Waiting to speak
a phenomenological perspective on our silence around dying
pp. 75-92
in: George, P. G. Jung (eds), Cultural ontology of the self in pain, Berlin, Springer, 2016Abstract
Drawing from existential and empirical accounts, I consider the pain that relates to our recognition of our own mortality, especially focusing on our contemporary silence around mortality and our tendencies to generalize and medicalize death. Examining Heidegger's distinction between "ontic" structures concealing death and the "ontological" significance underlying this concealing, I argue that, though this silence arises from our way of being-in-the-world, there are reasons for challenging institutional and social structures pushing us to cover over death and the existential suffering associated with it. I argue it is incumbent upon the medical community specifically, and ultimately all of us, to respond to silence surrounding dying by cultivating practices of listening, thereby opening possibilities for a more authentic relationship to our dying.
