Making sense of the ageing society

"What will help Seniors?" A simple answer would be to meet their needs (including the intangibles such as need for emotional support and self-mastery). This results in a flurry of activities directed towards serving Seniors and leans towards welfarism. Digging deeper, a tension remains between fostering dependence("learned helplessness") and equipping Seniors with sufficient resources to manage their lives. A hierarchical view in the vein of Maslow's would involve activities which facilitate self-discovery among Seniors and hopefully, help them to find meaning in life. The third view would be minimalism- to take a "hands-off" approach. This view is buttressed by various assumptions, including the view that deep-seated positive change cannot be engineered by external aid, the view that interventions tend to distort the natural process of ageing and the view that the costs of interventions largely outweigh the costs. I submit that these views are