X-Message-Number: 7968
From:  (Randy)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Societal reaction to cryonics
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 22:03:38 GMT
Message-ID: <>

An interesting website (actually a group of linked webpages) about
death at
http://www.trinity.edu/~mkearl/death.html

Here is an excerpt from this page that explores societal reaction to
death. I think it explains many  people's reactions to cryonics.


"As Richard Huntington and Peter Metcalf observed in Celebrations of
Death, "life becomes transparent against the background of death"
(1979:2). In a way analogous to the experimental method of subatomic
physicists bombarding and shattering the nuclei of atoms in order to
reveal their constituent parts and processes, death similarly reveals
the most central social processes and cultural values. Death is a
catalyst that, when put into contact with any cultural order,
precipitates out the central beliefs and concerns of a people. Abram
Rosenblatt et al. (1989) found, for example, that when reminded of
their
mortality, people react more harshly toward moral transgressors and
become more favorably disposed toward those who uphold their values.
In
one experiment, twenty-two municipal judges were given a battery of
psychological tests. In the experimental group, eleven judges were
told
to write about their own death, including what happens physically and
what emotions are evoked when thinking about it. When asked to set
bond
for a prostitute on the basis of a case brief, those who had thought
about their death set an average bond of $455, while the average in
the
control group was $50. The authors concluded (Greenberg et al. 1990)
that when awareness of death is increased, in-group solidarity is
intensified, out-groups become more despised, and prejudice and
religious extremism escalate. "




Randy
Cryonics: Gateway to the Future?
http://members.wbs.net/homepages/c/r/y/cryofan1.html
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