Why are we moderns terrified of aging and death?

Memento Mori vs Carpe Diem. With the rise of humanism, we saw more of an obsession with the human condition, which has only intensified over the generations and reached their zenith today. Our hedonistic lifestyles makes us feel immortal, and now we only fear death when we're getting old or are on the verge of dying.

Compare medieval and classical writers, across various kinds of religious traditions. All of them were fascinated by death and wrote and discussed about it constantly. Not saying this isn't happening today, but far less so.

Classical and Medieval man lived with the next life in mind (memento mori), modern man lives to get the most out of this life (carpe diem).

Nigga please, how about you actually go read Plato? Socrates' Apologeia was basically
>If there's an afterlife, I'll go there because I was a good person
>If not, then death is just an endless, dreamless sleep. That's pretty chill too
>Ergo nothing bad can happen to me
He considered the non-existence (or at the very least mortality) of the soul.

>Socrates (through Plato) particulary believed in the eternal (formic) nature of a soul, so he had no reason to be afraid of death. We, however, do not believe in this nonsense and know that death is the end of it
>and know that death is the end of it
>know
lol ok whatever you say bro

Because atheism.

I disagree with this. The nightly news is filled with people getting killed. Same with YouTube. Seeing people die doesn't help you confront death, it just makes you desensitized to it.

>Classical and Medieval societies seemed to better able to cope with the realities of old age and death.
Their coping method was to create pretty much all of the notions of an afterlife that we have now. I'd say the very fact they developed them all goes to show how obsessed they were with it.

Also

False premise, they were just as terrified as we are now, if not more so.

Facing it head on is pretty different from seeing it in such a distanced way

It's like how war is everywhere in the media, video games, movies ect, but people still get fucked up when confronted with it in reality

To be fair, how many people do you think experienced war firsthand? When you were just a villager, war actually coming to your doorstep was pretty rare. We know of certain events like armies sacking major cities, killing their entire population etc. and emphasize them precisely because they were so exceptional. Chances are that if you were living in some German bumfuck city in the 1100s, you were generally safe. Even if the Baron of Dickcheese decided to go to war against the Duke of Arsewipe, you were usually left alone.

Well, if we're talking about Ancient Greece then they specifically were all about volunteer armies which even Aristocrats like the philosophers from the period fought in, so it wasn't exactly like that, it's why Sparta was an outlier with their focus on a professional army

People have always been terrified of death. It's literally a biological imperative. It's why even insects run when you're about to step on them.

They had coping mechanisms and were more used to seeing folks die. But they were just as scared of death and just as sad when they lost a loved one.

There's literally a spurious dialogue attributed to Plato where Socrates assuages and gives consolation to his old friend lamenting on his deathbed about death and not wanting to die. It's obviously was cared about back then; if it wasn't, then there wouldn't be any need for Plato to highlight how Socrates didn't care about dying if it meant that he would be just, or, in Xenophon depiction, being glad to die by execution for standing up for what he believes in rather than dying from old age with most of his senses degenerated.

A lot of people believe that death is the end now, absolutely the end, you just stop existing and experiencing anything when you die, and that's it. Which is a bit of a downer.
Are modern, devout religious people as afraid of death, too? If so then it's not just the thought of oblivion that causes the heightened fear, I guess.

Was suicide (I mean voluntary, not sacrifice or any other similar shit) even a thing until recently? If anything, modern man is the most non-chalant about death. Thousands of people take their own lives every year for no other reason but being bored with life

Not saying Classical and Medieval societies were not afraid of death. I'm saying these societies were more realistic when it came to these matters. People today are so afraid of death that people are increasingly uncomfortable about hunting animals or even killing insects. This would have been absurd to someone living even 150 years ago.

we have internet porn

Because we see it for what it really is. We know there is no afterlife. We can see that as you get old you become weaker, stupider, more emotional, and eventually you lose control of your bladder, bowels, mind. Old age is not a good way to go. If you are healthy there is a chance you will retain decent function until 90. But being in medicine, I have seen a lot of people in their 70s and 80s reduced to an infantile stage.
I dont want to have the end of my life be with some strange 20-something year old nurse telling me its time to go to bed in a patronizing manner, feeding me blended beans, or wiping my ass so my pressure ulcers dont get infected.

>We know there is no afterlife.
>we
>know

They 100% believed in afterlife whereas most people today know in the backs of their minds that there most likely is not an afterlife

Back then there were fewer old people. It's more common today for people to live into very old age. While old people existed back then, the average age at death was significantly lower than it is today.

Our materialist culture actively and collectively pushes death away from the limelight because it's efficiency in luring and managing the population depends on death's absence. Nobody can tell you that all that stuff, mortgages, your status, dreams and whatnot really matter the much if you're going to go tomorrow.

...

Nigga I'm just waiting for the sweet release desu.

Suicide was always around. It was considered a very serious sin by some Catholics. Dante Aligheri had a whole section of Hell filled with people who killed themselves.

>Meanwhile in East Asia.
DUED IMMORTALITY PILLS WHEN, LMAO.

Though they did view old age highly.

Death was unbelievably common back then, so people became desensitised to it.