Death is a fact of life, an absolute and unavoidable certainty. And yet, death often comes as a shock, as if unexpected. Why? Because, contrary to all human experience, we just don’t want to believe death will happen to us. A growing body of evidence suggests that the fear of death influences how we vote, shop, and even how we judge our mothers. Does the fear of death shape how we live? NPR’s Lynn Neary poses these questions to leading researchers in an engaging conversation about how we handle life and death.
Program guests:
• Robert Kastenbaum, Professor Emeritus of Communications, Arizona State University
• Sheldon Solomon, Professor of Psychology, Skidmore College
• Jesse Bering, Director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture, Queen’s University, Belfast.
• Robert Thompson, Professor of Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University.
• Thomas Lynch, poet and director of Lynch and Sons Funeral Home in Milford, Michigan.