The Thanatophobic Zeitgeist. An Interdisciplinary Approach
It has been said, many times and in various interpretative registers, that modern society is thanatophobic and death has become the greatest taboo of our age. Philippe Ariès, probably the most famous transgressor of this taboo, bitterly claimed that, overwhelmed by the mystery of death and by her fatal omnipotence, scientists have preferred to ignore it, being silent “like any human being and like the humans that they study”. However, an approach, not necessarily more objective but rather interdisciplinary and retrospective, allows us to notice that, sometimes before and sometimes concomitantly to Aries, other thinkers, from various disciplines, have sharply raised the issue of mortality denial in modern age. The hereby study shall critically explore the arguments submitted by authors such as S. Freud, P.-L. Landsberg, G. Gorer, N. Elias et alii, to support the statement that the modern Zeitgeist is a thanatophobic one, generating a troubling existential entropy, for individuals as much as for the whole society.
Keywords: death, denial, zeitgeist, thanathophobic, individualization
1.[1] François de La Rouchefoucault, “Maxim 26”. Apud Irvin D. Yalom, Staring at the Sun. Overcoming the Terror of Death, San Francisco, Jossy-Bass, 2008, p.1
2.[1] Epicur, “Scrisoarea către Menoiceus”. În Diogene Laertius, Despre vieţile şi doctrinele filosofilor, Iaşi,Editura Polirom, 1997, Cartea X, 125, p. 339
3.[1] Baruch Spinoza, Etica, Humanitas, Bucureşti, 2006, Partea a patra, Propoziţia LXVII, p. 235
4.[1] Cristian Ciocan, Moribundus Sum: Heidegger şi problema morţii, Bucureşti, Humanitas, 2007, p.8
5.[1] Sogyal Rinpoche, Cartea tibetană a vieţii şi a morţii, Bucureşti, Editura Herald, 2001, p. 35
6.[1] Mircea Eliade, Ocultism, vrăjitorie şi mode culturale, Bucureşti, Editura Humanitas, 1997, p. 50
7.[1] Judith Stevens-Long, Adult Life: developmental processes, Palo Alto, Mayfield Publ. Comp., 1979
8.[1] Judith Stevens-Long, Adult Life, Palo Alto, Mayfield Publ. Comp., 1979, p. 443
9.[1] Samuel Becket, Malone murind, Bucureşti, Editura Est, 1995, p. 8
10.[1] Ibidem, p. 12
11.[1] Philippe Ariès, Essai sur l’histoire de la mort en Occident, Paris, Seuil, 1975. See also Philippe Ariès, Omul în faţa morţii, vol. I-II, Bucureşti, Editura Meridiane, 1996
12.[1] Sigmund Freud, Opere, vol.III, Bucureşti, Editura Trei, 2000, pp.145-161
13.[1] Ibidem, pp. 163-213
14.[1] Geoffrey Gorer, Death, Grief and Mourning in Contemporary Britain, London, Cresset Press, 1965
15.[1] Paul-Ludwig Landsberg, Eseu despre experienţa morţii, Bucureşti, Editura Humanitas, 2006, pp. 24-25
16.[1] Norbert Elias, The Loneliness of Dying, New York, The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2001, pp. 34-35
17.[1] Despite the tendency of placing death denial merely on account of the modern man, such an attitude seems to have been manifested, rather strikingly, in other ages too. Montaigne, in Essays (vol. I, Bucureşti, Editura Minerva, 1984, p. 93), acknowledges this idea: “Since the spelling of the word death would hit the ear too brutally and that word would seem too troublesome, Romans used to soften it and dress it up in other words. Instead of saying: he died, they would say: he is no longer alive; the important thing was for them to hear the word “alive”, even at the end; they are consoled.”
18.[1] Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, vol.2, Oxford, Blackwell, 1982, pp. 229 ff.
19[1] Mircea Eliade, Eseuri, Bucureşti, Editura Ştiinţifică, 1991, p. 157
