SOARES, Jorge Coelho    DANTAS, Marília Antunes. Considerations on death and dying in the hypermodernity. Estud. pesqui. psicol. []. 2006, 6, 2, pp.89-104. ISSN 1808-4281.

The article has as its objective, the analysis of the legal and technical circumscription of the concept of euthanasia, as well as some psychosocial aspects, having as it’s main thread the rights of a patient to promote his/her own relief, an objective which is crucial in the medical profession. This should be considered from three viewpoints: a social reality as the symbolic structures on which we base our behavior in society, the social imageries that emerge at given historical times about life and death; and, more specifically, our current context in hyper modern times, marked by hyper-consumerism, hyper-narcissism and by the idealogical concept of excesses and urgency. These lead to a gradual loss of self-expression, an uneasiness in these very modern times, a loss of sense, of moral values and the reduction of space in which to exercise individual liberties and autonomy. In this context, the hyper-modern individual, has a relationship with death, his own and that of others, which oscillates between seeing death as certain destiny or sheer horror, a return to nothingness, and in a “ tragifobic” culture, the tendency is to interpret death as a treachery of techno science, which beguiles us with the illusion of the death of death.

: Death; Hypermodernity; Euthanasia; Ethics.

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