Men and Death in the West. Towards a New Interpretive Paradigm?

Authors

Abstract

Up until recently, contemporary Western society seemed to voluntarily ignore death, wrapping itself in a silent cocoon. Death disappeared from the public discourse unless it was spectacularised and mediatised. While ‘true’ death receded from individual lives, ‘fake’ death was omnipresent – widespread and thus anesthetising. After being one of the great taboos of our time, it is now becoming visible again. Three aspects, which can be framed as individual civil rights, have promoted this change: bioethics (which forced the public to ponder challenging topics), cultural pluralisation (which introduced novel ways of thinking and experiencing death) and a tendency towards the creation of institutions attentive to a new humanisation of death(e.g. pandemics give rise to pandethics, with the need to harmonize individual and community rights).We are perhaps at the beginning of a cultural turning point, though punctuated with many ambivalences and contradictions. To better understand it, we should look at its antecedents and at the history of the death-related imaginary in the West. We will consider Ariès (1975) schematization of four subsequent phases in societal attitude towards death and hypothesize the beginning of a fifth stage: death postponed but also rediscovered (even if not yet truly reconciled).

References

Ariès, P. (1975). Essais sur l’histoire de la mort en Occident du Moyen Age à nos jours. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

Bodei, R. (2010). L’epoca dell’antidestino. In D. Monti (a cura di), Che cosa vuol dire morire (pp. 53-78). Turin: Einaudi.

Comte, A. (1851-1854). Système de politique positive, ou Traité de sociologie (Voll. 4). Paris: L. Mathias, & Caeilian-Goeuey and Vor Dalmont.

Condorcet, J.A.N. (marquis de) (1795). Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progres de l'esprit humain. Ouvrage posthume de Condorcet. Paris : chez Agasse (de l’Imprimerie de Boiste).

Elias, N. (1982). Über die Einsamkeit der sterbenden in unseren Tagen. Frankfurt an Main: Suhrkamp.

Fuchs, W. (1969). Todesbilder in der modernen Gesellschaft. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

Giovannini, F. (1998). Necrocultura. Estetica e culture della morte nell’immaginario di massa. Rome: Castelvecchi.

Görer, G. (1965). Death, Grief and Mourning in contemporary Britain. London: Double-day.

Hables Gray, C. (2002). Cyborg Citizen. London: Routledge.

Haidegger, M. (1927). Sein und Zeit. Halle: Max Niemeyer.

James, H. (1915). The altar of the dead. London: Martin Secker.

Kellehear, A. (2007). A Social History of Dying. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying. London: Tavistock.

Kübler-Ross, E. (1974). Questions and answers on death and dying. New York: Macmillan - London: Collier Macmillan.

Kübler-Ross E. (1995). Death Is of Vital Importance: On Life, Death, and Life After Death. Bar¬ry¬town: Station Hill Press.

Lafontaine, C. (2008), La société postmortelle : la mort, l'individu et le lien social à l'ère des technosciences. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

Morin, E. (1951). L’homme et la mort dans l’histoire. Paris: Corréa (trad. it., L’uomo e la morte, Rome: Meltemi, 2002).

Scheler, M. (1957). Tod und Fortleben e Vom Sim des Leides. Marburg: Francke.

SIAARTI (2020). Clinical Ethics Recommendations for the Allocation of Intensive Care Treatments in exceptional, resource-limited circumstances. Retrieved from http://www.siaarti.it/SiteAssets/News/ - (COVID-19 - documenti SIAARTI, 16 March 2020), March 31, 2020.

Tenenti A. (1957), Il senso della morte e l’amore della vita nel Rinascimento: Francia e Italia. Turin: Einaudi.

Thomas, L.-V. (1975), Anthropologie de la mort. Paris: Payot.

Thomas, L.-V. (1978). Mort et pouvoir. Paris: Payot.

Thomas, L.-V. (1988). La mort. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Vovelle M. (1974), Mourir autrefois. Attitudes collectives devant la mort aux XVIIème et XVIIIème siècles. Paris: Gallimard/Julliard.

Vovelle, M. (1983). La mort et l'Occident de 1300 à nos jours. Paris: Gallimard.

Yonnet, P. (2006). Le recul de la mort : l'avenement de l'individu contemporain : famille. Paris: Gallimard.

Waugh, E. (1965). The Loved One, London: Chapman and Hall.

Downloads

Published

2020-05-30

How to Cite

Barbieri, A. S. A. (2020). Men and Death in the West. Towards a New Interpretive Paradigm?. Culture E Studi Del Sociale, 5(1, Special), 195–209. Retrieved from https://www.cussoc.it/journal/article/view/119