P. Stone:"I was just pointing out how -- with everyone, but especially with famouse everyones -- we never talk about them until they are dead."
Too true. This may have to do with Holderin´s idea -- taken up by Heidegger and Geary -- of death as finality.
I think the Victorian custom of publishing obituaries is to blame. I never read an obituary of someone whom I never knew when _alive_. Unless I´m in the bathroom.
With the industry of obituaries (a Victorian invention, as Ritchie may testify), it became a mark of polite society to point out when someone has left the ´land of the living´.
The obituaries in THE TIMES were the "order of the day".Ditto with births. It was customary to point out when someone´s baby was born. Or someone engaged, or married, etc.
In Polynesia, as McCreery may testify, that is _not_ the norm. Cheers, JLS ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html