The Persistence of Purgatory the Persistence of Purgatory

Richard K. Fenn focuses in this study on the significance of time in modern society, and on the question of why we take it so seriously. he traces contemporary Western attitudes toward time back to the doctrine and myth of purgatory, and makes a provocative case to the effect that, especially for Americans, the sense of the scarcity of time is a sign of social character which is shaped by a 'purgatorial complex.'