  urlLink Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | From Dickens to Disney : "In film, literature and in music, Christmas has come to signal a feast of sentimentality. But, in the best, there's a darkness under the blanket of snow, says Blake Morrison, and a hint of the alien beyond the glow of the hearth... " and urlLink Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Birth - the ultimate miracle : "Why are we so obsessed with what other people think of us?
Why are we so concerned to fit in? Why do we submit so readily to the tyranny of the 'they'? Heidegger's famous answer is that social conformity is a function of the fear of death. Standing alone is to face the full force of our own mortality. The crowd, on the other hand, is impersonal and immortal. The crowd is beyond the reach of death. Heidegger concludes that we hide from the unwelcome prospect of death by submerging our identity in the 'they'. The crowd anesthetises us from the thought of our own mortality. The price we pay for this evasion of the grim reaper is the loss of authentic existence.
Submerging our identity in the 'they', we refuse the very knowledge that individuates us and makes existence authentically our own. Death is the one thing that another cannot do on our behalf. Death gives life its quality of mineness. It is no coincidence that Frank Sinatra's rendition of My Way continues to be one of the most popular requests at funerals. " and urlLink SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Society | Doctors acting at long distance across the Caucasian frontiers 
