Word: ageism
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TIME'S Essay "Looking Askance at Ageism" [March 24] reminds me of a delightful old fellow from Atlanta I met some years back. The future-minded gentleman, then 93, told me he had just purchased a large amount of acreage. When I asked what his plans were, he replied, "Well, I think I'll hold on to it for a few years, then develop...
...vain but essentially harmless. Yet it has a seamier side. One outgrowth of the nation's aversion to aging has been a tendency to look askance at, and often down on, people in the later years of life. The attitude has lately been tagged with the awkward label ageism...
...only because of widespread ageism, Ronald Reagan's victories in the South and elsewhere should spark a brief moment of nonpartisan cheer among the nation's senior citizens. After all, the 69-year-old candidate did triumph at least briefly over the suspicion that anybody past middle age is a candidate for nothing but the pasture. To be sure, the issue of Reagan's age is not typical. It does make sense for voters to take a cold, actuarial look at anybody seeking the White House. But the more prevalent American way of judging the elderly...
...that ageism, thanks to a backlash that has come from such groups as the Gray Panthers, is becoming less virulent. One ought to add that attitudes had better change. American society contains an ever swelling number and proportion of older people. Today nearly 25 million Americans, or 11.2% of the total, are over 65, and the ratio of that bracket is rising sharply. To foreclose senior citizens from society's respect and affection will mean more in the future than pain to the graying population. It will mean serious generational conflict for everybody...
...thanks to TIME we have a new "ism" to haunt our hopefully liberal conscience. You've given us "ageism...