Transcript Contemporary approaches to death and dying

Welcome to:
Mapping Mortality
Session 1:
Introduction – rhetoric and rituals
Introduction to the Module
Module Handbook
– On being paperless
– Weekly sessions
– Suggested books
What’s it all about?
– Rhetoric and rituals of death
– Death in different traditions
From google images
Deconstructing Death
“All constructs of death are culturally
created”
– Therefore, we can examine and isolate the way
a society perceives of and represents death, the
dead, and dying
From google images
Various Approaches
 Aries
– Development - historical
 Baumann
– Post-modern deconstruction – post-modern sociology
 Bloch
– Ritual subverts death - sociologist
 Chidester
– Transcendence – theological?
 Davies
– ‘words against death’ – theological/ humanistic?
 Briefly: Cumpsty, Hertz, Davies, Frazer,
Goldscmidt, Bowker, Becker
Death Denial
 Some scholars have seen religion as rooted in
denial of death
– E.g. Ernest Becker (1925-1974) John Bowker (1935-):
• creation myths invert death
– control anxiety arises from extinction (personality/
interpersonal relations)
• (Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death, 1974; Bowker,
John. The Meanings of Death, 1991)
 Critique:
From google images
– monolithic view of religion and its purpose/ essence
– lacks nuanced view of purposes and types of death
ritual
The
Dead
and
Society
 Some scholars emphasize the relationship of body & society
– James Frazer (1854-1941)
• Study of magic
– Like produces like:
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Death produces death
dead are contagious
contain essence of death
– Robert Hertz (1882-1915)
• Society links all members
• Death ritual continues the link
– Living > dead > ancestor
– Bodies > represent linkage (double burial: wet; dry)
– Makes death ‘positive’
The Tate
• Very influential on later studies of rites, van Gennep, etc.
– Walter Goldschmidt (1913-)
• Bodies not important
• Warding off death – not the dead – Sebei tribe
•
(Frazer, The Golden Bough; Hertz, ‘A Contribution to the Study of the Collective
Representation of Death,’ in Rodney Needham and Claudia Needham (eds), Death and
the Right Hand, 1960 (1st published 1905-1906); Goldschmidt, ‘Freud, Durkhiem and
death among the Sebei’, in Kalish, Death and Dying: Views from Many Cultures, 1980)
 Critique:
– Generally based in sociological/ anthropological studies of one culture
Theories of Death
 Some scholars make theories about types of death
– J. S. Cumpsty (????)
• Nature religion: dead > ancestors
• Withdrawal religion: dead > reincarnated
• ‘Secular world affirming religion: dead > heaven
From google images
– Also: moves away from religion as overcoming death to
‘religion as ‘belonging’ – social network
– Vs. Becker & Bowker
• (J.S. Cumpsty, Religion as Belonging: A General Theory
of Religion, 1991)
 Critique:
– Simplistic overview of religion/ death
– One size fits all package
Which approaches are useful?
 Overview the previous views:
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Becker/ Bowker: death as origin of religion
Frazer: humans see death in dead via ‘magic’
Hertz: ritual represents way we relate to dead
Goldschmidt: no one really worried about ‘dead’ but ‘death’
Cumpsty: different religions classify death by type
 2 Questions:
– Which approaches/ answers do you think are most
insightful or useful or appealing? Why?
– Which approaches/ answers do you find least
satisfactory? Why?
More detail:
Bloch: ritual subverts/ transcends death
Baumann: all culture is hiding from death
Aries: historical development
Chidester: types of death
From google images
Davies and Modern/ Post-modern Death
Zygmunt Baumann (1925-) (1)
Death is so big it may swamp human will
to live
No ordinary social life possible if we dwell
on it
– “Death cannot be perceived; still less
visualized or 'represented’” (p. 2)
– “Death is an absolute nothing and ‘absolute
nothing’ makes no sense…” (p. 2)
Baumann (2)
Freud
– “no one believes in his own death”
– The unconscious “behaves as if it were immortal”
• From ‘Thoughts for the Times of War and Death’, pp.
77 & 85
Language of death:
– Passed on/ away
– Dead = departed
– Asleep
Baumann (3): must control
 Lose motive to live if we dwell on for too long
– Hide death –place it under control
 Death rites – keep its impact to a minimum
– Branislow Maliowski – religion helps give sense of
hope not despair
– Funerary rites uplift (Durkheim)
 Culture (especially religion) hides death
– Supplement death instinct with life instinct
• thanatos and libido
– Religion
• Death ritual removes them from world of living
Baumann (4): methods of
control
 Make dead ‘cease to exist’
– Exclude them:
• Cemeteries
• Place in care of licensed professionals
– Like insane, ill, criminals
 Deny substance of death
– 1) human finitude does not count
• Death doesn’t stop – we continue –Hindu
• “Judaist” – covenant with God = important; personal death as
nothing when measured against long conversation with God
– 2) insist “against the odds” in individual existence
– Combined
• Totalitarian/ Nationalist – surrender individual life for lasting
accomplishment
Maurice Bloch (1939-) (1)
 Death leads to higher life:
– Contradicts natural order
– ‘Death’ becomes ‘life’
 Many initiatory rituals = symbolic death
– Hindu renouncer traditions
– (Early) Christian baptism
 Term (for ritual passage):
– ‘Rebounding violence’
– ‘Rebounding conquest’
Bloch (2)
 People are born, grow old and die
– Is this the only way to conceive of the natural order?
– Can we subvert/ transcend this?
 Extends sociological/anthropological theories
– Durkheim – funeral reintegrates society
• Damage not just repaired – subverted
– Malinowski – bereaved need support
• Damage not just ‘ignored’ – subverted
– Van Gennep – rites of passage mark progress
• Not just social markers – power to leap beyond
Baumann vs. Bloch
Questions:
– What do you think of Baumann?
• What critique would you suggest?
– What do you think of Bloch?
• What critique would you suggest?
– Compare/ contrast Baumann & Bloch:
• Do they conflict: which side is stronger?
• Can they complement each other: how?
Phillipe Aries (1914-1984)
 Tame Death
– Early church to early medieval
 Death of the Self
– High Medieval
 Remote Death
– C 16th to C 18th
 Death of the Other
– Victorian
 Death Denied
– C 20th
From google images
Tame Death
 Attitudes to death
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Death = near and constant
Familiar
Public
Focus on community
No surprise, calmly accepted
Non-threatening – opposite of wild force
 Burial and bodies
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Mass graves – bones dug up to charnels - lessons
Cemeteries near churches
Cemeteries = public squares
Near martyrs – basillicas
Change from pre-Christian rites
 Religious/ Spiritual/ Symbolic Aspects
– Death = sleep till 2nd coming
http://www.biblepl
aces.com/thessalon
ica.htm
Death of the Self
 Attitudes to death
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Black Death made it uncontrollable
Growing sense of individualism
Focus on dying person
Moment of death – true self revealed
Ars Moriendi
 Burial and bodies
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Rich in coffin with marked grave
Sense of individual – marked grave
Poor in common grave
From google images
New fascination with dead body – revulsion
Cover face of corpse; hide body in shroud/coffin, even coffin with
cloth (pall)
 Religious/ Spiritual/ Symbolic Aspects
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Model of death from 2nd Coming (C 11th) to Last Judgement (12th)
To heaven or hell – purgatory
May involved suffering – fear of personal salvation
Patron saint and devil
Final moment = significant (Jew: Shema; Muslim: divine name;
Pure Land Buddhist: Namo Omitofo)
Remote/ Imminent Death
 Attitudes to death
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2 great fears: sex and death – controls decayed
Renaissance and Reformation – death loosed
Tame > untamed, wild, invasive
Rise of science and secularization – remote
Beginnings of medicalization of death
Put it out of mind
Natural, not supernatural
Natural, but frightening
From google images
Natural so face calmly – seek ‘beautiful’/ ‘edifying’ death
Ambivalence - Paradox
 Burial and bodies
– Cemeteries away from churches – just burial grounds
– Fascination with cadaver – dissection = “fashionable art”
– Survivors keep some part (heart/ hair)
 Religious/ Spiritual/ Symbolic Aspects
– More unsure
Death of the Other
 Attitudes to death
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Shift of emphasis from self to other
Grief and bereavement concern
Death romanticized
To be reunited with beloved – new, but now taken for granted
Hide death under mask of beauty
Death untamed – feelings almost out of control – limit to few family members
 Burial and bodies
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Dead become ‘pseudo-living’
Graveyards = haunted and frightening
Houses also haunted
Romantic opposition to odours
Opposition to burial in church – makes it unclean
Graveyards out of town – civic control
No mass graves – next to each other, not on top
Mark place of burial – ownership
Now centre of piety for dead
Tombs = places to visit and mourn
 Religious/ Spiritual/ Symbolic Aspects
– Afterlife = like this life
– Spirits
Mount Auburn Cemetery, Boston
September 1831
Invisible Death – Death Denied/
Forbidden
 Attitudes to death
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Privatized
Natural understanding dominant
Moment of death – banished from view
Focus on survivors (or bureaucrats?)
Death is dirty and indecent
Continuation of death of other – emphasize our response
If we are uncomfortable death may be removed
Little time marked by society – brief funeral stop but continues
Mourning = morbid, even pathological
Refusal to share suffering of bereaved
Not decent in public – mourners to private sphere – expressed in private
Medicalization – death banished from home
 Burial and bodies
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Coffins become caskets (cask)
Attempt to make dead seem alive – sleeping
Cadaver no longer frightening or beautiful – “not dead”
Death in hands of hospital and undertakers
 3 main aspects:
– Dying person – deprived of his/ her own death
– Mourning is denied
– New funerary rites, e.g. embalming
From google images
Aries
Major importance in death studies
Modern death = wild death
Relation to modern/ post-modern
understandings
Aries - summary
 Tame Death
– Death near and constant; Divine Will; Public; Church
 Death of the Self
– Uncontrollable; focus on self; reminders; direct eschatology
 Remote Death
– Control (sex and death); medicalize/ classify; natural; remove
from society
 Death of the Other
– Romanticize; reunite with beloved; markers on graves; afterlife
 Death Denied
– Privatized; vanished; dirty/ indecent; failure; mourning denied
David Chidester (1952-)
 3 deaths:
– Biological death
– Psychological death
– Sociological death
 4 transcendences:
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Ancestral transcendence
Experiential transcendence
Cultural transcendence
Mythic transcendence
Biological death
Various ways to measure
– Reduction of temperature
• Algor mortis
– Skin turns purple-red
• Livor mortis
– Body becomes rigid
• Rigor mortis
Psychological Death
 “It is indeed impossible to imagine our own death
and whenever we attempt to do so we can
perceive that we are in fact still present as
spectators” (Freud, 1915, p. 305)
 Freud: 2 options – acceptance or denial (p. 315)
 Recent analysis: symbols of continuity can have
therapeutic role, not just neurosis
 “Like a human life, a human death is
meaningful” (Chidester, p. 8)
Sociological Death
Disruptive effects of death – restore social
order
Social death: slavery – slave death = nonhuman death in some cultures; banishment;
excommunication; prison; asylum; hospital
Ancestral Transcendence
 Overcome biological death – live on through
family
 Ancestor worship – clan –totem – shared i/d with
first ancestor – law giver
– Contact ancestors – dreams, ritual, death
 Manifestations
– Abrahamic faiths
– Shraddha rituals
– China and Japan and filial piety
Experiential Transcendence
 Overcomes psychological death – tranquillity
 Accept as extinction: Epicurus (324-270 BCE) – no pain
therefore no fear > Lucretius (99-55 BCE)
 Kubler-Ross: denial > acceptance “promised an
experiential transcendence of death”
 Ecstatic versions: shamans, die and reborn; journey to
world of dead
 Visionary journeys: Tibetan Book of the Dead; Dante –
“signify a transcendence of death even in life”
Cultural Transcendence
 Overcome social death
 From family > society
 Ancestor worship vs. cult of the dead (Max Gluckman)
 Live in hearts, minds and memories
 Death in battle – immortal – Gilgamesh – Reagan
 Immortality – arts, sciences, heroic deeds, collective
memories
 W. Lloyd Warner: death rituals “a visible symbol of the
agreement among [human beings] that they will not let
each other die” (1959, p. 285)
Mythic Transcendence
“Imagined” personal survival
Some tribes – dead to remote regions
Under earth
Sky – Egypt 4,000 BCE
Geography of afterlife: Zoroastrianism 9 heavens, 103 hells; Buddhism, 14
heavens, 136 hells; Islam, 7 heavens and 7 hells
 A) Continuity
 B) Survival
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Disembodied spirits
Spiritual embodiment
Reincarnation
Resurrection
 C) Evidence
– Shamans
– NDEs
Aries vs. Chidester
 Questions:
– What do you think of Aries?
• What critique would you suggest?
– What do you think of Chidester?
• What critique would you suggest?
– Compare/ contrast Baumann & Bloch:
• Which approach is more useful: history or typology?
• Can they complement each other: how?
• Is it useful to compare these two? Like with like or unlike
with unlike?
Some common themes
 Hope
 Transcendence
 Life over death:
 Douglas Davies (1947-)
– ‘words against death’
• Death rites and rituals are measures to ensure continuity and
meaning
• They are, “performative utterances ensuring that death can be
coped with if it is not seen as senseless and meaningless.” (p.
22)
Davies
 ‘Words against death’:
– “encapsulates a theory which views death rites as an
adaptation to the fact of death… ‘words against death’
are expressed in books and lectures, they also pass into
the public domain through the verbal form of prayer,
blessing…” (p. 1)
– Funerals = “the ongoing and positive nature of human
identity, and of society as the cradle of identity.” (p. 7)
– Memorials = “the inscribed messages on memorials
express not only a human past but also a hope for the
future, showing that… humanity… [is] committed to
life.” (p. 111)
Back to Baumann
Culture is about transcendence
– 1st survival
• Push back moment of death; extend life-span
– 2nd immortality
• remembrance
Cultures
 Modern culture
– Deconstruct mortality
• Dissolve issue into endless battle with diseases
• Become healthcare issues
 Post-modern culture
– Deconstruct immortality
• Substitute notoriety for historical memory; disappearance of
death; life = unstoppable – now, endless series of oppositions
of transience vs. durable
Post-modern Readings
 Nomads – pilgrims
– Continual recreation of self; collage
 Immortality democratized
– Politics, pop songs, Olympics = equal weight
– Equality of opportunity
 Hide death by crossing bridges
– Everything is reversible – everyone may reappear
– Death is simply suspension
– Death hidden by fact of recycling – last years’ goods –
this year’s antiques; retro; fallen stars and nostalgia
Different theories?
 Davies: emphasize rites as hope
– Necessary for humanity
– To be human is to hope, to go beyond
– We can overcome terror of extinction
 Baumann: emphasize rites as hiding
– Necessary for humanity
– Everything is hiding, too awful
– Must always be lying to ourselves
 Question: Do they…
– … make sense of contemporary patterns of death and
dying?
– … contribute anything to understanding death?