Death and Politics

Today I read an article by Joseph Bottum called
"Death and Politics." It deals with the
importance of death in society and culture. I know
it is a morbid topic but it is well written.
Here are some highlights of the lengthy article:

• Freedom of the will is closely tied to a world with
  death in it: If nothing really dies, then we have
  no freedom of choice; if we lack significant freedom
  of choice, then death will prove unreal.
• A culture that generally embraces fatalism will also
  tend to deny meaningful death.
• The modern failure of funerals serves as both as a
  cause and symptom of the shattering of culture,
  first into the nuclear family, then into atomized
  individuals, and at last into nothingness....
• Contemporary America: a culture with such a
  damaged sense of community that it has difficulty
  maintaining even small, genial associations of
  mutual interest.
• How we live is important only if we see the
  consequential future flowing towards us-
  beginning, always, with the fact that we will die and
  must prepare our children to assume the burdens
  of culture.
• To the commonly cited feature of high Enlightenment
  philosophy- a preference for rational order, a rejection
  of superstition, a fascination with the scientific method,
  the general substitution of epistemology for metaphysics-
  we might add one more: a dying away of cultural
  knowledge about death.
• The poverty and weightlessness of modern culture really
  can only be solved by death.