Thanatology 2200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Determinism, Materialism, Consumerism

• School: Western University
• Department: Thanatology
• Course: Thanatology 2200
• Professor: Darcy Haris

Document Summary

Idea of limited resources we are comfortable with the idea of limited resources when it comes to time, money, fuel, etc. , but we rarely accept that life itself is a limited resource. Unfair but in reality it is neither fair nor unfair we die whether we deserve to die or not. In this regard, death is the great leveler. Death is seen with interest, vicariously from media exposure, at a distance. It happens to someone else who is less fortunate and death is catastrophic. Because of increased standard of living, death became a less familiar visitor in human lives. Public health measures threats posed by many communicable diseases (typhoid, encephalitis, malaria, cholera) were reduced by a better understanding of their causes and how they were transmitted. Discovery of microbial agents led to the ideas of quarantine and basic sanitation measures being initiated, which reduced death rates and prevented morbidity and mortality.