Making something beautiful for beauty's sake creates a barrier to destroying it.

Every argument dares you to demolish it, but not so with art. Bach wrote a beautiful song about how death is good. Those who believe that death is good can derive some comfort from it, but I don't feel it is an obstruction when I try to convince them of the opposite point of view. A rational argument for the value of life has nothing to fear from a song; and an affect-laden parable is not made weaker by Bach's song.

Personally, I would still listen to Bach on my 200th birthday.