ABSTRACT
The certainty of death is one of the few unchallenged facts of life. Death as a social problem in contrast to a biographical event begins when life is terminated as an arbitrary action by others. Fundamental disciplines, those that affect a great many if not all people, involve some aspect of life-and-death; or, if not death, then incarceration and illness. Life-and-death issues are uniquely fundamental since they alone serve as a precondition for the examination of all other issues: public and private, local or historical, products and producers. At mid-century that Black Death had raised the question of God's hostility to man and events since then had offered little reassurance. Herein lies the essential difference between the medieval and modern ages: the distinction between the perception of death as unavoidable tragedy willed by Providence and of death, potentially, as manufactured purification of society willed by people. The chapter considers genocide within an amplified context of sociology.
