Abstract: Japan has now entered into a super aged society and high consumption society. Its most obvious characteristics are the super aged population structure and the diversity and immediacy of social values. The development of society makes itself give up the reflexive characteristic based on continuity and consistency, and the social convention and thinking mode of industrial society in the past began to appear. In this kind of society, people’s life style has changed. The connotation of “social participation” and “development” of the aged is also very different from that of the past. Even the “existence” of the aged presents new characteristics, which is a non reflexive existence. In order to adapt to the development of the super aged and high consumption society, and promote the comprehensive development of return education and lifelong learning, the whole society needs to face up to the reconstruction and innovation of the connotation of “the aged”. This is also of great significance for the development of lifelong learning and education for the aged in China.

Key words: the aged, non reflexivity, lifelong learning, social participation, education for the aged