Ageism is perhaps the most paradoxical prejudice: we are, barring accident, discriminating against ourselves. Members of the persecuting in-group are through the course of their lives gently conveyor-belted into the persecuted out-group, which is, when you think about it, a very strange state of affairs. If the rich inevitably became poor at a certain life stage, you might expect society to fill with vigorous socialists. But ageism persists. Why?
The best explanation perhaps is that it comes down to a sort of mass delusion on the part of the young. John Steinbeck wrote of America’s “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”, the poor who resist measures to hand them money because they believe one day they will be rich. When it comes to ageing, the fallacy runs in the other direction: the lucky believe their luck will never end. “One day that will be us struggling with newfangled technology,” the young say, as a joke, not really thinking it will be. “I’ll need that Zimmer frame one day,” they say, thinking they won’t.
