What Happens When Death Loses Meaning? | Robert P. Harrison on Modern Life & Mortality

Robert Pogue Harrison is a Professor of Italian and French Literature at Stanford University and a leading scholar in Philosophy, Literature, Intellectual History. He has written many important books on topics such as Death and Youth, which include: The Dominion of the Dead; Juvenescence. Additionally, he hosts the popular podcast "Entitled Opinions" in which he discusses big picture issues of Human Existence, Culture and Meaning. In this conversation, we examine the reason for the rising discomfort in modern society regarding Death and what that may say about how we perceive meaningfulness. We compare the concepts of Dying vs. Perishing; and examine the concept of a "Secular After Life." We also look at how other cultures in the past developed their social structures based upon common mortality. The conversation also moves into technology, examining whether AI is reshaping our relationship with thinking, memory, and human connection, and what might be lost when thinking is outsourced. Throughout, we return to a central question: what happens to life when death is no longer understood as something that gives it structure and meaning?