Mischelle Smith
asked:
I remember when you couldn't talk about cancer. Then you shouldn't talk about sex. Also, never talk about race. It seems the topic of death, is in that "no talk" zone. If everyone will die, why isn't there more talk about death and the practices around it?
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John
I think this reticence to face the reality of death squarely is an American mindset. Think about all the euphemisms we have for death: passed on, passed, walked on, lost, left this life, etc. I seldom hear anyone say "So and so DIED."
Kelly French
Because no one really knows about what happens when you die.
Fiona
I think the reluctance to talk about death is greater in the US than other countries I've lived in. For example, when Peter Gethers (author of the Norton the Cat books) was interviewed on a British chat show, he was asked if he'd get another cat when Norton died. He was totally taken aback because he'd been interviewed many times in the US, but no one had ever brought up the subject of Norton's eventual demise.
Akshay Kumar Singh
Looking at other answers : talking about death is taboo is many other countries as well. Hell, funeral parlors and your specific wishes for burial etc are much more common in US (and the West) than in Asia. You'd be called morbid and shunned if you were to bring something like that up in India, for instance.
To the original question - I guess its to do with the immense difficulty people have in accepting and dealing with death. Look at death with the lens of other topics that were taboo and hard to understand in the past - AIDS and homosexuality come to mind. As awareness around these grew, so did social movements to embrace LGBTQ+, for instance. With death, however, there is very little people still know or wonder about, other than those in the academic or professional field. For a normal bloke, the shock of losing someone always supersedes the actual thing.
To the original question - I guess its to do with the immense difficulty people have in accepting and dealing with death. Look at death with the lens of other topics that were taboo and hard to understand in the past - AIDS and homosexuality come to mind. As awareness around these grew, so did social movements to embrace LGBTQ+, for instance. With death, however, there is very little people still know or wonder about, other than those in the academic or professional field. For a normal bloke, the shock of losing someone always supersedes the actual thing.
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