I am an optimist, so I expect that humans will one day attain a higher plane, at which prejudice is unknown. Until then we’ll muddle through, scolding others while hoping to ourselves be prejudice-free. We probably hope in vain, for prejudice is everywhere. And while all of it is bad, one version stands out for its idiocy.
Interestingly, the most self-defeating prejudice is the one that’s treated with least urgency: ageism. And while racism and sexism are evil and have caused more empirically provable harm, ageism has the numbers: It is the only prejudice that will affect every single person who does not die an early death.
It saddens me that some will assume the topic vexes me because I have myself attained „a certain age.” People who are that cynical have made poor choices about their lives, and do not merit my reply. And yes: trolls might scour the archives and discover my indifference to ageism in younger days. But that just proves that advancing years can bring more wisdom (if, yes, lucidity is maintained).
Once you start to pay attention, it is striking how indifferent society is to the casual diminishment of the experienced.
It is perfectly acceptable to try to dissuade people from wearing an outfit that makes them „look old,” or saying a thing that makes them „sound old,” or pursuing a course of action that makes them „seem old.” Replace „old” with „gay” or „black” or „Macedonian” and you’ll start to see the weirdness.
Some may claim the superannuated actually seek such advice, genuinely wishing to seem young. That is certainly sometimes true, but still doesn’t make it right. We are all brainwashed into pretending, in part precisely because of the ageism.
And so it seeps into the parlance, which is always a reflection of society’s psychology.
Who wants to be „the old guy hanging around the party” or „propping up the bar”? Fun is only for the young! Who wants to be „past her prime,” accused of „slowing down” or deemed „out of touch” from some new fad? One must always keep up! Tell someone to „act your age” and they’ll probably be chastened, but it’s you who should feel ashamed. And if you’re young, you mainly should feel foolish—because that older person is you someday. Any advantage youth affords is temporary at best.
For a literary treatment of the calamity that awaits, consult „The Possibility of an Island” by the occasionally scandalous French novelist Michel Houellebecq. In it, a man in his 40s dates a woman two decades younger, who is perfectly content with their relationship but refuses to introduce him to her sister.
„The age difference was the last taboo, the final limit, all the stronger for the fact that it … replaced all the others,” he writes, observing that even protest is denied these victims: „Rebellion, like sexuality, like pleasure, like love – seemed reserved for the young. … Any cause incapable of mobilizing the interest of the young was disqualified in advance … Old people were in all matters treated simply as waste, to be granted only a survival that was miserable (and) limited.”
Houellebecq argues that procreation—he uses another word—is all that matters to humans, and so our era’s medically enabled longevity, past the age of procreation, creates an awkward lingering of the irrelevant.
If you disagree with this perspective, and you are a hiring manager, there is certainly something you can do, for the labor market currently ghosts anyone who is over 55 (unless they are running for U.S. president). That might have made some sense in the old days, when employment was a marriage, with workers wanting and employers offering a „career,” with a „pension” at the end, with each side repaying the other’s investment over time.
But in 2022, according to the Department of Labor, the average tenure for an employee in the United States was about four years. And anyone reading young persons’ profiles on LinkedIn might be forgiven for having assumed it would be two years. There are a bunch of loyal veterans skewing that statistic upwards, it is clear.
So why, in the name of Methuselah, should an employer care if a new worker might soon retire (or expire)? They’re getting one more temporary person—but one who is for most purposes finer. Older people are likely to be better at strategic planning and mentorship, to possess direct knowledge of precedent, and to be less easily rattled or distracted by shiny things.
Sure, the concept of making way for younger generations aligns with a need for progress, renewal, and sustainability. There’s no question that young people bring new perspectives, are more likely to be adaptable to new technology, and of course are cheaper for lack of other mouths to feed. If we’re talking about the lumberjack trade, it’s also relevant that young people are less likely to throw out their backs.
But there is statistical evidence of a youth downside as well. It has been reported that today’s youth can sometimes act entitled. And throughout history they have been reliably impetuous, impatient, reckless, and downright stupid: militaries across the planet have depended on the indifference to danger of young men eager to show off their plumes.
I do concede that experience can net even. Young people lack the perspective and wisdom it can bring. But older people’s experience can amount to a litany of failure and a legacy of despair.
So my suggestion is to treat everyone the same and be age-blind.
Unless they figure this out soon, the oldsters might strike back. That’s because the population of the earth is rapidly ageing as a consequence of people living longer (on account of better medicine and food) and having fewer kids (on account of religious decline, and movies about people with kids).
When they finally attain their majority, old people would have the power to democratically enforce strict bans against—and terrible sanctions for—any display of ageism. On that blessed day, sweet justice will be done.
Until then we must suffice with the joys afforded by the International Day of Older Persons on Oct. 1, so designated by the UN General Assembly. It troubles me just a little that this commemoration sits exactly at the midpoint between April Fool’s Days. But what that means, I might lack the lucidity to see.
Dan Perry is managing partner of the New York-based communications firm Thunder11. He is the former Cairo-based Middle East editor and London-based Europe/Africa editor of the Associated Press. Follow him at danperry.substack.com.
