Dignity: for those who want to grow old

Being young involves 'outspokenness' and 'self-development'. Dignity is really something for older people. But what is dignified? This book focuses on that question. Human dignity, dignified care, a dignified end of life - Frits de Lange believes that we cannot do without these values ​​if we are looking for a moral benchmark for a good life in our old age. But also for a good death, when we ultimately have to die.

Dignity has to do with respect, but also with self-respect. The more of both, the better off the elderly will be, is his proposition.

The dignity of the elderly is at stake. Where the elderly were once patients who needed to be cared for, they are now sovereign citizens who must provide for their own care and provision package. What is humane for the elderly seems to depend on their self-reliance and the arbitrariness of public morality. How do we prevent the elderly from being dismissed as the new pariahs of our ageing society?

A recalibration of their dignity is necessary if we want to avoid an evil old age in the 21st century. According to De Lange, the core of personal dignity ultimately lies in the free consent to who you have become. Without being blind to the disfigurement, this book passionately defends that there is splendor in old age. However, you have to want to see it.

At the beginning of the modern era, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola sang the praises of human dignity in an Oratio de Hominis Dignitate. Frits de Lange writes his manifesto about the dignity of those who have grown old. Or who would like to grow old later.