Ageism is a fact of life and, if you are too young to have felt it yet, wait until you turn 50 (as I did a few years back) - no matter what you do, people <i>type</i> you, they just don't see you in quite the same light as before.<p>I think this is in part because, as people, we are associational. We inherently relate to what we know. <i>Similis simili gaudet</i> ("like in like rejoices") is the Latin maxim that captures this. And younger people tend to relate to that which is new and exciting to them (this site, of all places, certainly typifies this, as one sees discussions all the time on issues that appeal specifically to the young). The counterpart to this, however, is that those who are younger also tend to be dismissive of the things to which older people relate, things which the older people themselves found new and exciting some years back - these are not just select things, they are the day-to-day things of life: social trends, the heroes we identify with, the people we go out with, the movies we watch, the cultural events that grab us, even the ideas we believe in and the values that we share. In time, for those who are young, such things have "had their day," become faded, and become foreign and distant.<p>That part is natural and perhaps even unobjectionable. We all become invested in our own generation to some degree and it is natural to relate to the things we grow up with and to believe in them, even if this means "moving on" from older things and from those associated with them.<p>But youth is also highly prone to <i>lose perspective</i> because, as Aristotle put in many centuries ago in his <i>Rhetoric</i>, the thing that most tends to characterize youth is a (false) sense of invincibility, what he termed in Greek the word we know today as <i>hubris</i>. When one is young, one tends to strut about and there is no room, when one is strutting, for those who are perhaps slower, less aggressive, possibly infirm. Yes, a young person can be kind and gracious and have all the good qualities too. But, at that age, arrogance can all too often be at the forefront. This propensity leads to the negative part of ageism because it types those who are older in ways that are unfair, prejudicial, and, indeed, foolish - when perspective is lost, youth fails to see the self-evident strengths in those who are older (the wisdom, the years of accumulated intelligence, the leadership strength, the wealth of experience, etc.), and this results in a net loss to all.<p>The reality, then, is that such prejudices tend to be inherent in how we function as human beings. They can be overcome but only by a conscious effort that will not likely affect the mass of people no matter how much the issue is raised in people's consciousness. Of course, that doesn't mean that each of us can't attempt to overcome it in our own lives, and that is the commendable goal we should strive for.