Mourning Marginalized: Totalitarianism and the Shared World

Abstract

In this paper I compare two attitudes to death, and the two contrasting ways of understand ing mourning connected with these: one emphasizes the need to move on after loss has been suffered, the other stresses the need to reaffirm the value of what was lost. I argue that with out the latter prospects for both community formation and selfdetermination may be dam aged. I suggest this is because the death of another impoverishes the way we experience the world, threatening the continuity of mutually affirmed meanings and values which consti tute the Lebenswelt. However, this effect can be mitigated through the process of mourning which attempts to reclaim this experience. I argue that one of the most devastating aspects of twentieth century totalitarianism was the thwarting of mourning understood in this way.