From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Wed Nov 29 2000 - 22:00:30 MST
Just noticed this on the net:
http://theanimist.netgazer.net.au/pg000014.html#The Initiate
Here's a partial:
<The Last Mortal Generation, written by a devotee of the cult of science
(which has held sway over the mind of Western man for the past four or so
centuries), gives us a timely overview of what the 'white-coats' are up to
in the realm of immortality research. It also gives us some interesting
insights into how they view the human condition:
"We might be the last humans in history doomed to perish simply because
we can't do anything about it."
Though I admire the depth of vision and imaginative genius on display in
this work I have many problems with its philosophical underpinnings.
Broderick, and the scientists he discusses, seem to have little conception
of old age and death as necessary parts of the human life cycle. This to me
is the major weakness of the book. It is taken as fact that old age and
death are evils to be avoided at all costs, that they are in short
pathologies of the human, diseases, rather than experiences related to
summarising, relinquishment and moving on. True to the philosophy of
materialism, the book's analysis centres upon the physiology of ageing and
death ... little time is spent on the psychology of old age, the immense
psychospiritual changes (the getting of wisdom?) that accompany old age and
that may even be necessary to younger generations. Are we to believe that
the reveries of old age, the processes of looking back, of advising, of
learning from experiences, of learning from the various stages of the life
cycle, of learning to accept and come to terms with death and its capacity
to illuminate the meaning of life are to be dismissed as 'aspects of a
disease' in the same way that Broderick dismisses the physical changes
associated with the same? Don't get me wrong here I'm not saying that we
end research into technologies which stop people dying by non-natural means
- I am no Jehova's Witness. My quibble, rather, is with the desire to
reverse the natural processes of old age, to flee from death and other life
experiences into science and technology. The cult of youth that sees
millions of older people yearly submit their bodies and psyches to invasive
surgery, hormone therapy and other 'remedies' in order to avoid the
wrinkles and character lines of old age seems to be all of a piece with
this strange fear of death and ageing that now motivates scientists to
search for eternal youth.
These and other issues are matters of personal opinion, however, and to
give Broderick his due many such objections receive a fair hearing in the
book. Although I would recommend more criticism of the peculiar world view
of the scientists Broderick discusses - with a special emphasis on the
possibility that there is something psychologically suspect about people
who flee from old age in particular - the book itself is a factual,
well-researched and imaginative discussion of scientific developments which
are altering our sense of what it is to be human - even as we speak.
As a final thought: One day soon it may take courage to allow oneself to
grow old and die: we live in eerie times when death becomes the ultimate
subversive act. >
Damien Broderick
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