mechanisms of support and comfort rather than as authoritative normative
structures. The return of religion, within the sphere of what has come to be
known as the postmodern condition, is not the return of traditional religious
worldviews although it often appears this way. In postmodernism, religion
returns not as an encompassing worldview, wherein the differentiations that
modern thought provides are neglected altogether, but as one of several nar-
ratives that can be invoked for the functional purpose of comfort and the fur-
ther expression of uniqueness and individuality. Postmodern religion punctuates
and dedifferentiates some experiences but not all. It is a contradictory blend
of modernism (rational differentiation, utilitarianism) and traditional forms
of thought (the spellbinding power of the sacred, “magical-thinking”). One of
the reasons that religion “returns” in such a pluralistic and contradictory way
has to do with the unsettling disenchantment of the world brought about by
secularization and the relative unpredictability of death combined with anx-
ieties and fears the many people have, especially about personal failure and
the desire not to be a source of concern or effort for others (‘when I die I
don’t want to be a burden to my family’). The meaninglessness produced by
a disenchanted universe, one where religious sensibilities are thrown on to
an ever increasing tide of dwindling opportunities as technical mastery reduces
the need for supernatural solutions to problems (the cell phone replaced the
need to contact living friends and family through the use of a crystal ball) is
often experienced as particularly intolerable during the dying process. The
persistence of the idea of a “good death” is surely indicative of the dis-
comfiture experienced by ‘wild’ death.
The neo-modern emphasis on the “good death” or “dying well” is highly
paradoxical. First, because the logic of neo-modernism, with its emphasis on
the autonomy of the individual, eliminates the traditional social dynamics of
the “good death,” a death taking place under the auspices and approval of
religious authorities within a community. With the disenchantment of world-
views and the devaluing of tradition, something that can only be established
with the recognition of value pluralism and an egalitarian outlook, the con-
cept of the “good death” no longer has meaning. If it is acknowledged that
there is no final supernatural arbiter of life and death or cosmological super-
structure, then the concept of “good” no longer applies to death at all, apart
from being a worn out social convention. If this is the case, then the concept
fits better with Walter ’s conception of late modernism (the sophistication of
methods of control) than to postmodernism. Second, the shift from religious
Intersubjectivity and Religious Language • 189