Theresa MacPhail called longevity culture ageist; her argument conflates cosmetic youthfulness with the treatment of age-related diseases
Theresa MacPhail called longevity culture ageist; her argument conflates cosmetic youthfulness with the treatment of age-related diseases
On 14 July, medical anthropologist Theresa MacPhail published an essay in The Guardian titled “Anti-ageing is anti-life.” She links the market for wrinkle treatments, the language of “successful ageing,” and longevity research to a single cultural assumption: that old age supposedly deprives a person of value.
MacPhail begins with a woman in Dallas who is saving for a neck lift. The woman says that she understands the pressure created by the beauty industry but still finds it almost impossible to resist. This industry sells a youthful appearance as a route to respect, employment, and social status.
In the essay, MacPhail extends this argument from the concept of “successful ageing” to David Sinclair’s laboratory and discussions about defeating death. She accepts that wanting a long life in good health is reasonable, but she sees the hope of stopping ageing as another expression of ageism.
“Anti-ageing is anti-life,” MacPhail writes, summarizing her position.
This argument conflates two different outcomes. The cosmetic market offers a face that looks younger and receives higher social status. Ageing research seeks ways to preserve memory, mobility, organ function, independence, and life. The term “anti-ageing” has become a shared label for projects with different aims.
Ageism devalues people because of their age. It treats older people as burdens, excludes them from work, and expects them to conceal grey hair and wrinkles. Ageing medicine addresses a different fact: the risks of dementia, bone fragility, muscle loss, heart disease, and death increase with age. A person at eighty has the same value as a person at thirty. The chance to live more years with a functioning body and a clear memory is valuable in itself.
Ageism is a real problem. In a 2015 study published in the scientific journal PLOS One, the authors examined 200 years of American language about older people and found a sustained increase in negative stereotypes. They also found an association between these stereotypes and the tendency to describe old age primarily in terms of disease. Treatment for age-related diseases should preserve a person’s agency and choices, rather than reduce that person to a collection of impairments.
The aim of the intervention provides the relevant distinction. A wrinkle treatment changes appearance. A treatment for dementia, a fracture, or heart failure is assessed by how well it preserves function and extends life. One person may choose both types of intervention, but these choices have different social meanings.
Human dignity does not diminish with age. Respect for life requires protecting older people from humiliation and giving them more time without disease, loss of function, and death.