In praticular the mainly American kind of agism, and more specifically towards the younger people I’ve noticed, as an example: a 17 year old is somehow a child and knows absolutely nothing, but an 18 year old is suddenly a full grown adult that’s expected to do everything on their own now right away, unless it’s inconvenient in whatever conversation is occuring, then that 18 year old is still a “kid” when in another conversation they’re an “adult”, which I’ve never seen anyone point out whatsoever when it occurs, and with it also the “groomer” and “paedophilia” hysteria the American media is endlessly pushing onto the people and causing further age hierarchy and superiorites among the people (said “groomer” and “paedophilia” panic also being used against the LGBT+ community), only intensifying these points. I’m sure I’m not the only one noticing this trend, it’s overwhelmingly everywhere on the internet now in one form or another and has become or is becoming the norm beyond just America, it’s spread to other regions and is gradually becoming more and more prominent with each year, even in my day to day life now I’m noticing ageism becoming slightly ingrained in society with time, it’s now normal in certain societies and the internet as a whole to discriminate against an adolescent and harass them solely over their age or for doing anything even remotely hinting at sexual behaviour or any form of romantic relationship between them and others - basically anything and everything that can be used to discrimate against that adolescent will be used against them I’ve noticed (and in the case of older people: discriminating against them solely for being too old or talking to people younger then them), causing people to be treated on the basis of “higher number = human decency, too high or low of a number = discrimination, isolation, and harassment” and call pretty much anyone that doesn’t agree with them on this as a “paedophile” with full acceptance from the internet and certain societies as a whole - and completely distorting what that term even actually means, very remenisent of the red scare to an eerie degree (same exact way some Americans and especially the bourgeois and media call any social democrat a “communist” without even knowing what “communist” actually means - or purposefully leaving that detail out and creating a whole new definition of it by lying over and over again in the case of the latter, but now applied to age and with “paedophile” instead). To me it’s yet another way to divide us through hysteria and lies, it solely exists to weaken us, keep us afraid, keep us divided, and keep us biting at one another over anything and everything, be it skin colour, nationality, religion, hobbies, biology, sexual orientation, gender, language, or age, instead of looking to the roots of our systematic suffering and uniting in solidarity to end it, it’s nothing new whatsoever, especially from the United States who’s notorious for setting these trends in the first place, but nevertheless extremely saddening to see be pushed upon the masses until it becomes the norm in one form or another, adding further to our already fragmented and disjointed world and causing further suffering for everyone, be it young or old. Though what are you’re thoughts of this my fellow comrades? I’d love to see others’ analysations of this trend.
The young certainly matter and should not be disregarded by the old. Cuba’s practice of having children stand by ballot boxes comes to mind. Think of the future, of them when you enact policies kind of deal.
Age can be a proxy for position in the labor aristocracy in the imperial core to an extent with lots of exceptions. The fact is someone born in 1950-1970 say had a lot more opportunities economically to luck out (good paying union trades, cheap schooling without debt, good buying power with their dollars, etc) wage increases, purchasing power throughout their lifetime (vis-a-vi owning a home versus renting forever for example among other things) than someone born in 1995 onward. There are of course poor boomers and wealthy zoomers, PMC zoomers who make 200k a year and so on. But as a whole there has been a degradation of the ability to live an economically stable, non-indebted life with prospects for a good retirement with leisure at a reasonable age over time as the fall of communism has resulted in claw-backs against gains won by the working class. It is likewise true that older generations having already benefited from capitalism shrug or even laugh as the ladder is pulled up after them for those younger.
Ultimately stopping at age and being like the liberals who think of demographics as destiny and have been crowing for a while now how the boomers aging out and dying will mean a permanent demographic shift and control for the Democratic party and agenda is un-Marxist.
However we cannot ignore the realities as they exist either if we’re to be completely honest in our appraisal. It shouldn’t be a focus and isn’t helpful to go around chanting about throwing the old into the sea or something like that when it’s class that matters. But in understanding relations it is definitely interesting.
I do think there is something to be said for people becoming set in their ways with age. Many people become very resistant to new things, they don’t want revolution, they don’t want to challenge their assumptions about the US. So while I wouldn’t suggest being foolish enough to fall for the bourgeois deception of blaming the old. We also should not seek to specifically target and sway the old over vying for the young. Purely as a matter of investment, getting a 16 year old or person under 30 into communism is much, much more valuable than getting a 50-year-old into it in how many years of their life they can yet give to the cause. More than that as I mentioned people get stuck in their ways. The value of debating with a 50-year-old anti-communist who’s going to retire nicely is much less than that of debating with the much less economically stable, more likely to be class-conscious zoomer or millennial who is uncertain if they will ever be able to retire. And we must also not forget, revolution is an activity for the relatively young. You will never have a revolution won with the fists and on the backs of over 45 people. It’s always the young who revolt, who have energy, strength (physical and otherwise), less broken spirits, etc. Not that there can’t be older leadership, wisdom from those older but it is the young who will carry it to success or failure in prolonged fighting, in impassioned speeches, organizing that leaves less time for sleep, etc.
I must be frank, if humans lived for 120 years on average (and their bodies physically didn’t start to deteriorate meaningfully until 90) I would push back the date for a successful revolution in the US by at least a decade from wherever I would place it otherwise. People are creatures of habit, that includes the habit of being happy in the known misery of capitalism as it decays (and of course blaming something else as the propaganda absolutely works) and resisting attempts to change something that has been a constant for them. To a certain extent death is helpful as it pushes old ideas out, gives fertile ground for new ones. The youth who never knew a golden age of a thing are more easily turned against it than those who lived it, benefited from it and would find it easier to believe the propaganda about why something else other than the thing is the problem.
We should look for example at the Soviet Union and its fall. Many of the youth were disillusioned about it because they only knew it in its revisionist age. The older generations tended to be much more patriotic but at age 60 what could they do to fight the police and army? So the youth stood by in indifference with a shrug as it fell, some protests but no vigorous action to truly fight the counter-revolution and those who had the ideology, the Marxist education were too old and too few and had no influence with the youth. (And this kind of disconnect between young and old must be prevented in parties and socialist societies)
The old must not scoff at and immediately dismiss the young as likely to change their views when they age and the young must not dismiss the old as having no value at all.
Lastly I will note there are reasons for very specific restrictions on the youth. Brains are still developing until you’re about 25 give or take a year or so. Discouraging binge drinking, alcoholism, bad and anti-social coping mechanisms under socialism for the growing youth I think is a good thing. The whole sex negative thing goes back to the Christian ethic in the US specifically. Back to patriarchal views as part of that. Back to seeing women and girls as property to be married off as virgins. Back to this whole racist panic about white daughters and control of bloodlines. Back to shaming the sinner and controlling women through shame over our bodies, our desires, our actions.
Very well said and great analysis.
“And we must also not forget, revolution is an activity for the relatively young. You will never have a revolution won with the fists and on the backs of over 45 people.”
This is what I keep trying to tell Russia yet their obsession with MAGA persists. Russia always zigging when their potential allies here zag. In the 60s they supported the Panthers at the height of social democracy here and it went no where. Now when there is a large left base, they preach to the aging and shrinking pette bourgeois. (facepalm)