• Eros1982
    136
    Fear of death has always been present i human beings, but it has been also a source of creativity. People dreamed how terrible the world would be without them, they depicted afterlife, invented religions, dreamed of never dying or guided their whole lives and behavior through knowing and through fearing their own mortality.

    My question now is this: has our modern world changed the way we perceive death?

    We know from history that people always have changed the way they approach death. The Romans had the sacrifices and the fights were people died constantly and one of the purposes of these death/murder shows seems to have been making death familiar to all Romans. The Christians made love and community more important than individuals, and through reducing individualism it seems that the purpose was to having a "bigger picture" than your own end, and so on.

    Now, in our modern world we don't use to sacrifice human beings in the way the ancients were used to and personal success seems to have become much more important than the Christian "love". Nonetheless, I have serious reasons to believe that in the contemporary world, our relationship with death is less fearsome than that on of the ancient Romans and of the medieval Christians. We are not so familiar with murder as the
    Romans were, we lack all that medieval altruism (we seem to see our modern egos as the center of the universe), but our relationship with death might have become less fearful today for many reasons.

    Some of these reasons may be: we take pride in knowing that nothing bad will happen to us after death (the ancients had fears of afterlife sometimes), we have less fears when we get sick or we travel, we are less exposed to wars and to terrible murders, we are less exposed to darkness and ambiguity, and, the most important of all, we have the most busiest brains than any other generation in human history. We are under the constant impact of information processing, tasks, goals, etc., that we might have less time to think about death and our human brains may get so busy in these days that many of us get old without even realizing it and the only time when they may find the luxury of thinking death is when for some extraordinary reasons (like a long black out, a trip to some country without internet, or an outage like that of Microsoft a few days ago) someone stops for many hours from processing information, from doing tasks, etc., and instead of doing what he is used to do, his attention is turned to other things (like bringing back memories, remembering people he lost, imagining a different life, looking at everything around him with a different eye from that one which processes info all the time and sees tasks everywhere).

    What is your opinion on these things? Am I right in believing that in the contemporary world our brains are less tuned towards the fear of death?
  • Vera Mont
    4.1k
    What is your opinion on these things? Am I right in believing that in the contemporary world our brains are less tuned towards the fear of death?Eros1982

    Given that the majority of people still subscribe to religions with a promise of continuity - afterlife or rebirth - I can't see the brain having changed.
    There is also a huge range of world-views, standards of living and imminent perils across the world; so various populations experience the prospect of death very differently.
    Yes, to a large extent prosperous western populations have insulated themselves from the specter of death. They have many safeguards and remedies to prolong life, and then, when it does inevitably end, availing themselves of sanitary, impersonal methods of disposal for the remains: they can celebrate the dead grandfather with solemn rituals but without ever having to touch his cold blue limbs.
    Then, too, we have some convenient escape routes, via drugs and medical intervention, so that we don't have to suffer though the final illness or injury. That helps make dying less terrifying.

    However, these palliatives and protections are not available to everyone even the wealthiest countries - and certainly not to the majority of the human race, who live in poverty and under constant threat from other people, nature and time.
  • Tom Storm
    8.9k
    What is your opinion on these things? Am I right in believing that in the contemporary world our brains are less tuned towards the fear of death?Eros1982

    In some ways modern Westerners fear death more because it is no longer something we see around us in daily life. Death has become medicalized and abstracted and hidden. We tend to suppress the subject of death. We try not to think about it. We don't even like using the world. People don't die. They 'pass'. This renders death taboo and very powerful. Perhaps one of our culture's last taboos.
  • Vera Mont
    4.1k
    We try not to think about it.Tom Storm

    And yet we revel in the cultural renderings of it: expensive funerals, Hallowe'en, silly movies and tv serials about undertakers, zombies, etc; scary movies about war, serial killers and random violent events. I think we try to think about it as something historical or fictional - distant from ourselves.
  • Tom Storm
    8.9k
    And yet we revel in the cultural renderings of it: expensive funerals, Hallowe'en, silly movies and tv serials about undertakers, zombies, etc; scary movies about war, serial killers and random violent eventsVera Mont

    All of which have more to do with 'entertainment' than death itself. I think you're right about attempting to view it at a distance. Nice frame.
  • Vera Mont
    4.1k
    All of which have more to do with 'entertainment' than death itself.Tom Storm

    All entertainment is very much about its content. Like gladiatorial contests, blood sacrifice, public execution, bullfights, etc. Humans have always been fascinated as well as frightened by death. The entertainment aspect of it is individually cathartic, but the greater social function of it is to get the upper hand on death, to tame it and control it. Just as we brought the forces of nature under control by domesticating them as humanized gods.
  • Eros1982
    136
    I made these thoughts when for a couple of days I didn't use the cell-phone and pc at all. I was walking around the town, in parks, etc., and I started bringing memories and thought there are things I will miss one day and I won't be in this place with these surroundings forever.

    It was a strange feeling of melancholy and spontaneity that I am not used to. But I do remember that when I was a little kid and teenager in Albania and Greece, I had these thoughts hunting me constantly. These fears, as hints, made me religious.

    When I gave up all religions in my twenties, some of these thoughts and fears resurfaced. Now in my forties, I don't care at all and I should be very very sick in order to think seriously of death. I mean I can't think of death for more than 5 mins anymore, whereas as a little kid I was terrified of death.

    Three things may explain this change:

    1) I have changed with the years (it might be some kind of psychological or physical transformation in me).

    2) In my forties I have gotten used so much with the idea of my mortality that it doesn't shock me anymore.

    3) I have changed environment. Living in the US now has made me care more about daily routine tasks and care less about death. I mean, I know very well how much melancholy I feel when I visit places I've lived in Greece and Albania. The last time I went there, three years ago, I wanted to cry and I was asking myself how so many years had passed so fast.

    On the one hand, (1) I know that I can't generalize things from my personal experiences. On the other hand, (2) I am starting thinking that maybe my new lifestyle in the US has changed me a lot and I might have become a person who cares less about death because in the US I am busy all the time, I don't have that love for life and people I used to in Greece and Albania, and so on.

    If I am right about (2) then maybe this modern American life has a lot of saying on the way I perceive death, life, love, spontaneity, etc.

    Truth be told, , religious fervor is in decline in the US and the western world. So, it is not only about me, you, and X person. It looks like a western trend of abandoning religions (don't focus on political debates and the use of religion for political reasons, but look the attendance numbers in US, UK and EU churches). The only path I can imagine back to religiosity in these countries is through replacement, i.e. if these nations and cultures are replaced by people/cultures who will bring new religious fervor.
  • Vera Mont
    4.1k
    religious fervor is in decline in the US and the western world. So, it is not only about me, you, and X person. It looks like a western trend of abandoning religionsEros1982

    Religious institutions no longer supply people with the comfort and reassurance they once did. I should say, most don't, though some still provide a warm community where people find support in their times of crisis. But the big, highly organized, rich churches have become both impersonal in atmosphere and outdated in their doctrine.
    Instead, troubled people take their fears to a psychologist, or drown them in alcohol.
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