The social struggle against death: Human strategies for immortality

Abstract

Death is an infallible part of the human life, and what makes human
different from all other beings is fact that he knows that he is
going to die. Knowing this, human beings are spending their whole
life knowing that the day of their end is going to come. It is clear that
death has its biological part, also as a huge event in the existence
of all life forms, including human, death has its philosophical point
of view, and finally, unlike some may disagree, death itself is a huge
social phenomena as well, and as such, the social influence of death
deserves close attention and its own part in the social science studies.
This paper analyzes the presence of the death in human culture, including
institutions, rituals and beliefs following the discourse of late
Zygmunt Bauman who left huge influence on this field of study. Since
the earliest forms of communities, humans are trying to overcome
the death, the state of “after-life” and some form of immortality of
the being is something that is common to all religions and beliefs ever
known to mankind, which stands as a evidence that the final void of
non-existence know to us as death is something that always presented
horror in the mind of the humans.