Philosopher Ingemar Patrick Linden says exactly what he thinks about dying. His polemic, The Case Against Death, argues that death is the ultimate scourge of humanity. “I enjoy watching snow drift on a winter’s day,” he writes. “That’s enough for me to hate death.” If life is good, we should do all we can to resist its end.
Linden rails against what he calls the “wise view”—the commonly accepted opinion that death is a natural part of the process of living and one we should not shrink from. He was surprised by his own students’ “weird” contentment with the natural lifespan. “Death apologism,” he says, has been practised by “ardent activists” throughout history, including Plato, Montaigne and Gautama Buddha, but it’s time we admit that death—even at 100—is a deeply regrettable occurrence.