Ageism - the only acceptable form of discimination?

[Comrade Gwydion]

In fact, is ageism even discrimination?
In modern use, discrimination is different treatment of people on irrelevant grounds.

Now, I've witnessed some people on revleft agitate against 'ageism'. Recently there has been a thread, which actually inspired me to write this, on the matter that 'children should be liberated from their fascist parents'.

Quite honestly, I think it's bullocks. Yes, in the past parents often were quite authoritarian, and believe me, I have no desire to return to the fifties. However, forgotten is also the fact that these 'parents' consisted often of a father and a mother who was just as much oppressed by said father. (The patriarchy).

As a matter of fact, I don't want 9 yr olds to vote on my government. Nor do I want 15 yrs olds driving in a hummer.

Obviously, the line is not easy to draw. There are many people of 16 I know who are very mature, but also a lot of 19yr old who are as undevellopped as hell.

So, agism is perhaps not discrimination after all?

[Agnapostate]

Are you talking about my thread?

Ageism is simply discrimination per its very nature. Whether it's negative or unethical discrimination is a significantly more nuanced issue. I don't believe citing anecdotes of mature 15 year olds and immature 19 year olds does much of anything; if it can be held as generally true that 15 year olds are more likely to be immature and 19 year olds more likely to be mature (or sufficiently mature to manage their own affairs, to be precise), there would be a justification for age restrictions that discriminate between the two groups.

My own position is that age restrictions, but more broadly, the environment and culture behind formal policy, contributes to the infantilization and poor socialization of youth, thereby exacerbating the very problems that they ostensibly solve; it's a matter of the medicine causing the illness. That's the basis for my membership in the radical ASFAR (www.asfar.org) and the less radical NYRA (www.youthrights.org)

[Jimmie Higgins]

There's ageism out there, and we should oppose it, but I think most of the time it is secondary to other much more common forms of oppression. Old people are mistreated by society and blame is put on them for "just being old" rather than looking at the lack of an organized and well-maintained health and care systems for the elderly. Ageism against the elderly give the system a pass to basically just throw away older workers.

Ageism is also used against the young - usually in tandem with racism. As with the elderly, "these kids today" are blamed for poor public schools, crime and thereby used as justification of cutting school budgets (kids just don't WANT to learn) and prisons/police in schools/harsh criminal sentences for minors (the myth of the unreformable criminal youth).

But I also think this is sort of a lesser-weapon used by the ruling class and so usually people who suffer ageism also suffer from much more severe oppressions because of their class or race and so on. A rich kid is likely to laugh-off ageism or bury his face in designer clothes and cry themselves to sleep. A working class kid probably experiences ageism in connection to class and oppression issues like racial profiling, cuts to public education and so on.

[Crusade]

I always find it odd that newer generations get blamed by the previous generation for society's ills. Mainly because that generation created and raised the generation they're complaining about.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Children should be able to vote as soon as the express an interest in doing so. Parents can not be expected to vote for their children. To do so is to require the parent to have 1/2 a vote given that the interest of the child and parent may not always coincide. Furthermore, it's often the case that adults carry over the political views of there parents so it's hardly like bias is a more significant problem in youth. I find it hard to believe voting results could get any worse by allowing children to vote.

It's quite discriminatory not to allow them to do so. So they want the government to supply free candy? Oh well. Someone else probably wants funding to a stupid art project 0.0002% of the population cares about, and there interest group gets the funding.