Western Attitude Towards Death

Death: Thrill, Mockery and Acceptance
People seem to like the idea of the complexity of death and they want to understand the grief, the feeling, and the aftermath of it. Some take it more seriously than others, therefore it is just a matter of perspective. According to Philippe Aries’ Western Attitude toward Death, death is seen in four different ways: tamed, one’s own death, death itself, and forbidden. I argue that the most fascinating thing about death is how close you can get to it. Death is not portrayed as something to be fearful of or the last resort of escape when life feels like there is no end to misery. It also has admirable qualities which is why it has been sort after by many individuals. In the first chapters of the text, Aries
Embracing it or ‘dancing with death’ has become normal which shows the evolution of death from tamed to ‘wild’. This type of selfish thinking can only be explained through an analytical point of view that some people can only make sense of what they see or feel, but since they do not know what it means to take their last breath of life, most likely these individuals are prone to have no sense of respect for it. Especially for the ones who do not believe in an afterlife, life is very carefree for them. This can be very upsetting to others, mainly because they have lost their loved ones and seeing others 'casting their lives away' with careless actions is unappealing. Then, people start questioning whether some individuals even deserve life at all, for the simple fact that they are not taking it as seriously as them and they are so close-minded that the 'thrill' of life is more important than the meaning of
Evolution in thinking does take its time but it also depends of the stubbornness of the human mind. We may all go through different stages of understanding death, whether be through excitement, mockery, acceptance or even denial. By denial I mean, when individuals are traumatized by the death of death that they completely ignore its existence. You can say it has correlation to mockery because some may make fun of it because they are afraid that what they hear about death is true. Although they see it happening around them every day they cannot seem to come to terms that it would happen to them one day too; so remaining in denial is the safest way to live. On the other hand, this can lead to certain psychological things like paranoia because they would be constantly anticipating the moment that they would die or when someone who take their