But how did the intellectual iconoclasm of those such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Hume come to be the cultural taste of people at large? The answer for Rieff comes via what he calls “deathworks.” He defines this concept as an all-out assault upon something vital to the established culture. Every deathwork represents an admiring final assault on the objects of its admiration: the sacred orders of which their arts are some expression in the repressive mode.37
