A Thoughtful Way to Mature : The Plato Society Keeps Retirees Alive, Alert and Stimulated

Francis Meyers, retired businessman and active musician, believes that people die fromthe top down. Let the mind rot and the body goes to pot; keep the brain clicking and theheart will go on ticking.

And by his calculations, the shortest distance between retirement and the cemetery runsstraight through Las Vegas.

Meyers made his discovery not long after he sold his jewelry-manufacturing business and began making the rounds of retirement clubs. Too often, he found that activities were limited to card-playing in the clubhouse, spiced with trips to the Nevada gambling city.

Then, 10 years ago, when things were looking as bleak as the Arabian desert, Meyers stumbled across a green and sparkling oasis. He saw a newspaper story about a group being formed by UCLA Extension which promised to turn dubious leisure into mental reinvigoration.

The Plato Society, he learned, was designed for people like him, people who remained curious about the world, who wanted to explore topics they hadn’t had time for while careers and families consumed their waking hours.

The society--its name is an acronym for Perpetual Learning and Teaching Organization, not the ancient Greek philosopher--proposed that its retired and semi-retired members would be “students, teachers, staff, volunteers and alumni” in a self-supporting, cooperative learning venture. Its chief enterprise would be study-discussion groups exploring subjects chosen by its members.

“I made a beeline for the phone that day and I’ve been here ever since,” says Meyers, recalling events at the society’s headquarters in Westwood. “I was interested in everything. I didn’t care what the subject was, I was going to learn something.”

A decade later, Meyers’ prescription for a fruitful life includes studying plate tectonics, the philosophy of science and, currently, the legacy of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.

But Meyers’ belief that the society has been a lifesaver is more than theoretical. He credits his involvement in the group with helping him survive a heart bypass operation in 1984, the year he was the society’s president.

Today, Meyers sums up his philosophy of life this way: “An active mind and an active interest and a desire that you’ve got to find out something--you haven’t got time to die.”

Granted, Meyers may be somewhat atypical. A professional musician before World War II, he still plays violin once a week with a chamber music group and indulges his passion for books, finding particular joy in haunting secondhand bookstores. He also has thrown himself into helping develop education programs for older people throughout the Western states.

But his story is only one example of the positive effects Plato has had on the lives of its members according to Adriane Lorin, the society’s staff coordinator.

After a series of bouts with cancer, one member in his 80s told Lorin that he had about given up on life. At this crucial juncture, he continued, “I remembered Plato and I knew that I had to come back.” Adds Lorin, “And by God he is.”

While increasing longevity is not the purpose of Plato--or a scientifically proved fact about the group--it may show why the society evokes fierce loyalty among its members who are celebrating its 10th anniversary.

Even without this possible added benefit, Plato’s students clearly relish the stimulation of their courses.

Take that class on Freud. At 10 o’clock on a gray morning, the members gathered in a windowless room in a nondescript building in Westwood, armed with books, paper, pens, experience and enthusiasm. The cheerfulness of the group belied its purpose, exploring the recesses of the mind, following the trails of explorers who first visited the dark places where emotions rise to overwhelm reason.

This day, it was Sam Rowe’s turn to lead the class--as each member does sooner or later. His subject was Alfred Adler, Freud’s onetime disciple who split from his mentor to propound his own theories.

Rowe, 75 and a retired professor from USC, apologized for being somewhat under-prepared. But that said, he launched into a brief history of Adler’s life and thought. An hour into the discussion, class members were thumbing through books or delving into their own memories to come up with comments on the psychiatrist’s views of childhood and how it shapes adults.

The society itself is continually being reshaped by its members. Initially limited to 100 members, the current limit is 375, a number that still causes some debate. The society is supposed to remain small enough to be cozy but also must collect enough in fees to pay for its activities.

Members pay $375 annually for the society’s classes, special lectures, field trips and other functions, including extracurricular study groups that meet in members’ homes. Members must be at least 50 years old and have at least 20 years experience in the working world.

Topics for seminars are chosen by group members who vote on a list of suggestions compiled by a committee. Topics have ranged from “The Mayan Age of Splendor” to energy options. Current classes include the novels of Jane Austen and the history of the American Revolution.

Well before interest in the Civil War was renewed by the recent PBS television series, the Plato Society had fought the War Between the States several times, Lorin notes.

As its membership has expanded, the group’s ambitions also have broadened, says President William Carter, 66, a former development and investment banker who has been a member for seven years.

Among other things, Carter expects that Plato Society branches will be founded in Los Angeles County in the next decade. One such spinoff already exists at Cal State Northridge.

Carter, whose principal interests are European history and World War II, says that groups like Plato are part of the “gray wave of the future” that will be created to meet the needs of an aging but active population in the United States.

Plato’s core, however, continues to be its seminars, lasting from seven to 14 weeks with each class meeting two hours a week. Class size generally is limited to 15 people with one person serving as coordinator. Each participant is expected to study and deliver a lecture on an aspect of the subject.

Lorin concedes that this doesn’t turn out to be everyone’s cup of tea. Although all potential members are interviewed by other members to determine their interests, she says this informal screening doesn’t always work.

“There are people who have gotten into Plato who should never have gotten into Plato,” she says, adding that most of them quit.

Despite the occasional bad match, the society stresses a kind of egalitarianism. New members aren’t asked what they did or how much education they have. Rather the emphasis is on what new members want to learn.

“What we like to tell people who are joining Plato is take a study group in something about which you know nothing because you can learn the most that way,” Lorin said.

Indeed, Meyers seems to relish most the thoroughly unpragmatic nature of Plato. “What we’re having here is the purest form of education, learning for the sake of learning,” he says. “No exams, no grades, no degrees. None of that. Just sheer interest in the subject.”