The dignity of the frail: on compassion, terror and social death
This enquiry considers how the dignity of the frail elderly is objectively grounded, socially constructed, and subjectively experienced. The lives of the frail trouble public consciousness. A terror of old age, felt by young or old, is liable to form a toxic affective culture of social death. Agains...
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Johns Hopkins University Press
2021
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| _version_ | 1797067139609264128 |
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| author | Hordern, J |
| author_facet | Hordern, J |
| author_sort | Hordern, J |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | This enquiry considers how the dignity of the frail elderly is objectively grounded, socially constructed, and subjectively experienced. The lives of the frail trouble public consciousness. A terror of old age, felt by young or old, is liable to form a toxic affective culture of social death. Against such threats, the dignity of the frail requires defense. However, empathy- and capacities-based approaches to dignity fail to give a compelling account of humanity’s membership in shared community. By contrast, the poetry of the Psalms and New Testament puts terror to flight by articulating how dignity is found within God’s steadfast, worth-bestowing love which tenderly accompanies humanity in its shared dustiness from the womb to old age and beyond. The blessed dignity these sources describe is found to be more conceptually robust and affectively compelling than an individualistic eudaimonism. Cultivating an ecology of dignity in practice is finally shown to depend on a compassion which grows from the same fertile, imaginative ground. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T21:52:04Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:4ba0ee20-1379-4f8e-bfa0-a4aa7f937b0f |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T21:52:04Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Johns Hopkins University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:4ba0ee20-1379-4f8e-bfa0-a4aa7f937b0f2022-03-26T15:44:43ZThe dignity of the frail: on compassion, terror and social deathJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:4ba0ee20-1379-4f8e-bfa0-a4aa7f937b0fEnglishSymplectic ElementsJohns Hopkins University Press2021Hordern, JThis enquiry considers how the dignity of the frail elderly is objectively grounded, socially constructed, and subjectively experienced. The lives of the frail trouble public consciousness. A terror of old age, felt by young or old, is liable to form a toxic affective culture of social death. Against such threats, the dignity of the frail requires defense. However, empathy- and capacities-based approaches to dignity fail to give a compelling account of humanity’s membership in shared community. By contrast, the poetry of the Psalms and New Testament puts terror to flight by articulating how dignity is found within God’s steadfast, worth-bestowing love which tenderly accompanies humanity in its shared dustiness from the womb to old age and beyond. The blessed dignity these sources describe is found to be more conceptually robust and affectively compelling than an individualistic eudaimonism. Cultivating an ecology of dignity in practice is finally shown to depend on a compassion which grows from the same fertile, imaginative ground. |
| spellingShingle | Hordern, J The dignity of the frail: on compassion, terror and social death |
| title | The dignity of the frail: on compassion, terror and social death |
| title_full | The dignity of the frail: on compassion, terror and social death |
| title_fullStr | The dignity of the frail: on compassion, terror and social death |
| title_full_unstemmed | The dignity of the frail: on compassion, terror and social death |
| title_short | The dignity of the frail: on compassion, terror and social death |
| title_sort | dignity of the frail on compassion terror and social death |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT hordernj thedignityofthefrailoncompassionterrorandsocialdeath AT hordernj dignityofthefrailoncompassionterrorandsocialdeath |