Unfortunately these transformations in medical science also made death the enemy. Society’s focus shifted from dying well to living well; even the Church abandoned Ars Moriendi texts in favor of the powerful medical technologies developed throughout the 20th century. Suddenly the dying process was a battlefield where the physician fought illness and patients saw their bodies as foreign to their selves. This is where we are today; our image of dying is the elderly patient lying in bed, intubated, and surrounded by devices that preserve something akin to life. It’s certainly not any form of life that we’ve ever known before. But when life is oriented around the absolute fear of death – really, the fear of an alienated body – what choice do we have but to cling onto this reduced existence?
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 01:49:05 +0000
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