Remembering to Rember Death

in chapter 4 of Jenifer Hecht's book, "The Happiness Myth", she discusses the collective averted gaze of modern society to death. She makes a case that we should embrace death as we do birth, and this had been the case until our quit recent past. i do subscribe to a healthy view of death as a natural and inevitable end stage of our brief existence, but find it troubling that she doesn't qualify her stance with a polar extreme that is prevalent in the world today. There is a significant portion of the middle east that regularly beats their chest while proclaiming their love of death over life. These populations cant avert their gaze from scenes of death and suffering if they wanted to, and i would venture a guess that this not conducive for a healthy society. Does anyone else find her sighting of "healthy" Christian, and Jewish rituals that remind man of their eventual terminus, while not touching on what is obviously a "unhealthy" fixation on death by some fundamentalist imams unbalanced?

Fact Q: In the past, where were cemeteries often found in small towns and villages?
A: In the center of town. (pg. 56)