The Unthought Conservatism of the Deathists
You might recall Sherwin Nuland as the author of a pro-death piece on the work and aims of biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey published - to much furor from the healthy life extension community - two years ago. Nuland stands in much the same camp as another noted deathist, Leon Kass - both labor under the singularly strange viewpoint that the present length of human life is just as it should be, and we should do nothing much to change it.
A chapter of "The Art of Aging" is given over to a [biogerontologist] named Aubrey de Grey, who believes that, through manipulations at the cellular and molecular levels, death itself can before too long be all but eliminated. In measured prose, Nuland states his own belief that eternal life is a bad idea. "For reasons that are pragmatic, scientific, demographic, economic, political, social, emotional and secularly spiritual," he writes, "I am committed to the notion that both individual fulfillment and the ecological balance of life on this planet are best served by dying when our inherent biology decrees that we do." Not nice, in other words, to fool with Mother Nature.
I would hope that I don't have to work too hard to point out just how nonsensical this position is. Let us start by asking whether a Nuland transposed to 1900 would argue the same point, back when life expectancy at birth was 40-something years and all older people suffered far more than they do today. Think about that a moment: in an upward trend over centuries, there have always been those who stood astride the engine of progress and said "enough - it's fine just here, danger lies ahead." The opponents of progress always been wrong to do so, and they're just as wrong today.
Our present length of healthy life and life expectancies at various ages are already highly unnatural; clearly Nuland does not advocate a return to a primitive era of no medical intervention and short lives of suffering, yet there is no such thing as "dying when our inherent biology decrees that we do" today. To support such a thing is senseless. From cradle to old age, modern medical technology increases our health and our odds in the life expectancy game - and those odds continue to improve.
As for Kass, I see this viewpoint as an unthought conservatism (in the sadly fading, non-political sense of the word) - the knee jerks in response to change, and the knee's owner thereby justifies the present state of being as the best possible. The gut drives the brain. But you don't have to look far afield at all to see that such a position is utter nonsense, the "justifications" all smoke and mirrors. Worse, it is a veil, an excuse of the flimsiest sort, for failing to work to prevent billions of unnecessary deaths from age-related disease in the decades ahead.
As we see in the world about us and our long human history, there is no position simultaneously so vile and nonsensical that it fails to attract defenders and advocates to paper over the horrors of the basic premise with serious-sounding words and scholarly writing. In the article I link to above, it's clear that the journalist buys into Nuland's view, for example, and more is the pity thereby.
Remember this: there are many people in the world who want you and everyone you know to suffer and die on their schedule, far sooner than you might. There are people in the world who would suppress all medical research for increased longevity - exactly the sort of research that has increased the healthy life expectancy of the old over the fifty years, and will accelerate this trend going forward. If everyday folk like you and I go along with these deathists in silence, if we do not loudly point the nature of the Emperor's clothes, then we will get what we deserve - suffering and death for failing to stand up for ourselves, failing to support longevity research, and failing to build a better future for all.