‘Self-actualisation’ and the ageing process from an inter-generational lifecourse perspective

Abstract

Lifecourse perspectives on ageing need to consider more seriously the meaning of ‘self-actualisation’, as it is currently used by the burgeoning industries that service the needs of those in the middle years. The prevalent meaning derives largely from an existentialist ontology, which is radically individualistic and cannot adequately account for the inter-connectedness of generations; that is, the need for one generation to provide for the needs of the next. Nor can an existentialist ontology adequately prepare mid-lifers for their older age and the life crises that accompany later life. This paper uses Giddens's notion of ‘life trajectory’, a very influential theory of the self in high modernity, to highlight this problem. The existentialist ontology that informs Giddens's notion reflects those values of youth that the new social movements have brought to the political agenda as ‘life-politics’. These values may well be challenged as the youth of the 1960s reach middle age and begin to confront their mortality. The paper argues that Erikson's notion of ‘generativity’ might provide a more useful ontology for lifecourse politics, and is more attuned to an inter-generational perspective.