Is Death Something That's Unique to America?

I don't think that there's any culture where death is just no big deal. We do have a somewhat genetically programmed fear of death, because it is so profoundly unknown. I can also believe that we radically pythologize it in american culture. The fact that we feel the need to chemically preserve each body and put that body in a six thousand dollar steel casket That's sealed with a rubber gasket. Do you think that this underlying terror is something that's unique too? You talk a little bit about the puritanical origins and all that, or do you think that it's something that is moreglobal?...