Title: The Reversal of Death: Changes in Attitudes Toward Death in Western Societies
Abstract: THIS STUDY COULD HAVE BEEN ENTITLED THE CONTEMPORARY crisis of if Edgar Morin had not already given this title to one of chapters in his book L'homme et la mort devant l'histoire. 1 Indeed, Morin's very words and ideas apply here: Panic-stricken confrontation in an atmosphere of anguish, neurosis, and nihilism, which takes the form of a veritable crisis of individuality in face of and probably also, as we shall see infine, a crisis of individuality itself. Edgar Morin intentionally limited himself to in books: literature, poetry, philosophy, that is, . . . non-specialized sector of civilization, or more correctly, sector specialized in generalities. In this case subject matter was evident: literature and philosophy have never been completely silent on subject of death and dying, and have sometimes been known to be extremely loquacious; today we know how any discourse on subject of death becomes confused and expresses one of many forms of a pervasive anxiety. Since Edgar Morin's book was published in 1951, a new literature has appeared, history and sociology of death, which is no longer general but specialized, and is no longer merely a discourse on death. To be sure, in those days there were a few pages by Emile Male and art historians on iconography of death, there was excellent book by Huizinga on decline of Middle Ages, and there was Roger Caillois' essay on American attitudes toward death, but there was as yet really no history or sociology of death.2
Publication Year: 1974
Publication Date: 1974-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 71
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