Académique Documents
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Culture Documents
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preservation of individual lives. Yet the uncertainty of events, or at least of personal acllicvemcnts. Comparisons
life generally does not produce a careful fractionation of with age peers are common, with depressing or edlilirat-
temporal units, a tidy husbanding of the manifestly ing results, for in a competitive system age synchroniza-
short and precarious supply. Indeed, the complaint is tion is not an automatic virtue. Simply to be on the
often voiced by the Western observer-more often some- pace is only to comply with an average, which is nor-
one with interests in securing indigenous employees than mal but not outstanding. The imminence of retirement
the anthropological scholar attempting to analyze an (with the usually unspoken aftermath of imminent death)
alien culture-that primitive populations have no con- may prompt some peopIe to exceptional efforts in order
ception of (or perhaps, rather, regard for) time. to get a better match between expectations and achiev-
The paradox becomes complete by contrast with the ments.
clock-ridden member of a modern industrial society. Rational strategies of life-cycle management include
An inhabitant of one of the worlds prosperous countries thc maintenance of physical vigor and the prolongation
lias an average life e-xpectancyat birth of about 70 years, of life by preventive and therapeutic medicine. Parents
and adults, having survived hazards of childliood can may plan the number and spacing of children in terms
expect to live to a somewhat more advanced age. of some calculus of future financial costs, and plan tlieir
Though the chances of premature death by disease or current savings to meet those costs, since future hoped-
accident are by no means eliminated, the occurrences of for income increases are likely at best to be somewhat
such misfortunes are sufficiently rare to give virtually off phase for future family needs.
every person a reasonable expectation of a normal Rational economic management involves attempts to
life span. cushion against short-term income losses by savings or
disability insurance, to compensate for income reduction
Life Management or loss in retirement by prior purchase of annuities, and
Because the life span is the longest period to which to provide financial support for dependents by life insur-
mortal man may adapt in behavioral terms, its restraints ance on the breadwinner. Life insurance protection can
for many are less significant than its latitude in tem- be provided by a wide variety of policy forms ranging
poral ordering. Of course the perccption and significance from basic term or temporary protection to policies
of ultimate mortality is likely to increase with advancing \vhich combine a substantial element of savings with the
age, with the prospective time remaining becoming in- protection. Examples of the latter are endowment and
creasingly precious. Bereavement also calls at least tem- retirement income policies. The typical and popular form
porary attention to the reality of death, pnrticularly if of permanent whole life insurance uses a premium based
the deceased died prematurely. It is reasonable to sup- upon the mortality experience of large populations. Ob-
pose, although there is little direct evidence on this viously at the older ages of issue the typical premium
point, that the constraining importance of death for, say, is higher because the mortality rate is greater-or, if you
the young adult lias an approximate correlation with will, tlie period of life expectancy is shorter. Obviously,
mortality risks. That is to say, if killing diseases and fre- the family of the insured who dies early in the duration
quent disasters are normal, or if deaths in battle are of his policy receives proceeds much in excess of the
numerous in military operations, those remaining alive premiums paid--\vliile the insured who lives well be-
may operate with rather short temporal liorizons. In yond liis expectancy may in fact p y premiums in excess
modern societies with very low mortality rates, particu- of the face amount of his policy. Since permanent forms
larly for the young and mature adults, those adults are of life insurance include cash and paid-up values, 1 1 0 ~ ~ -
likely to figures largely in the many for whom long- ever, there is considerable flexibility available to the in-
term temporal ordering is tlie prcdominant orientation sured as llis needs for family protection dccrcase and as
to tlie life span. It is in those societies also that infancy lie himself plans for retirement and the period of reduc-
is prolonged in the sense of protracted formal educa- tion or cessation of his personal earnings.
tional preparation for future adult roles, and that inter- The very possibility of temporal strategies involving
generational social .mt&ility and some latitude in occu- life and deatli symbolize a degrce of mastery over fate,
pational choice provide precisely the options and un- but that mastery is still only partial, since death is in-
certainties that permit and indeed almost require a kind evitable. Indeed, rational action is of distinct but limited
of latitude in temporal ordering and potential strategies utility, for the planning of times uses, the calculus of
in sequence and timing. future costs and benefits, provides no answer to the
There are of course relatively short-term strategies in ultimate meaning of life and death. For tlie rational and
the management of ones life. Awareness of increasing civilized man shares the same inexorable destiny with
age may spur individuals to attempt to alter tlie pace of tlic improvident wastrel or tlie untutored tribesman.