mourning

nationality

British

occupation / innovator as

anthropologist

innovator in the field of

anthropology

is, in the U.S. and England, now treated as morbid self-indulgence. Social admiration is given to the bereaved who hide their grief so fully that no one would guess anything had happened.

In both England and the United States, he observed, the contemporary trend was to treat mourning as morbid self-indulgence, and to give social admiration to the bereaved who hide their grief so fully that no one would guess anything had happened. Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

is no longer a public affair. This comes as a result of the increasing pressure of a new ethical duty to enjoy oneself, a novel imperative to do nothing which might diminish the enjoyment of others.

The English social anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer, in his 1965 Death, Grief, and Mourning, had described this rejection of public mourning as a result of the increasing pressure of a new ethical duty to enjoy oneself, a novel imperative to do nothing which might diminish the enjoyment of others. Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

Geoffrey GorerThinkers

Geoffrey Gorer