Respecting elders  is Directly linked with your wisdom. Don't think this wisdom is the exclusive domain of a few. Every country and every race has its own way of respecting elders. It hardly matters what system you follow. The only criteria is, the person whom one is respecting should know that you are respecting in a clear way.

I feel that mutual respect irrespective of age is a must for us to survive as cultured human beings...We care and respect elders because we realise that they have already come to that stage having gone through the many trials and tribulations of life. It is their wisdom and insight that can guide us and make life bearable.I am never comfortable until I have shared all my difficulties and doubts with my mother and get her point of view because I know that she will analyse it thoroughly and impartially and then only advise me. I feel this true of most elders ...

usha manohar wrote:

I feel that mutual respect irrespective of age is a must for us to survive as cultured human beings...We care and respect elders because we realise that they have already come to that stage having gone through the many trials and tribulations of life. It is their wisdom and insight that can guide us and make life bearable.I am never comfortable until I have shared all my difficulties and doubts with my mother and get her point of view because I know that she will analyse it thoroughly and impartially and then only advise me. I feel this true of most elders ...

Truly, i believe that mutual respect is a must where even a small child is to be respected of the frank words he speaks and which are true. It is those words of respect to that child which will increase his sense of confidence and infest his own way of living with his own opinions and discretionary judgements.

The world renowned artist and the inventor of cubism Pablo Picasso owes his success to a childish suggestion of 4 year old kid.  Her question made him sit and think, resulting in the phenomenal art genre known as CUBISM. had Picasso dismissed the child's suggestion as a childish prank, the world wouldn't have seen the greatest invention in the sphere of art.

We are living in a culture where we assume that elders know more than us but sometimes it's not true. Respecting our elders is what we are taught from our childhood and we remember it till we have little knowledge but once we get mature we think we know more than our elders and then the problem arise. In my opinion we should respect everyone irrespective of his/her age to get respect from them too.

Elders deserve respect irrespective of their age or education. It is not information that makes them respectable; but knowledge. And, knowledge cannot be gained without experience. Their guidance and insight make our life more beautiful and comfortable…….. Human values are not lost from this world forever; they are immortal. 

Human values will remain forever. Revering the knowledge from any young or old will lead the society tread on new avenues of knowledge.

RAMAKRISHNAN. A wrote:

Elders deserve respect irrespective of their age or education. It is not information that makes them respectable; but knowledge. And, knowledge cannot be gained without experience. Their guidance and insight make our life more beautiful and comfortable…….. Human values are not lost from this world forever; they are immortal. 

 

That's because they are more experienced and know more about life practically so they can guide us in a proper way.

It's on thebasis of strong foundation of knowledge that civilizations are built.

Sanjeev Gupta wrote:

We are living in a culture where we assume that elders know more than us but sometimes it's not true. Respecting our elders is what we are taught from our childhood and we remember it till we have little knowledge but once we get mature we think we know more than our elders and then the problem arise. In my opinion we should respect everyone irrespective of his/her age to get respect from them too.

 

I agree with you in that we Indians automatically feel that no matter what the elders say we have to follow it .I give an example of a case that happened here - A young minor girl from our school had lodged a complaint in the police station saying that her mother had beaten and banged her head against the wall. This had been an ongoing thing with the girl attending school with bruises and swollen face and eyes many a times. The police called a couple of us teachers and the parents. The mother lopenly looked guilty but the police gave some pearls of wisdom by telling the girl that she shd not mind such treatment from her mother since she knows best and she is afterall your mother. When we teachers told him that the girl was being beaten almost everyday, he said this is common and not to be made much of and that when angry his mothet too slaps him ! Honestly what does one say ? we later lodged a complaint with women's group and they did a better job of handling it...Such is the misconception of elderly wisdom and knowledge.

We no doubt need to listen to our elders but blindly believing and doing what they say is foolishness.We earlier had a discussion on this topic here where the topic starter wanted everyone to agree that parents shd never ever be questioned and if you did you had no love for your parents which to me sounded stupid and an extreme view !