The Quality of Fear
What the Ebola Crisis Reveals About Culture
...you’ve got our culture’s tendency to distance itself from death. Philip Roth once wrote: “In every calm and reasonable person there is a hidden second person scared witless about death.” In cultures where death is more present, or at least dealt with more commonly, people are more familiar with that second person, and people can think a bit more clearly about risks of death in any given moment.
David Brooks (New York Times)
2 comments:
Tell us more. Draw some further conclusions please.
A lot of my theology involves Christianity as a response to the problem of death - not just on the last day of our lives, but as it pre-sents itself each day of our lives in the death of others, suffering, evil, disappointment, failure, broken relationships, etc.
"The Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker is a brilliant contribution on this from an atheist.
The various writings of the late William Stringfellow ("Instead of Death") is another great contribution from a Christian perspective.
I found this editorial by David Brooks similarly useful and posted it on my blog so I wouldn't lose it. :-)
Bill
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