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These essays are a collective assault by mainly American social scientists, mostly anthropologists, upon the ‘successful aging’ movement, which they argue has been powerfully promoted in North America since the 1980s. This movement aims to persuade people they can control the ageing process, escaping the experience and appearance of decline and disability through physical and mental activity, engagement with others, good diet and, especially for women, cosmetics, cosmetic surgery and medication, to retain the appearance of eternal youth. The experience of ageing is presented as a personal choice, promoted by the profit-making US cosmetic surgery and pharmaceutical industries. It is impossible to object to encouraging people to remain fit, active and independent as they face lengthening lives; this is obviously desirable and increasingly promoted internationally. The danger the authors perceive in the American movement is that it makes the ageing process appear wholly dependent on personal decisions, hence any sign of ‘unsuccessful’ ageing—the onset of dementia or deafness, dependence upon others, even too many wrinkles—is seen and felt as personal failure rather than changes beyond personal control. This, they suggest, reinforces the very ageism ‘successful ageing’ aims to resist, denigrating and encouraging anxiety about ageing, suggesting nothing about it to be valued, reinforcing discrimination against those, especially women, bold enough to appear in public with grey hair and wrinkles, or too poor to buy the alternatives, leaving people wholly unprepared for the experiences of decline and death.
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