{"id":6028,"date":"2020-05-07T07:34:31","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T11:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/?p=6028"},"modified":"2020-05-21T12:28:56","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T16:28:56","slug":"theres-no-excuse-for-ageism-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2020\/05\/theres-no-excuse-for-ageism-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s No Excuse for Ageism, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the last parent died in 2017, I visualized their canoes heading over an immense waterfall. My partner\u2019s and my canoes fell next in line. Gulp. Yet this scenario sure beats the alternative: outliving the younger people we love. <\/span><\/p>\n

Is it this inexorable succession\u2014one generation naturally replacing the next\u2014that gives purchase to the notion that ageism is less problematic than other forms of prejudice? Many people seem to agree that while racism and sexism are inherently wrong, it\u2019s acceptable for olders to be ushered offstage, whether or not they go willingly. Many factors\u2014age segregation, the anti-aging industrial complex, the cultural narrative that to age is to fail\u2014feed that idea.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, there is nothing acceptable about <\/span>anyone<\/span><\/i> being segregated or silenced against their wishes. The wrong lies in giving <\/span>any<\/span><\/i> kind of discrimination a pass.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here, explained and rebutted, are some of the arguments people use to excuse age bias<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Straw man #1: Prejudice is hardwired.<\/b><\/p>\n

Neither the fundamental cycle of life nor our evolutionary history supports one of the most common justifications for bias in general and age bias in particular: being prejudiced is a part of being human. <\/span><\/p>\n

We know that <\/span>homo sapiens<\/span><\/i> evolved with a proclivity to divide people into \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem,\u201d behavior that conferred survival benefits by making it easier and quicker to choose whom to trust. <\/span><\/p>\n

But we no longer live in isolated tribes; \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem\u201d commingle all over the world. Prejudice is ignorant, and we now have far more information at our disposal than our hominid ancestors did. We also no longer die young, and in a world of longer lives, a bias against our future selves makes even less sense (not that any prejudice is rational). Are only the reproductively active of value in an information society? Are we still hostage to these ancient biases?<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t buy it, and science backs me up. \u201cThe assumption that groups are competitive, that it\u2019s built on our evolution as a social species\u2014it\u2019s just not true,\u201d says <\/span>sociologist Marilynn Brewer<\/a>.<\/span>  The current scientific understanding is that humans are hardwired to make distinctions on the basis of physical appearance but not to act in any particular, given way because of it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Prejudice (the tendency to make rapid, us-vs<\/span>–<\/span>them distinctions) is less controllable than discrimination (behaving in ways that foster or reinforce those distinctions). In other words, we all see race\u2014no one is \u201ccolorblind\u201d and to pretend otherwise is to be blind to racism and privilege\u2014but we can respond by thinking and acting in antiracist ways. We can choose to become aware of our biases instead of letting them unconsciously drive actions that harm the less privileged. And we need to work to unlearn those biases, because being \u201cwoke\u201d is not enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

Straw man #2: Age segregation is natural.<\/b><\/p>\n

These days, with the exception of family gatherings and large public events, it\u2019s rare for the generations to mix socially. It wasn\u2019t always like that. Well into the 19<\/span>th<\/span> century, many Americans didn\u2019t celebrate birthdays or even know their birth year! <\/span><\/p>\n

Only during the Industrial Revolution did age become important. Age-specific institutions like orphanages and old age homes arose; age began to determine when people could work, drink, smoke and have sex; and people began to socialize mostly with age peers. Segregation begets discrimination: ageism reared its head alongside age consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

I used to say that ageism subverted the \u201cnatural order of things\u201d by fostering age segregation. I don\u2019t any more, thanks in part to an astute comment on my blog: \u201cIt is wrong to infer that anything in the past is automatically the \u2018natural order of things,\u2019\u201d the person wrote, because the phrase prioritizes returning to the familiar over adapting to the new. <\/span><\/p>\n

There is no going back. A world of longer lives requires supporting people across the lifespan. We get there by acknowledging that <\/span>aging<\/span><\/i> is natural and <\/span>ageism<\/span><\/i> is not. We get there by exposing the reactionary voices that seek to persuade us otherwise. An ageist and sexist world finds older women\u2019s bodies repulsive; an anti-Semitic one is repelled by Jews; an ableist one wants the differently abled out of sight; a white supremacist world finds people of color unworthy of equal access to power and resources. <\/span><\/p>\n

Those values are socially constructed. In other words, we make them up, and we can unmake them and embrace different ones.<\/span><\/p>\n

What does \u201cnatural\u201d mean, anyhow? People with severe disabilities used to die young. Not that long ago it was considered \u201cunnatural\u201d for people to be physically attracted to the same sex, or for privileged women to work outside the home. Culture change is slow: interracial marriage was banned in<\/span> California <\/span><\/i>until 1948. These struggles are ongoing; abhorrence of \u201crace-mixing\u201d and the threat of \u201cwhite extinction\u201d fuel currently resurgent white supremacy. But none of these stigmas are \u201cnatural\u201d and none of them are fixed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ageism persists for the same reason as other forms of oppression: not because it\u2019s human nature but because it sustains existing power relations. Younger people feeling alienated from olders and apprehensive at becoming like us is not \u201cnatural\u201d or appropriate or inevitable. It is the result of social forces\u2014ageism, sexism and capitalism.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be continued in \u201c<\/span><\/i>There\u2019s No Excuse for Ageism,\u201d Part 2<\/a>.<\/span><\/i> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the last parent died in 2017, I visualized their canoes heading over an immense waterfall. My partner\u2019s and my canoes fell next in line. Gulp. Yet this scenario sure beats the alternative: outliving the younger people we love.  Is…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more There\u2019s No Excuse for Ageism, Part 1<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

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