Article October 20, 1973 Issue

Recent campus emphasis on the study of death makes the message of the following article an important one for this series.

LIFE IN THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY

Something Astonishingly Different Is Going On

ALLISON W. PHINNEY

A new, tough-minded analysis of all sorts of human problems is coming more to the fore. It is sometimes referred to by contemporary journalists as "thinking the unthinkable." Questions of aging, abortion, and death are being discussed with a probing intensity and frankness unknown a generation ago. At first glance it may seem that humanity is growing up, facing up to questions without flinching, instead of tiptoeing around them.

Often there's an "ology" underlying the new bold discussions—psychology, sociology, thanatology. These systematic studies of the human condition, with their surveys of great ranges of human behavior, for the most part emphasize a facing-up attitude—facing up to common frailties, mortality, and human finitude.

New "scientific" pressure, for example, urges recognition of death as a fact of life, the central event of life which can be prepared for, analyzed, and understood. With the advance of research and practical techniques—the help of experts—people can become as good at dying as they are at living, it is argued.

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