America's View on Death

In the United States, the discussion of death and dying is not a topic people want to talk about. In American culture, the topic of mortality is unsettling to think about because we fear the thought of death. It can lead to us feeling as if we didn’t accomplish our goals in our life and that can result in a lot of regrets. And, we don’t know what happens to us after death so thinking about it causes us to stress over what will happen. When a death occurs, we mourn over losing our loved ones. We are sad and begin to grieve about how they aren’t in our life anymore. We view death as a sad topic and according to Caitlin Doughty, that is the reason why Americans fear death so much.  
In Caitlin Doughty’s From Here to Eternity, she learns about how different cultures deal with death. Through this, she began this view of the good death. The good death to me is to show a better image of death to make it not as uncomfortable as it is for some and to help people be more accepting and familiarize themselves with death. During this, she started to compare how other places react to death and how they begin the grieving process. There were some places where when someone died, there was a celebration of their life and there is joy on everyone’s face instead of sorrow. This is interesting because it isn’t how we in the United States react to death. We don’t think of it as positive thing that happens, which is why Doughty tries to normalize death and make it a positive conversation for Americans. 

Comments

  1. Hannah PilatJanuary 28, 2019 at 9:05 AM

    Americans fear death the most probably since we do not have a set funeral practice. We have a practice most commonly followed, but not used universally. In other countries they allow their faith to step in and take the wheel. America is a melting pot of different religions and cultures which makes the topic of death difficult. Everyone has different views on death. It was interesting to view the different cultural views of death and how they celebrated life when Americans tend to mourn.

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