to be treated with respect if you want any of it but the last thing they want is to be put up on anybodies pedestal.

For me I feel like people who are old deserve respect just because they are old. I don’t have to respect what they do or do whatever they say, but I will give them respect as an older person.
There is a man I know in S. Dakota. We go there every summer and he is always someone I see there. He talks and talks around in circles a lot, sometimes I listen to him for an hour or more and I start to wonder how I can get away without seeming rude. Then out of the blue he’ll say one sentence that just ties it all together in a clear picture. Then I know what I was waiting for. I’ve gotten used to it now and I kind of look forward to my visits with him.

I read this forum every day. I think I have read most of what’s been posted here now. I struggle with a lot of it. Some of it I simply don’t understand. Some of it pisses me right off. I have many things I would like to say but I don’t know how to put them into words. Some of my past attempts were too loaded and consequently weren’t received well.

I have been “rewilding” for a long time. But I didn’t call it that. I’m not at the same place with it as many of you. I’m not an elder. I’m just somebody who has seen and done a lot of things.
I would like to be able to pass on some of what I have experienced.

Maybe we tend to expect too much from elders. They're just people. I have been lucky to know a few people that I would call "elders". Most of them have knowlege and experience and are truly gifted in certain areas. For some of them the rest of their life is a train wreck. It really doesn't diminish the beauty of their gifts.

I’m saying that we don’t have people who function the way elders do. If we don’t have a culture of rewilding, than we don’t have elders.

We have mentors, sure. People skilled at something, but I think people in our culture conflate older mentors as elders. I don’t think of them as such.

but the last thing they want is to be put up on anybodies pedestal.

Exactly. At an Elder workshop I went to a few years ago, taught by a Native (Paul Rapheal) he said that any real elder would never call themselves one.

That’s what I mean here. A real elder doesn’t advertise themselves as one. Olders who do, probably do it because they feel powerless.

I feel like people who are old deserve respect just because they are old.

I disagree. People who respect others get my respect. If an older does not respect me, or desires an abusive relationship because they feel powerless, they lose my respect.

I don’t respect anyone just because they are (insert whatever here; white, a man, an elder)

I respect people who respect me.

There is a man I know in S. Dakota. We go there every summer and he is always someone I see there. He talks and talks around in circles a lot, sometimes I listen to him for an hour or more and I start to wonder how I can get away without seeming rude. Then out of the blue he'll say one sentence that just ties it all together in a clear picture. Then I know what I was waiting for. I've gotten used to it now and I kind of look forward to my visits with him.

That is awesome! I love that story. My grandpa is like that too. I love waiting to make a connection; “Oh, that’s why my dad always says that!”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. WE are the potential elders. We need to identify what an elder an elder exists in and what an elder does, not so that we can find them, but so that we can become them.

US said, “I’m saying that we don’t have people who function the way elders do. If we don’t have a culture of rewilding, than we don’t have elders.”

OK, so what is your picture of how elders function? Is it possible that they are there but they don’t live up to your expectations, so you are not recognizing them?

US said, “A real elder doesn’t advertise themselves as one. Olders who do, probably do it because they feel powerless.”

I hear ya. In fact I was going to say something to that affect but somehow didn’t include it. However, in my experience, elders don’t shy away from that role when called upon either.

As far as respect for a person just because they are old, really everyone deserves it in my opinion. When someone really offends me it’s very hard to give them respect, but I have to remember that if I had lived their life I would understand why they are the way they are, but I haven’t so I must allow them a little room. I don’t respect their actions or attitude just their humanity. Just my way of looking at it, not a point I’m prepared to argue.

I’m glad you could relate to the story about my friend in S. Dakota.

Andrew, good point. Many of the elders I know are saying this same thing. They are tired and sick and old and they would like to know there are people who can take over. Many of them will leave a big space to fill when they go.

PS. I’m thinking more about this. I have seen a lot of situations where there are people with beautiful gifts to share but nobody around them recognizes it. More than once I’ve been directed to talk to someone and when I get there one of their neighbors or even their kids says “Why do want to talk to that crazy old bastard?” or “You don’t know what an asshole he is.” Like Urban Scout said, real elders don’t advertize. So if we don’t recognize them, then they pass away without passing on their gifts.

I have also seen that sometimes a person recieves a gift because life has broken them down to the point that they can be receptive. So these elders may not appear like the shamans in Disney movies or ascended masters or something.

OK, there’s a subtle difference between calling it like you see it and being an ass. Tony, sometimes you drift into the second. It’s all right, we all do it, but I think all that’s being asked of you here is that you identify that line (hint, it’s somewhere before calling people scenester’s based on haircuts) and try to stay on the useful side of it.

OH I know, sometimes being an asshole is useful, and that’s a point you’re trying to make. And sometimes being a hypocrite is useful, which Peter taught me. And really, if you are honest and not putting up a front, both are going to be unavoidable. But Tony, there’s no need to lecture us on it. We know, and from what I’ve seen, Scout has the skill of useful asshole mastered.

I’d like to get back to this topic of elders. I think that this difficulty with the elder concept is a good example of the differences between mainstream and other cultures and how mainstream thinking and learning processes differ from more “wild” ways.

I can only relate my own experiences. I have been around “elders” a fair bit.
An elder can’t really function as an elder for people who don’t regard them as elders and treat them that way.
Learning from an elder has similarities to learning from the natural world.

If you are going into the woods to learn from nature you don’t go armed with your own opinions and preconcieved notions. You don’t get to express your ideas and say how you think things could be done better. You can try but it won’t go anywhere and more than likely it will get in the way of you being able to get much out of the experience. In fact you don’t really get to ask any questions either. What you can do is be quiet and pay attention.

It’s a totally different way than what we have been brought up with. In school we expect to be taught. We are taught how to understand. We are expected to ask questions, get clarification, to make sure we have it “right”.
We are encouraged to challenge, and debate.

In Nature you would not necessarily understand what you are experiencing you would have to be willing to devote time, and watch and pay attention. Your understanding may evolve over time, the more time you spend with it and as your experience gets broader and more varied.

In Nature you have to demonstrate a commitment and dedication to the learning process. Very little gets handed to you as a complete picture that you can immediately understand. It takes repeated and ongoing experience till it becomes part of your life to understand it.

My experience with elders and other cultures has been like this.

I have an Uncle who is an Elder. Years ago a friend of ours went to him and said he wanted to learn from him. He wanted to know what my Uncle knows.
Uncle said he couldn’t teach him anything. If he was willing to be his helper, do what he was told, be quiet and pay attention he was welcome to whatever he could get from that experience. So he did it for four years. He cut wood, tended fires, drove Uncle all over the country. He was a server. Like an apprenticeship.

I don’t mean to hijack this discussion. If I’ve taken it off on a tangent, go ahead and move it somewhere else or delete it if you want to.

heyvictor-

I don't mean to hijack this discussion. If I've taken it off on a tangent, go ahead and move it somewhere else or delete it if you want to.
quite the opposite! i sidetracked the conversation. please keep the discussion going. thanks.

I’ve had both kinds of elders, the sweet, perfect, Papa Smurf-types (literally, we called him Papa Smurf), and the shitty angry, listless types who would smack you if this was the fifties.

I need an elder because the REwilding stuff is second nature to me, I want to know how to pass it one, I want to know how to be a more effective leader, and having long been past ‘researching edible plants in my area’, I’m ready for a teacher, someone to show me what works and doesn’t work when it comes to people.

I think as a child grows up, you get the skills, that is why so many cultures are ready to call their ‘children’ ‘adults’ by puberty. When adults need elders, it’s to deal with the emotional and spiritual aspects of life. I think that is why rituals of passage are done in the puberty years, so that they can be dealt with as adults, and not ‘adolescents’ (what an ungly word!)

There are lots of great men and women in the Boy Scouts, who taught me a lot of things. I was also removed from my Catholic Boy Scout troop for bringing books on wicca, dream interpretation, and herbal healing.

I know how hard it is to love people that reserve their judgement.

If you are going into the woods to learn from nature you don't go armed with your own opinions and preconcieved notions. You don't get to express your ideas and say how you think things could be done better. You can try but it won't go anywhere and more than likely it will get in the way of you being able to get much out of the experience. In fact you don't really get to ask any questions either. What you can do is be quiet and pay attention.

had I elders like Victor, growing up, I would be as much of a mess as I am.

Many people have told me I’m the only adult(man) they know. I think this is because we are expected to look up to our parents and our teachers, and people we don’t have interaction with, like mythological and famous people.

I look and act like what I was taught a man could be. I have friends that are for the most part, really fucked up, with serious parent issues. But I don’t have that ongoing master-student conversation, like say, Will Riker and Jean-Luc Picard have.

I’m at a point where I have so many people leaning on this one gleam I got of adulthood, that I feel sick from exhaustion. I’ve had to let people down and break bonds because I couldn’t handle their needs.

I think we need to forgive ourselves, and each other, because this life stuff is actually way more serious than our abstractness can handle.

It takes maturity, seeing this stuff one hundred thousand times, before you can be yourself while being there for someone. The temptation for a young person to give another person who is hurting what they want or need is too strong.

I firmly believe in helping people help themselves, and I have had to really hurt people by letting them go. I just did it, to someone who told me I was the only man she knew, and that is why these things are so fresh on my tongue. She needed someone to tell the truth to, but after she got my trust, she started lying again. She hates her life that much, that even her confidences have become void of truth. I want to be there for her, but I’m not equipeed, and goddamnit I’m mad as hell for not having the equipment. I wish there was a middle group of people, between the young and the wise, who were useful as both, expected to be adult, but not expected to be all-wise.

I can blame part of that on people who didn’t understand herbal healing and dream interpretation, but I have to blame the rest of it on taking on more than I can handle. I know that I can handle some things, like giving old friends hope, or helping a friend turn around her drinking problem, but I have yet be able to develop a penetrating wisdom that transforms those who are most stuck in life. Does that exist? I had a few good people help me deal with my jordaches and spauldings while all the other kids had nike and starter jackets.

I’m realizing this as I type, that perhaps we need different elders, that it’s impossible for any one person to help everyone with every single problem. But you can’t sit down and write it out like it was a game, or an ethnography.

IN Terre Haute, we have a couple that are our friends, Bill and Janice. They aren’t particularly wise, or amazing, and are often more amazed at us crazy kids than anything. But as I think about it, it’s just comforting to know Bill and Janice, for who they are, have made it this far, have raised an awesome man who is my friend, and that life is okay, and still worth living. It’s good and comforting just to be in their presence, and have them listen to your stories. One thing they do that is amazing, that is listen, and they listen so much, that they are able to have entire conversations on how what you just said, which might be totally new to them, perfectly relates to so and so and this idea they had or thing they did.

I’m so glad I typed this, because I so deeply appreciate Bill and Janice now. It’s not that they were special, or did anything but earn our trust. They maintain the web of human life, they know what other people know. They don’t ‘know’ what they know, but they know that others do in fact know such things.

I think this is a critical criteria in being an elder, what do the rest of you think?

Brilliant posts here, Urban Scout!

[quote=“Urban Scout, post:1, topic:481”]Both olders and elders remain defined through age. Ageism, prejudice based on age (both towards old and young alike), works as one of the most common and invisible prejudices within civilization. I can’t tell you how many times someone has told said to me, “You have wisdom beyond your years,” and, “You act so wise for your age,” and the worst, “You must have an old soul.”

Age does not dictate experience. Experience dictates experience. Age relates to experiences since the more you age, the more experiences you have. However, the kinds of experiences you have determine what you know, how you know, what you have learned from certain experiences. Experience foundations wisdom, not age. Age relates to wisdom only as far as the number of possible experiences.

You can see the blatant ageism when I change these common “compliments” a little:

“You act wise for having black skin.” “You must have a white soul.”[/quote]

^Especially brilliant! Thanks for posting on this thread and making it.

Since I have a couple ideas in mind I’ll try to add a something of my own in the future but now I’ve got some other thing I desire to attend.

Later and thanks again.

he he he he he ;D :slight_smile:

From what I understand of the concept of an elder, it is someone who has has lived and experienced a certain way of life which we are trying to preserve, maintain, or save because it is being threatened by an outside, foreign force. In this case, there are no elders of the “rewilding” culture in the present day scenario, because it’s just that, REwilding, it hasn’t been done yet to the extent that there is a (tribe, village, culture, society) built around it, and gathered together as one. For there to be an elder in the equation, this lifestyle would have had to be experienced and maintained one’s entire lifetime, and there would have to be a “tribe” of others who are living the same way and wanting to maintain that way of life.

So, sure, there are “elders” in today’s society, but they are not our elders, they are the elders of the modern day society, and people who want to maintain this lifestyle, and culture. That is not us. We want to ReWild this culture, or just to rewild ourselves. But it’s hard to know how to do it, because we don’t have something to relate it to, we have to make it up as we go along.

We have no elders because we are trying to move away and live outside this modern society. One reason why it’s so hard for us to have an elder is because we do not yet have a rewilded (tribe, family, village, etc… you get my point). As more and more people get involved in this movement, and find their own tribes, then the development of “elders” will begin again.

Ooppps! I gotta go eat lunch with a friend, so I will write more later! eek! Interupted my train of thought…

-emily

[quote=“TonyZ, post:9, topic:481”]I’ve had both kinds of elders, the sweet, perfect, Papa Smurf-types (literally, we called him Papa Smurf), and the shitty angry, listless types who would smack you if this was the fifties.

I need an elder because the REwilding stuff is second nature to me, I want to know how to pass it one, I want to know how to be a more effective leader, and having long been past ‘researching edible plants in my area’, I’m ready for a teacher, someone to show me what works and doesn’t work when it comes to people.

I think as a child grows up, you get the skills, that is why so many cultures are ready to call their ‘children’ ‘adults’ by puberty. When adults need elders, it’s to deal with the emotional and spiritual aspects of life. I think that is why rituals of passage are done in the puberty years, so that they can be dealt with as adults, and not ‘adolescents’ (what an ungly word!)

There are lots of great men and women in the Boy Scouts, who taught me a lot of things. I was also removed from my Catholic Boy Scout troop for bringing books on wicca, dream interpretation, and herbal healing.

I know how hard it is to love people that reserve their judgement.

had I elders like Victor, growing up, I would be as much of a mess as I am.

Many people have told me I’m the only adult(man) they know. I think this is because we are expected to look up to our parents and our teachers, and people we don’t have interaction with, like mythological and famous people.

I look and act like what I was taught a man could be. I have friends that are for the most part, really fucked up, with serious parent issues. But I don’t have that ongoing master-student conversation, like say, Will Riker and Jean-Luc Picard have.

I’m at a point where I have so many people leaning on this one gleam I got of adulthood, that I feel sick from exhaustion. I’ve had to let people down and break bonds because I couldn’t handle their needs.

I think we need to forgive ourselves, and each other, because this life stuff is actually way more serious than our abstractness can handle.

It takes maturity, seeing this stuff one hundred thousand times, before you can be yourself while being there for someone. The temptation for a young person to give another person who is hurting what they want or need is too strong.

I firmly believe in helping people help themselves, and I have had to really hurt people by letting them go. I just did it, to someone who told me I was the only man she knew, and that is why these things are so fresh on my tongue. She needed someone to tell the truth to, but after she got my trust, she started lying again. She hates her life that much, that even her confidences have become void of truth. I want to be there for her, but I’m not equipeed, and goddamnit I’m mad as hell for not having the equipment. I wish there was a middle group of people, between the young and the wise, who were useful as both, expected to be adult, but not expected to be all-wise.

I can blame part of that on people who didn’t understand herbal healing and dream interpretation, but I have to blame the rest of it on taking on more than I can handle. I know that I can handle some things, like giving old friends hope, or helping a friend turn around her drinking problem, but I have yet be able to develop a penetrating wisdom that transforms those who are most stuck in life. Does that exist? I had a few good people help me deal with my jordaches and spauldings while all the other kids had nike and starter jackets.

I’m realizing this as I type, that perhaps we need different elders, that it’s impossible for any one person to help everyone with every single problem. But you can’t sit down and write it out like it was a game, or an ethnography.

IN Terre Haute, we have a couple that are our friends, Bill and Janice. They aren’t particularly wise, or amazing, and are often more amazed at us crazy kids than anything. But as I think about it, it’s just comforting to know Bill and Janice, for who they are, have made it this far, have raised an awesome man who is my friend, and that life is okay, and still worth living. It’s good and comforting just to be in their presence, and have them listen to your stories. One thing they do that is amazing, that is listen, and they listen so much, that they are able to have entire conversations on how what you just said, which might be totally new to them, perfectly relates to so and so and this idea they had or thing they did.

I’m so glad I typed this, because I so deeply appreciate Bill and Janice now. It’s not that they were special, or did anything but earn our trust. They maintain the web of human life, they know what other people know. They don’t ‘know’ what they know, but they know that others do in fact know such things.

I think this is a critical criteria in being an elder, what do the rest of you think?[/quote]

i’ve kind of lost track of this thread (and others) over the last few days (it’s been a rough week), but, in short, yeah, i get this. i’ve been struggling with similar thoughts for a while now. i think i’ve got a ways to go before i’m stuggling tho’