Die Your Own Death: Walt Whitman’s Existential Democracy

How Walt Whitman’s philosophy of death prepares the soul for freedom and equalityHumans fantasize about immortality.Billionaires dabble in cryonics, politicians build monuments to themselves, and writers donate their papers to libraries.In Die Your Own Death, Jack Turner argues that the quest for immortality-literal or symbolic-is politically destructive.He does so through a meditation on the work of Walt Whitman.Whitman held that democracy prepares individuals to “die their own deaths”-free of fear, resentment, and illusion.In Whitman’s “existential democracy,” accepting death strengthens freedom and equality. And yet, Turner finds, Whitman only half succeeded in forging a democratic philosophy of death.As Whitman’s thought evolved in response to changing ideas about nation, race, and empire, he encouraged citizens to seek immortality through racial imperialism-the expansion of white empire from North America to the Pacific Islands-as a monument to American greatness. Turner explores