culture of death

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 Worlwide 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 and 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

• (Martyrs) The Culture of Death: Terrorist Organizations and Suicide Bombing