ABSTRACT
Western European civilization as a whole seems more uncomfortable with the idea of death than civilizations that evolved separately from the West. For instance, "the Chinese look upon death not with fear, but with pleasure". Kwasi Wiredu notes that African societies tend to be deeply communalistic: Africans are defined by their relations to the social order as much as by who and what they are as individuals. According to Wiredu, the Akan society of Ghana is representative of others on the continent in this regard. Feelings about death in Western cultures seem to be arrayed along a wider continuum than they are outside the West. There are a number of constants or aspects of culture in America that encourage the denial of death. These constants form a shared consciousness among members of American society, making their culture somewhat unique in this regard.
