culture of death

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culture of death (plural cultures of death)

1. (theology) In moral theology, the concept that human life can be a means to some other end and not solely an end itself.
2. (philosophy, politics) In contemporary political and philosophical discourse, a culture asserted to be inconsistent with the concept of a "culture of life", such as cultures that support contraception and abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, human cloning, self-absorption, apathy or poverty.
3. A society that reveres suicide bombers as martyrs.
   • 2007, Talal Asad, On Suicide Bombing, Columbia University Press, page 50:

     But can one nevertheless regard suicide bombing as an expression of the political culture—the culture of death—that has emerged in modern times in the Middle East?

   • 2007, Israel W. Charny, Fighting Suicide Bombing: A Worldwide Campaign for Life, Greenwood Publishing Group, page 77:

     Still, with ... each individual case ... of individual suicide bombers ... it seems that we have to acknowledge first of all that there is a larger pattern of a culture of death

   • 2009, Joshua Craze, Mark Huband, The Kingdom: Saudi Arabia and the Challenge of the 21st Century, Hurst Publishers, page 289:

     Suicide bombings ... were still wrong because such reasoning promotes a culture of death and nihilism that will take years to erase from the Palestinian narrative

• (suicide bombers as martyrs): The Culture of Death: Terrorist Organizations and Suicide Bombing