Respecting our elders is something we no longer do, because we know they’re not better than us; they’ve just been alive longer. Why should they deserve more respect than anyone else? But respecting our elders was never something we were supposed to do for them. It was for us. To let them know the world would be looking to them for wisdom and guidance as they got older. To let them know they had to get their shit together at some point, because people would be relying on them. This process did not output perfectly wise zen masters, of course, but the elders were at least people who were trying to be better than they were when they were younger. Now our elders have become the elderly, and they go on cruises and watch Judge Judy until they die. And we are deprived of their wisdom.
Wisdom, by the way, does not sound like “take the vaccine” or “don’t get the vaccine”. That sort of thing is a matter of mere knowledge. Wisdom sounds like “stop being a dick to your brother.” “Slow down, why are you in such a rush?” “Why do you care what he thinks?” “Just because you voted for someone different, that means you can’t be friends?” Not “listen to your heart,” but “listen to your heart” spoken at the right time to a person who needs to hear it.