Archive for year 2012
5 Cultural Attitudes Toward Death
The following are large-scale cultural attitudes towards death.
These are taken verbatim from “Death and Dying, Life and Living”:
1. Tame Death: Death is familiar and simple; thatis, it is regarded as inevitable and not attempt is made to evade it. Persons who are dying typically calmly await their deaths, usually surrounded by loved ones and members of the community, all of whom wait peacefully for the end. In other words, death is a public event. A major focus of attention is the community; it is deeply affected by the loss of one of its necessary participants. Death is also seen as a sort of sleep; either one is awakened at some point to eternal bliss, or one remains eternally asleep.
2. Death of the self: The focus of attention is on the one who dies. Death produces great anxiety in that person because it is believed that one is either rewarded or punished in his or her future state. Death of the self involves a final testing period, and what one does at this moment determines what will happen to one after death (and indeed the meaning of one’s whole life). Several religious traditions have some such belief. For instance, some Jews believe that it is important at the moment of death to recite the Shema. Muslims are taught that invoking the Divine Name at the moment of death can be salvific. And some Buddhists hold that chanting the name of Amitabha Buddha at this point in one’s life will ensure that one will end up in the Pure Land after death. In the West, this attitude once led to the development of a formal ares moriendi, an art of dying well.
3. Remote and Imminent death: One’s attitude toward death is basically highly ambivalent. Death is viewed as a wholly natural event (not a supernatural one), but still great effort is made to keep it at a distance. It is both natural and dangerous, inviting and repelling, beautiful and to be feared.
4. Death of the other: Here, the main focus of attention is on the survivors. Death primarily involves the breaking of relationships. For survivors, it results in an intolerable separation from the one who dies. Feelings and behaviors may go nearly out of control (wailing, keening, throwing oneself in the grave, etc.). For the one who dies, death is primarily a period of waiting to be rejoined with loved ones in some other state.
5. Death denied / forbidden death: Death is seen as being dirty or indecent (even “pornographic). Thus, it is offensive to die in public. Dying persons are therefore more or less isolated from the rest of the community. The very fact that the person is dying is denied, both to that person and to those around her or him. Emotions, both before and after the death are to be kept hidden, and huts mourning may be seen as morbid or even pathological. (Pages 55 -56)
Here’s three questions:
Which attitude most describes your personal attitude towards death?
Which attitude are you least familiar with?
Which attitude do you think best describes the West?
Cell Phone Karma
There’s always “that guy” who doesn’t silence his cell phone at a funeral. I kid you not, but half of the people who don’t silence their cell phones at funerals actually answer the call if it rings. I wish I was making this up. They answer their phone, they usually say something to the effect of, “I’m at a funeral … I’ll call you back later” and then they hang up and continue in their posture of mourning as if nobody heard them.
I was rather pleased with I saw this video. And although the cell phone karma in this video is slightly harsh, I secretly wish such funeral karma really existed.
Make Your Face into an Urn
If you want the details on how you can turn your face into an urn, you can click here. Otherwise, just enjoy these four slightly creepy but neat personalized urns from Cremation Solutions.
1. This one’s my favorite ….
2. And who wouldn’t want to put their ashes in Barack Obama’s head?
3. I think this one is Elizabeth Hurley.
4. Cate Blanchett. Lord of the Rings fans can put themselves in Cate’s head.
Whose head would you want to put your ashes in?
Why I’m a Political Atheist: Part 1
I’m okay with people who divinize political power. I used to be one. After reading my fair share of classic and modern political philosophy, I became disillusioned and lost my faith in the power of Politics.
I stay up-to-date on the debates and I vote according to my conscious, but I do so with vapidity.
I don’t believe in the power of the federal government to affect internal change. I haven’t seen it change people in my city, in my home town, on my street. I’ve seen my friends change my city, I’ve seen concerned citizens transform my hometown, but not Washington.
I don’t get stirred at the groupthink evangelistic DNC and RNC conventions where the faithful worship in blind faith … where the fundamentalists gather and pat themselves on the back.
I’ve cut my personal ties to the symbolic immortality that so many within politics seek. If I die, and my political ideology isn’t in power, I’ll be okay. If I die and America isn’t the America of our forefathers, I will still rest in peace. I don’t smoke the opium of politics that promises my tribe’s eternal life if we can only gain back control from the “others.”
All the pie-in-the-sky political talk seems to limit what the faithful do in their own town. The faithful post their token facebook messages, they stick their candidate’s signs in their front yard and may even work with their party’s local chapter, but they’re so idealistically minded that they’re no local good. Where are the faithful when someone next door goes hungry? I’ll tell you where: they’re so busy siting on their easy chair watching CNN, MSN or FOX that they haven’t even noticed the poverty on their own street.
If they spent half the time acting on their ideals instead of talking about them they might actually begin to see the change they’re looking for. Hypocrites. Have you ever met a VERY political person who you would consider a great person? Isn’t it generally assumed that politics turns good people into liars and irrational egoists who breath in their own self made delusional promises?
It seems that politics takes the energy of the many and places it at the feet of the few. And if the many would take their own energy and instead invest it in things they cared about on a local level, the few would take heed and then the system would change.
The faithful will say that political atheists like me aren’t good for society … for civilization … for Washington. And they might be right. I’m not good for Washington. But, if they want to tell it to my face they can find me on the streets of Parkesburg, where I mentor at-risk youth, helping them graduate high school, succeed in the work place and seek higher education.
What really gets me, though, is that those who believe in the power of politics really believe that their brand of laws and government can cause lasting change. As government is the only way to change.
What is “it” that the government can change anyway? And in what way can “it” change? Can the government change the “it” of supposed godlessness in the families of America? Many red bleeding “Christian” republicans think it can. They want God back in the government … because they assume that God likes to work through law?
Can the government change the “it” of poverty in those in the lower class? Many blue hearted liberals think it can. They want the federal government to solve social ills that are intrinsically local and internal by nature. Like trying to catch a whale with a bear trap, they think social ills can be healed by programs and finances.
At this time in the political season, through the drum of political facebook posts, the incessant coverage from CNN, MSN, and FOX, I dig my heels into the ground and become more convinced of my position: I’m an atheist. The all-powerful god of politics doesn’t exist. And he has no power to cause lasting change. If he does exist, he has such limited power that he’s doesn’t deserve the adoration he’s receiving. There’s no historical proof, no proof in personal experience and no reason to believe in the deity of political power.
I’m a political atheist because at the end of the day, politics can’t transform, they can only guide.
*****
Postscript: This is a provocative piece that uses some broad strokes. I’ll remove the black and white tone of this piece in “Part 2.”
