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LettersApril 2008 The "wisdom" of Silenus: A response The Editors reply: Professor Benatar thinks you'd be better off dead and, goodness, he has arguments to tell you why ("at length," too). Now, you might send $55 to Oxford University Press for Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. Or you might spend the afternoon in a dark closet banging your head on the floor. Which would be more profitable? In Evelyn Waugh's novella Love Among the Ruins, Miles Plastic snags a plum position in the Department of Euthanasia ("Great State," says an envious friend, "You must have pull. Only the bright boys get posted to Euthanasia."). Waugh subtitled his satire "A Romance of the Near Future." We wonder if he suspected just how near that future would be? This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 26 April 2008, on page 80 Copyright © 2008 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/the-wisdom-of-silenus-a-response-3826
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