Mortality, Immortality, and Other Life StrategiesZygmunt Bauman's book is a brilliant exploration, from a sociological point of view, of the "taboo" subject in modern societies: death and dying. The book develops a new theory of the ways in which human mortality is reacted to, and dealt with, in social institutions and culture. The hypothesis explored in the book is that the necessity of human beings to live with the constant awareness of death accounts for crucial aspects of the social organization of all known societies. Two different "life strategies" are distinguished in respect of reactions to mortality. One, "the modern strategy," deconstructs mortality by translating the insoluble issue of death into many specific problems of health disease which are "soluble in principle." The "post-modern strategy," is one of deconstructing immortality: life is transformed into a constant rehearsal of "reversible death," a substitution of "temporary disappearance" for the irrevocable termination of life. This profound and provocative book will appeal to a wide audience. It will also be of particular interest to students and professionals in the areas of sociology, anthropology, theology, and philosophy. |
Contents
About this Book | 1 |
Living with Death | 12 |
Bidding for Immortality | 51 |
The Selfish Species | 88 |
Modernity or Deconstructing Mortality | 129 |
Postmodernity or Deconstructing Immortality | 161 |
To die for or Death and Morality | 200 |
215 | |
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action Adorno Agnes Heller ambivalence Ariès Arthur Schopenhauer avant-garde become body Canetti cause chance civilization collective concern condition cryonics culture daily dead death deconstructed defined degeneration discourse disease domination durable dying earthly Edgar Morin effort Elias Canetti elite eternal ethical event everything existence existential experience face fact forever function future hope human idea identity immortality individual intellectual Jean Baudrillard Jean-François Lyotard Levinas lives London loneliness mass media masses meaning Michel Maffesoli modern mort mortality nation nature never objects offer once one's Otto Rank Paris past Paul Valéry Philippe Ariès philosophers political postmodern potential practices present preservation reality reason Régis Debray replaced responsibility rule Schopenhauer secure selfish sense social society species strategy struggle survival symbolic task things thought timeless tion trans transcendence transient truth ultimate unique University Press void