Legacy Matters
Writing in Encounter magazine in 1955, the British anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer argued that death had become the great unmentionable. The Victorians were prudish about sex and candid about death, he said, whereas Westerners of the mid-20th century were garrulous about sex and, well, stiff about stiffs. Death be not loud.
The New Death by Stephen Bates in the Wall St Journal.
But we shouldn't be too hasty in congratulating ourselves and deriding earlier generations as uptight and self-deluded. We can chatter and chortle about death without honestly confronting it. In fundamental ways, our culture is reinventing death rites and, in the process, growing further apart from death itself.
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What's wrong with all this? At the individual level, funerary frivolity trivializes both the death and the life that preceded it. At the social level, tradition and ritual, passed from generation to generation, create a common framework for discussing life's ultimate questions. When we choose customized, individualized, let-it-be-me funerals, we start slipping from lingua franca to tabula rasa. Soon, we're talking only to ourselves.
Next week, October 30 at 9 pm, Frontline will present a documentary featuring the poet and undertaker Thomas Lynch about whom I've written a number of posts.
The Calling of a Funeral Director
Going the Distance
Death Lite
The Gorer quote brings to mind a favorite quote, Money has replaced sex as a driving force, death has replaced sex as a taboo, and sex has replaced bridge as a social event for mixed foursomes, Reginald Perrin.
Posted by Jill Fallon at October 19, 2007 10:58 AM | PermalinkI'll tell you what I just told Deacon Greg Kandra: I wish I had more time in my life for reading. This is a wonderful blog. Thankfully you don't post every day and I have a better chance to catch what you post.
You make a good point about death and dying in this post. When the Schiavo travesty was playing out I came to the conclusion that part of today's popular thinking (or non-thinking denials) about death is that thanks to science a lot of people consider dying optional. At some level it really is, you know. If your body is clearly about to give out and you really don't want to go, just tell the doctors and often they can patch you up and send you away for a little more time. In the case of a loved one whose mind went missing long ago, it's possible to keep the body going, like a beloved potted plant, for years and years.
My Dad's life was prolonged by a stomach tube after a stroke that took away all that he really was. I have told my family that if I cannot participate in my own nutrition, it's time to let matters take their course. I may decide to have a stomach tube...there are a variety of ways that the start of the alimentary canal might be inoperable. But if I'm persistently refusing to eat to the point that my life is in danger, that is a sign that it's time to let me go.
Likewise, an uncle last year suffered massive stroke damage. Both sides of the brain were involved and there was no way he could recover. The family wisely allowed his body to die without intervention. At ninety-three he was so strong that he lay peacefully in the bed for sixteen days without nutrients or hydration before he took his final breath.
These are tough matters for most people to contemplate, but working the last five years in a retirement community has been for me in important learning experience. I have seen people go (and refuse to go) in an unbelievable range of ways. And I am a firm advocate for hospice. (Your post about how people living longer is putting a financial strain on hospice is an important reminder that hospice may soon need as much attention as our misbegotten medical care system.)
Posted by: John Ballard at December 1, 2007 6:58 AM