Abstract
In a modern twenty-first-century Western society that extracts its values from youth culture and the fear of aging, death phobia becomes a real issue that needs to be addressed. This study aims to present some of the reasons why death became a taboo subject, why modern man fears death, and how cultural sensitivity can lead to a state of death acceptance, all while the death positivity movement is gaining traction. Keeping in mind that the complex paradox of today is fear of inevitability, let us try and name some of the roots of this problem and what we can do to ease the interaction with death.
Highlights
The fear paradox consists of the fact that we are frightened by something inevitable, and yet we do believe that we can somehow avoid it by stalling or burying it deep inside our subconscious
This study aims to discuss death as a taboo in modern Western society, modern man fearing death, and the part cultural sensitivity plays in death acceptance in the context of globalization
Industrialized cremation and embalming are two processes that changed the way we look at death and dead bodies in Western society
Summary
The fear paradox consists of the fact that we are frightened by something inevitable, and yet we do believe that we can somehow avoid it by stalling or burying it deep inside our subconscious. The body becomes both an object of external manipulation—through ritual—and a relic that holds meaning—through belief—and the image of the dead body as a product consumed via mass media, lacking in visible and realistic death images (Hanusch, 2008), disappears and is replaced by this mélange between ritual and belief, which holds meaning for both the individual and the community and helps them approach death from a physical and visual point of view, without any misguidance Doughty discusses her first interaction with death when during her childhood years, witnessing a little girl falling from the balcony of a building onto the pavement. This aims to connect death positivity to the written discourse with the help of creative nonfiction authors who project us into a realm where we can witness our own death way ahead of its time, with nonchalant sadness and humor, forcing us to interact with the uncomfortable in a way that essentially eases the painfully unavoidable impact with death
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