Tuesdays with Morrie

Last week in Sociology, we continued to discuss values and how Americans had a different set than other countries. During class, we watched the movie, "Tuesdays with Morrie," and it was about a sociology teacher that was dying from a disease, and how he wanted to teach people how to live and love. He had a former student, Mitch, who began visiting him after finding out about his coming death. This movie really changed my view on death. I realized that Americans had a different way of mourning over the someone's death than other cultures. Americans see death as a much more tragic event than others because we see everyone as an individual. Therefore, when somebody dies, it is seen as they are gone forever, and things will never be the same. On the other hand, other cultures see everyone as part of a community, so if there's death, they see it as everyone else is still alive, and our community isn't broken. Morrie told Mitch that people didn't want to love because they were afraid. Americans don't want to depend on others because they see everybody as being so individualistic.