Do we value human life more now that death is less common?

[overunderdrive]

Back before the monumental advances in medicine and biology, not to mention occupational safety--like before the 20th century--it seems as though people were dying left and right...

everything from infection to childbirth to workplace accidents and on and on.

when people knew that death was lurking around just about every corner, were they less likely to make death a big deal?

when death is more a part of life, is life's value diminished--or the other way round?

or is it just that people become desensitized to tragedy when it's more ubiquitous?

[pater familias]

I tend to think the relative scarcity of death and actual hands-on experience with corpses of loved-ones has somewhat diminished the value we place on the lives of others though not necessarily ourselves. Back then life had to be viewed as more precious since they saw so many more pass away before the advent of modern medicine. Hell, we can't even kill and prepare our own meat because it's "gross." But we'll eat the hell out of fast food.

I think the biggest thing that makes people place little to no value on life is when they themselves are mired in a life that actually has little value whether through their own fault, someone else's fault, or just bad luck. When you have very little to lose, it doesn't bother you as much to take other's.

[cram]

how is it possible for death to be less common? Common to what? What is common is that every person will die. Are we dying less now? Did I not get the helping friendly book which covers this secret?
:)

[guitarz1972]

How is death less common now than it used to be? What research supports that? If anything, I'd think death is more common now than in past generations (higher population).

[thornie]

I was listening to the Hardcore History podcast on the Fall of the Roman Empire narrated by the great Dan Carlin and he touched on this briefly. During those battles, it wasn't uncommon for 50,000 people to be executed or killed on a battlefield in just one day of fighting. This was the way things were. The modern human mind cannot comprehend an entire football stadium of people being mauled to death with swords and spears.

Two dead soldiers in Afghanistan will make the front page of every paper in the world almost nowadays. In our society death in war is just not acceptable or common. All you have to do is look back at the causalities during WWII to see how far we've come as a society in just a generation or two.

[Boris Bubbanov]

When you're just concentrating on keeping alive and keeping the human race going, you really don't think in terms of savoring the moment.

350 Gazillion people and counting, and the H bomb issue not in our faces, kinda muddies up what our goals should be. In many cases we've made the world a safer place for Person number XYZ but now it dawns on us, maybe our priorities need to change? You can look up only to realize the moment we should have savored was 25 years ago. At some point we can't keep improving the numbers on larger and larger masses of people living easier and easier lives. The system will collapse under the weight at some point and it can take much of the fun of getting this far, away.

[Boris Bubbanov]

how is it possible for death to be less common?


Premature death; unstoppable, cruel and stupid death. Science and other aspects of civilization give many humans those "nine lives" we assign to cats. Once, a life could be swept away so easy, like a candle blown out. We lacked the means to prevent so much of that. So, now people with potential get to step up and contribute where before they'd have died at age 4 of some innocuous illness.

If we die at age 90, we still die, but we got a shot. That's fair. You're right that kind of death is very common but at some point those deaths are understood no matter what the culture.

[Sandy Cheeks]

How is death less common now than it used to be? What research supports that? If anything, I'd think death is more common now than in past generations (higher population).

Um, I assume the OP is ultimately talking about life expectancy. Even one is going to die sooner or later.

[EricPeterson]

Everyone is going to die sooner or later.


That remains to be seen. ;)

[chandlerman]

The modern human mind cannot comprehend an entire football stadium of people being mauled to death with swords and spears.


1994 was not that long ago, 800,000 dead from swords and spears.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

[grateful.ed]

from all the beatdown videos online...the witnesses seem indifferent, sometimes temporarily entertained

[filtersweep]

Who really knows? When I see a family of five riding on one scooter in India, it looks like life is cheap (from our bubble-wrapped perspective), but I doubt they love their baby dangling from the handlebars any less than someone in the US.

I would say that in the Western world we value life more as indicated by the following:

-lower birth rate- we expect all of our kids to survive childhood
-the very concept of childhood- we don't raise kids for economic reasons-- if anything, they are a financial liability, but they are not a source of labor on our farms or our retirement when we get old. We'll be lucky if they visit us in the nursing home
-peaceful and safe times-- statistically this is the safest time ever to be alive, and also the most peaceful

[overunderdrive]

how is it possible for death to be less common? Common to what? What is common is that every person will die. Are we dying less now? Did I not get the helping friendly book which covers this secret?
:)

of course we all die, so technically you're right...there's always been a 100% chance of dying.

the difference is, we don't see it all around us anymore. people who get sick or injured--unless very severely--tend to get better.

workplace safety--notwithstanding the mining industry and soldiering--has improved dramatically.

and old people, rather than live out their lives with their families, are instead shipped off to die in nursing homes.

we just don't deal with death directly anymore. and when we do, it tends to be relatively sanitized, i.e grandpa in a fancy, satin-lined box in his Sunday best.

[A-Bone]

I suspect a great deal of this varies greatly depending on the "we" under consideration. In many parts of the world, life expectancy is not that great, and death is still a local and ubiquitous part of community life.

[TD_Madden]

I'm guessing the difference is in the day-to-day exposure (at least in our culture) of the dying/dead in general. It has become invisable to a lot of us.

We put our old people in warehouses and avoid seeing them more than we have to; then we pay crazy amounts for Aunt Martha to look "asleep" at her expensive viewing.

You also don't see kids at many funerals, and everyone is usually gone by the time the finality of the casket-lowering takes place....so it's pretty much out of sight/out of mind.

[projam619]

Maybe its no accident that "secular humanism," a product of the Enlightenment, gained widespread currency in the West contemporaneous with view of death as less of a "big deal", as you say. Premodern societies tended to value the "next life" over our time on earth. The finitude of existence pervaded their "mentalite". In contrast, modern societies, under the spell of science and progress, ascribe value on this life, not the next. Darwinism, medical science, and so on is about preservation of life.

Yet as people alluded to (indirectly) above, why is it the the 20th century was the most barbaric in human history? Maybe its hardwired. This is an interesting read:

http://www.amazon.com/Less-Than-Human-Enslave-Exterminate/dp/0312532725/ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1X3U0558B0U7U&colid=2WR3X82M1KFLY

[germs]

no, i don't see it as we do...

something worth examining, would be to ask ourselves "what" makes one person somehow less than another. i see it as an "hey, at least it's not me" sort of mentality. pure and simple survival.

it's hard to really put into words appropriate for a forum response (without writing an essay).

BUT - there's a reason we think that way (as a whole).

[overunderdrive]

I suspect a great deal of this varies greatly depending on the "we" under consideration. In many parts of the world, life expectancy is not that great, and death is still a local and ubiquitous part of community life.

yeah, I guess I figured the 'we' was implied...as in, those of us who live in the so-called 'West' and other modern, industrialized societies as well.

but I guess the question pertains to under-developed societies as well, where things like vaccines are viewed with suspicion...

do those cultures place a different value on human life?

[pickaguitar]

I'm guessing the difference is in the day-to-day exposure (at least in our culture) of the dying/dead in general. It has become invisable to a lot of us.

We put our old people in warehouses and avoid seeing them more than we have to; then we pay crazy amounts for Aunt Martha to look "asleep" at her expensive viewing.

You also don't see kids at many funerals, and everyone is usually gone by the time the finality of the casket-lowering takes place....so it's pretty much out of sight/out of mind.
+1 I think this has a lot to do with it

[rob2001]

I think any answer is generalizing. It's pretty hard to say how "we" feel about death. Many things in life (and death) are still up to the individual.

[overunderdrive]

Premodern societies tended to value the "next life" over our time on earth.

I'm not so sure you need to go back that far to find this value system.

without diving egregiously over the line, I don't think there's any doubt that some in our modern society have a hard-on for the world to end, so they can pass gloriously into eternity, while those who don't share their beliefs spend forever in a less-than-enchanting realm...

[Gibson 1964]

Back before the monumental advances in medicine and biology, not to mention occupational safety--like before the 20th century--it seems as though people were dying left and right...

everything from infection to childbirth to workplace accidents and on and on.

when people knew that death was lurking around just about every corner, were they less likely to make death a big deal?

when death is more a part of life, is life's value diminished--or the other way round?

or is it just that people become desensitized to tragedy when it's more ubiquitous?
Death is every bit a part of our lives as much as it was in the dark ages. 1 out of 1 still die, and a car crash, a meteor, a blood clot, an aneurism, or any number of millions of things could kill you instantly.

I think as a society we live in denial. When we deny death and ignore it, we often forget to live.

My wife has worked in surgical trauma, so you become aware that medicine is truly limited in what it can do.

We as a society just tend to look the other way. I think that tends to lead to triteness and complacency. We forget that the hourglass is losing sand at a fast rate.

[EricPeterson]

Yet as people alluded to (indirectly) above, why is it the the 20th century was the most barbaric in human history?


Is it?

[projam619]

Is it?

In the Western world, yes, IMHO. This is due to the systematicity through which 20th century mass murder was carried out. Reason promised progress - or so the philosophes argued - yet it was exactly "instrumental rationality" that enabled exterminism at a level that makes the mind reel. The Nazis kept meticulous records of their victims; trains filled with human cargo destined for Treblinka or Auschwitz ran according to a perfect schedule. This is instrumental rationality employed to carry out the most irrational activity possible. All because of an ideology that rationalizes another people as subhuman. It is a crime of logic, not of passion, as Camus argues. Murder takes form of a syllogism.

[EricPeterson]

In the Western world, yes, IMHO. This is due to the systematicity through which 20th century mass murder was carried out. Reason promised progress - or so the philosophes argued - yet it was exactly "instrumental rationality" that enabled exterminism at a level that makes the mind reel. The Nazis kept meticulous records of their victims; trains filled with human cargo destined to Treblinka or Auschwitz ran according to a perfect schedule. This is instrumental rationality employed to carry out the most irrational activity possible. All because of an ideology that rationalizes another people as subhuman. It is a crime of logic, not of passion, as Camus argues. Murder takes form of a syllogism.

No doubt there has been a large amount of brutality and inhumanity, but is it more than previous times? Think of slavery, the french revolution, imperialism, roman rule, the crusades, so on and so on.

[rob2001]

No doubt there has been a large amount of brutality and inhumanity, but is it more than previous times? Think of slavery, the french revolution, imperialism, roman rule, the crusades, so on and so on.

I think it is. It just doesn't seem like it. It's easier to kill 100,000 now and it's a nameless, faceless group.

It may seem less brutal and barbaric because the method of death's delivery is cleaner. In that respect I'm sure they valued life more when they had to go out with a sword and do the killing.

[A-Bone]

I think it is. It just doesn't seem like it. It's easier to kill 100,000 now and it's a nameless, faceless group.


I don't know. Most hear an awful lot more about the death and destruction in the 20th Century as it is more recent and records more available, but you might look back to the Thirty Years war, which killed one third of Germany's men in the 17th Century, or the Mongol invasions of the 14th Century, which killed more people proportionately than WWII. Or the horrors of the African slave trade, or the genocide perpetrated against the indigenous peoples of North, Central, and South America.

[GuitarKidd]

It there now an alternative to death? Do we have choices now.. jeez.. and I thought I kept up on current events!

[rob2001]

I don't know. Most hear an awful lot more about the death and destruction in the 20th Century as it is more recent and records more available, but you might look back to the Thirty Years war, which killed one third of Germany's men in the 17th Century, or the Mongol invasions of the 14th Century, which killed more people proportionately than WWII. Or the horrors of the African slave trade, or the genocide perpetrated against the indigenous peoples of North, Central, and South America.


Ya, I digress. I'm thinking of scenarios where weapons of mass destruction have been used. A lot of people were killed when we dropped the bomb on Japan, but there could have been even more killed worldwide if the war had continued.

[germs]

"living in denial"

spot on.

granted: our land lords don't come charging down the street, slaughtering those who don't step out of the way in time...it's not quite so in-your-face anymore.

maybe the OP meant "death in war is less common"...yeah, maybe for OUR guys. i can assure anyone who doubts it: we're killing the hell out of the enemy. modern technology helps a lot. using daisycutters is akin to shooting fish in a barrel. effective though.

but again, that's like a million miles away, right? it's not happening in our city streets, so why worry about it?

besides, Aunt Martha needs another application of powder. the purple is starting to show through...

[pickaguitar]

It there now an alternative to death? Do we have choices now.. jeez.. and I thought I kept up on current events!

Perhaps...

Stem cells reverse aging in mice
http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/03/9917514-real-benjamin-button-stem-cells-reverse-aging-in-mice (http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/03/9917514-real-benjamin-button-stem-cells-reverse-aging-in-mice)

[rspencer]

Death is no less common than ever before. It's still 1 death per capita.

Advances in medicine, safety legislation, and nutrition have extended the average lifespan, yes. But that merely creates the illusion that death is less common.

But the largest segment of our population, the "baby boomers," are aging.
And within the next 20 years, death will start to seem more common than ever before.

[Wolf_Daddy]

I'd imagine we value it less, given what we consume and irresponsibly do to our home, earth.

[projam619]

I don't know. Most hear an awful lot more about the death and destruction in the 20th Century as it is more recent and records more available, but you might look back to the Thirty Years war, which killed one third of Germany's men in the 17th Century, or the Mongol invasions of the 14th Century, which killed more people proportionately than WWII. Or the horrors of the African slave trade, or the genocide perpetrated against the indigenous peoples of North, Central, and South America.

In numerical terms, I'm pretty sure the 20th cent. was the most barbaric. I'll have to check numbers.

Seems that the apogee of human barbarism by the 20th century was an inescapable concomitance of Euro imperialism - what should had been confined to regional conflict became global due to imperial rivalry as Europe colonized 90% of the earths surface (if we count the Qing empire as a state of semi-colonialism) by the fin-de-siecle. My earlier point was that barbarism was reasoned in terms of progress (of nation, race, etc). What happened instead was reason's opposite. This makes barbarism even more barbaric, imho.

[A-Bone]

In numerical terms, I'm pretty sure the 20th cent. was the most barbaric. I'll have to check numbers.

Seems that the apogee of barbarism during the 20th century was an inescapable concomitance of Euro imperialism - what should had been confined to regional conflict became global due to imperial rivalry as Europe colonized 90% of the earths surface (if we count the Qing empire as a state of semi-colonialism) by the fin-de-siecle. My earlier point was that barbarism was reasoned in terms of progress (of nation, race, etc). What happened instead was reason's opposite. This makes barbarism even more barbaric, imho.

Given the population of the 20th Century, it is not hard to imagine that the absolute numbers are greater. But it is debatable if proportionately it was even equally barbaric to earlier epochs and events.

[A-Bone]

I'd imagine we value it less, given what we consume and irresponsibly do to our home, earth.

Or maybe we value it the same, given that a great deal of our casual attitude towards the planet is the result of technology facilitating disposability of resources. In other words, given equal access to the same technologies and lifestyles, I am unconvinced that earlier groups would remain superior stewards.

[projam619]

Given the population of the 20th Century, it is not hard to imagine that the absolute numbers are greater. But it is debatable if proportionately it was even equally barbaric to earlier epochs and events.

You're right A-Bone. At the same time, in terms of macro-perspective, at what level do we decide to confine our angle of vision when determining human death toll proportionately? Whole villages and principalities were wiped out during feudal times, I'm sure. Proportion scales can be problematic as well.

[A-Bone]

You're right A-Bone. At the same time, in terms of macro-perspective, at what level do we decide to confine our angle of vision when determining human death toll proportionately? Whole villages and principalities were wiped out during feudal times, I'm sure. Proportionate scales can be problematic as well.

Agreed. I'm certainly not suggesting that the horrors of the Twentieth Century or the present day are minor or inconsequential. I am just unconvinced that the last Century represents the nadir of human history in that sense.

That having been said, I do appreciate the idea that there is a striking disjunction between the professed progress of modernization, science, society and all that and the behavior that dominated Europe in the teens, and Europe and Asia in the late 30s to mid 40s. I suppose I would chalk this up to the human heart with its craven desires remaining unchanged in the face of said progress.

[projam619]

Interestingly, European intellectuals tend to lament the 20th century as the most barbaric in history. They judge this in terms of the "longue-duree" of Western civilization. Seems modernity and civilization wasn't so civilized after all...

We Americans were pretty much unscathed by the wars of the 20th cent., comparatively speaking. Barbarism has left less of an imprint upon our consciousness. We read about it, but we did not experience it as the European colonizers and non-European colonized did.

[Bluedawg]

No doubt there has been a large amount of brutality and inhumanity, but is it more than previous times? Think of slavery, the french revolution, imperialism, roman rule, the crusades, so on and so on.

That stuff covers a significant amount of time .... more like 2 or 3 millenia


Stalin an Mao alone probably pushed the 20th century over the edge as the worst single century ... at least 80 million between the two of them

add Hitler and Tojo to cap it off ... working in unison with Stalin

then there's Pol Pot, Idi Amin .....

:munch

[projam619]

That stuff covers a significant amount of time .... more like 2 or 3 millenia


Stalin an Mao alone probably pushed the 20th century over the edge as the worst single century ... at least 80 million between the two of them

add Hitler and Tojo to cap it off ... working in unison with Stalin

then there's Pol Pot, Idi Amin .....

:munch

These are all stark examples of exterminism committed in the name of progress (of the nation, of history, of race).

[5E3]

The older I get, the more I value life. :)

[germs]

thanks to Google, i just discovered the "necometrics" site.

let's break it down by the numbers for the major players in the 20th Century:

WWI - 28M

WWII - 66M

...you know what, let's just stop there. it's too depressing. 20th Century wins. but as the data rolls towards the present, we see a large drop in casualty numbers - basically because the military finally figured out after a few thousand years, that hurling men at each other (large or small scale) just doesn't seem to work nearly as well anymore.

i don't think the OP was really looking past the scope of his/her own nose, TBH.

[germs]

maybe the OP is asking how we feel now that violent death is so far removed from us in the United States...

maybe some 9/11 survivors could chime in. or Iraq war veterans.

i've probably contributed to this thread too much already. it's a good question, though.

[A-Bone]

maybe the OP is asking how we feel now that violent death is so far removed from us in the United States...

maybe some 9/11 survivors could chime in. or Iraq war veterans.

i've probably contributed to this thread too much already. it's a good question, though.

And death in the developed world, in general, I suspect. In the 19th Century, people often died at home. The bodies were displayed there prior to burial, infant mortality was higher, so death within the family was ubiquitous and personally experienced. Now it is often the case that people die in hospitals or nursing facilities in the developed nations, and that there is less family interaction with the dead body and remains.

In other words, this need not be consigned to a discussion of violent death or death due to warfare.

[Britishampfan]

Today is all you got, who guarantees a tomorrow.

[overunderdrive]

thanks to Google, i just discovered the "necometrics" site.

let's break it down by the numbers for the major players in the 20th Century:

WWI - 28M

WWII - 66M

...you know what, let's just stop there. it's too depressing. 20th Century wins. but as the data rolls towards the present, we see a large drop in casualty numbers - basically because the military finally figured out after a few thousand years, that hurling men at each other (large or small scale) just doesn't seem to work nearly as well anymore.

i don't think the OP was really looking past the scope of his/her own nose, TBH.

I wasn't really thinking about war...more in terms of everyday existence and the impact medical technology, workplace safety and such have had on life expectancy, infectious disease, infant mortality rates, etc, in modern society.

but you raise an interesting question about war, which is:

what are the differences in attitudes about war in countries that have experienced war on their own soil versus those who haven't?

and lets be perfectly honest. as tragic and violent as 9/11 was, it does not qualify as a war on US soil as that concept is generally understood. the last war fought on US soil was the Civil War.

maybe the reason America is so willing to wage war has something to do with the fact that we have never had to endure a protracted modern war on US soil. it would certainly seem that the Europeans, with the memory of terror and devastation still so fresh in their collective consciousness, approach war with an extra measure of trepidation.

[EricPeterson]

thanks to Google, i just discovered the "necometrics" site.

let's break it down by the numbers for the major players in the 20th Century:

WWI - 28M

WWII - 66M

...you know what, let's just stop there. it's too depressing. 20th Century wins.


I am still not convinced, as A-Bone pointed out, world population is an important factor, here is a graphical representation:

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/World%20Population.JPG


In raw numbers, I have no doubt that war and violence claimed more lives in the 20th century than ever, but as a proportion to world population I am skeptical.

[overunderdrive]

I am still not convinced, as A-Bone pointed out, world population is an important factor, here is a graphical representation:

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/World%20Population.JPG


In raw numbers, I have no doubt that war and violence claimed more lives in the 20th century than ever, but as a proportion to world population I am skeptical.

oh, great...

2000 years of horizontal and 35 years of vertical.

that graph is the single most terrifying thing I have ever seen.

our children are so screwed, it makes me want to vomit.

[EricPeterson]

oh, great...

2000 years of horizontal and 35 years of vertical.

that graph is the single most terrifying thing I have ever seen.

our children are so screwed, it makes me want to vomit.




I think you would really like reading Malthus... ;)

[A-Bone]

I think you would really like reading Malthus... ;)

:rotflmao:rotflmao:rotflmao

[projam619]

Well, if we're supposed to believe in biblical history, a quarter of earth's population was killed when Cain killed Abel ;)

Its an arguable point for sure if in terms of proportion. In terms of sheer number of events between 1914 and 1990s (Jewish holocaust, Pol Pot, world war i and 2, Stalin, Mao, postcolonial wars in africa/asia/latin america, Vietnam war, Armenian genocide, Balkan genocide, Rwanda, just to name the ones at top of my head), the short 20th century is the most brutal in my mind, as with quite a few historians/intellectuals.

[EricPeterson]

Well, if we're supposed to believe in biblical history, a quarter of earth's population was killed when Cain killed Abel ;)

Its an arguable point for sure if in terms of proportion. In terms of sheer number of events between 1914 and 1990s (Jewish holocaust, Pol Pot, world war i and 2, Stalin, Mao, postcolonial wars in africa/asia/latin america, Vietnam war, Armenian genocide, Balkan genocide, Rwanda, just to name the ones at top of my head), the short 20th century is the most brutal in my mind, as with quite a few historians/intellectuals.


In the same way there are far more acts of altruism and charity in the 20th century than any other century.

[projam619]

what are the differences in attitudes about war in countries that have experienced war on their own soil versus those who haven't?

and lets be perfectly honest. as tragic and violent as 9/11 was, it does not qualify as a war on US soil as that concept is generally understood. the last war fought on US soil was the Civil War.

maybe the reason America is so willing to wage war has something to do with the fact that we have never had to endure a protracted modern war on US soil. it would certainly seem that the Europeans, with the memory of terror and devastation still so fresh in their collective consciousness, approach war with an extra measure of trepidation.

The trauma endures, unless the state makes an effort to expunge it from civic memory. Look at Japanese history books even today - nary a mention of the rape of Nanking, "comfort women", murder of civilians. China and Japan bicker over this issue. Yet the memory of the atom blast still infuses their history and culture (think about Godzila, a radioactive beast destroying Tokyo).

Our country had the benefit of "free security" in the form of two oceans. We declaimed our isolationism and warned against Euro interventionism within our hemisphere with the Monroe Doctrine. We're lucky we don't have the trauma of a deadly war on our soil (except the CW of course).

[digthosetubes]

from all the beatdown videos online...the witnesses seem indifferent, sometimes temporarily entertained

The byproduct of free time and human nature.