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.
I think its all discursive. Basically, we are subjected to this discourse and are resigned to participate in the discourse as a way of parsing out our identities and social contexts. Sure, there are certain features of age. You can be young enough to not know the difference between what happens rarely and what happens all the time. You can be old enough to become a bit set in your thinking, or saturated with misinformation. But ultimately the problem is maturing alongside discourse, and living in dynamic, confusing circumstances.
I once was told that millennials are basically failures because they did not rebel enough against climate change and corruption. In the next breath they prescribed voting exclusively Democrat because this is how we can build a third party because the Green Party is run by Putin.
This is not really a product of age alone. Perhaps they are too young to see things like this play out, but certainly liberal discourse is the only thing they find credible and have been inoculated to alternatives via Russiaphobic discourse.
Likewise, older folks have told me millennials are too lazy and too concerned with social problems. This could be a case of being set in your ways or an unwillingness to understand the difference between the times they grew up and the present. But it is certainly a product of discourse.
The discourse transcends reality. This is why we can talk about communism without talking about communism at all. Its why we can have anti-capitalists that are not against capitalism at all. Furthermore, sometimes ageist diatribes have interesting points. The classic being that millennials are “entitled.” Of course, generally speaking Americans of all ages are entitled and this certainly does play into the problem of toothless anti-imperialism in the core. We are not so interested in socialism outside of the context of American myths of the golden age that we missed - cheap suburbia, cheap land, cheap food, cheap commodities all around - just as reactionaries do also miss it in their way. This is a result of imperial discourse that I call imperial melancholia.