History As Regression

In the context of Slaughterhouse Five, the 'so it goes' perspective on death is used as a shield against the horrible emotions and memories that are associated with WWII. The rationalization is simple: there is nothing about death that makes it inherently a terrible thing. What is the core logical difference between the death of a human and the death of a bottle of champaign? If our only goal is to protect ourselves from feeling the weight that comes with witnessing death and knowing our own mortality, a 'so it goes' perspective works well. However, it may not be possible for us humans to continue to exist with a 'so it goes' type of nonchalant attitude about death. If death were not important, if it were not to be feared and detested, would there be any reason to avoid our own death? Without fear of death, we may find little reason to continue living. Is it even possible for us not to prefer existence to nonexistence? That perspective requires a kind of apa...

I consider myself an Atonist, for the most part. I subscribe to many of the Atonist values--rationality skepticism hard work seriousness science--and while I can easily name a bunch of writers in the english literary tradition, I'd be hard pressed to name even 1 from another culture, least of all from anywhere on the African continent. Not to mention, I couldn't carry a tune to save my life, and the sight of me dancing could easily be mistaken for the random twitching of muscles that comes from being electrocuted. However I do disagree with the Atonists on a number of points. They seem so obsessed with stamping out African culture for no reason I can relate to. Just because I can't dance, that doesn't mean that no 1 can. No 1 thing (culture object etc.) is inherently  better than another.  (What does it mean for a thing to be inherently better or worse? That combination of words seems like gibberish to me.) A thing can only be better than another thing for achieving a...