death and dying

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Death and Dying: Sociological Perspectives

PRELUDE

The Sociological (and specifically, the Social Psychological) study of death and dying includes a few priorities. First, the emphasis is more on those who survive the deaths of others. While the process of dying remains, obviously, important and relevant, our orientation to death and dying, as survivors, represents the perspectives of those who have confronted the death of another or others and struggle to adapt to this reality. This struggle is explicitly evident on regard to particular losses that have made a deep impact on us, as survivors of such loss.

Second, from the perspective of the survivor, various powerful emotions can serve as overwhelming reminders of our loss—and our confrontation with a significant breakdown in our familiar social world (or even, social worlds). This breakdown relates to many commonly used phrases and descriptors such as adjusting to “a new normal,” or coping with various “triggers” or reminders of our loss.

1. The Social Psychology of Grief and Bereavement—basically, grief indicates the deep pain of having lost—usually, lost someone through death, but its use is wider than pertaining to the literal end of another’s life. We can grieve over the loss of objects, the lass of place, the loss of people who did not die but disappeared from our sensory world.

Bereavement is more associated with facing the reality of deprivation (which is also painful). Whereas grief pertains to a pure (and raw) emotional state, bereavement pertains to one’s cognitive (mind oriented) orientation in regard to facing reality away from, permanently, the presence of others.

Of sociological interest, grief and bereavement serve two metaphorical masters: one, an internal master represents our own personal and individualistic style—we, as individuals, cope with our emotional despair and loneliness (grief) as we also alter our lifestyle to be in a world without the company of a trusted and valued other. Two, grief and bereavement become a societal issue, often transcending our personal (and idiosyncratic) style. We as a society create normative expectations regarding grief and bereavement—indicating to us what is a “normal duration” associated with feeling (grief) and what constitutes a normal mental adjustment associated with managing everyday life (bereavement).

While internally, the pain of loss endures (and leaves us feeling raw), we are expected to create and maintain a societal post-grief face that manages external impressions. This so-called “post grief face” is a “social lie,” of sorts—it betrays the deep, painful, inner emotion that continues to haunt us.

Thursday, August 25, 2022

1. Death and the Nature of Missing—when someone leaves our life when, emotionally and socially, we are not ready to fully deal with their disappearance, we will naturally miss that person (along with a variety of emotions, including the aforementioned grief. Anger, and confusion). When we miss, we are confronted, among other things, with the limits of our own imagination. We can recall the other, re-engage with internal conversations with this other, but we have lost the spontaneity of the other—the other’s gift of surprising us in ways that make us feel happy about being connected.

1. Closure—or the Myth of Closure? Closure often refers to a commonly described “state” that we often wish to achieve. Specifically, when we use the term closure, we intend to convey that something, especially a loss that invites grief, is “behind us” and “properly buried.” However, as implied in the Readings (the books written by Kalanithi and Didion), things remail “along-side us” and “above ground” forever (or as long as we live). Rather than closure, per se, we attain a particular perspective regarding loss in which we can describe it without feeling that we are in the midst of reliving it.

1. Thinking About and Dealing with the Inevitability of Death Helps Us to Connect Abstract and Concrete Realities of The End. We are more familiar with death as a concrete reality than as an abstract principle that defines our individualist and collective existences. We feel the pain related to the deaths of specific others or the endings of things (living spaces, friendships, careers), but we do not always attempt to link our personal (concrete) pain with more intellectual and philosophical conceptions.

In regard to the latter, death and the overall ending of things provides us with opportunities to create generic concepts—or approaches and ideas—that creatively transforms death from confronting our own mortality to a part of any life course (short or long) experienced by a human being.

“All stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.”

Ernest Hemingway

All significant narratives begin with death.

Class Motto

1. Death and Consciousness of Mortality—while we may have an inborn desire to survive (and, implicitly, an inherent hostility toward death), we gradually develop an awareness of impermanence—including a sense of powerlessness in regard to the certainty of death

However, awareness of mortality is inherently abstract. We will never, while alive, directly know the experience of death; we learn to live with the concept of death and the distinction between the literal end of life and the end, in general, as a metaphor for lived experience.

1. Death and The Heroic Drift—each individual who attains a consciousness

of the end of life in general and, specifically, the end of one’s own existence in particular, develops a sense of heroic drift—or a defiant insistence that even though we will experience an absolute end, what we do prior to this endpoint is meaningful. We do not exist in vain even though our existence is temporary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_wg-aZVN7A

1. A Purposive Life—the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, discussed the notion of Dasein , or a particular way of being that emphasizes a dilemma or paradox of living.

Specifically, the dilemma or paradox involves confronting the absurdity associated with the fleetingness of life (“what’s the point?”) and how we resolve such absurdity by and through establishing a thought out, willful, and conscientious plan that makes us feel useful and “in touch” with others.

The apparent usefulness and human connectedness provide any serious individual with a functional identity—or a definition of one’s self as capable of making contributions to others, even though, deep inside, we know that we are destined to leave this world as alone among others.

As the video that recaps the life (and death) of Tony Stark (aka, Ironman) indicates, Stark begins as one who does not take one’s being or existence seriously (aside from amassing a fortune so as to lead a life of pleasure). He drinks (implicitly, to excess), plays around, and is totally disinterested in the consequences of his transactions (other than to make a profit).

However, Tony Stark’s evolution from playboy/entrepreneur to Ironman symbolizes how me can achieve a meaningful existence—or one that transcends physical and materialistic gratification and becomes a person fighting for a noble cause that helps people rather than creates opportunities for profit.

Stark/Ironman eventually dies, but not before he successfully protects the Time Stone (as he risks his life and faces death “head on..” As Stark/Ironman put it, he was ready and willing to sacrifice his life (and face death explicitly and emotionally) if he could make sure that Thanos could not keep the Time Stone.

1. Benevolent Surrender—drawing on the famous sociologist, Emil Durkheim, part of our consciousness of death involves a transformation from bathos, or mere existence and an accompanying “survival instinct,” to pathos, or an inspired being in this world that recognizes the limits of merely existing and the merits of sacrifice.

From this Durkheimian perspective Tony Stark’s death is a form of “altruistic suicide,” in which a person surrenders his/her/their life to (seemingly) make the world a better place for whom the suicidal person cares.

1. Consciousness and the Parable of the Mustard Seed—two parables from Buddhism and Christianity capture the paradox associated with consciousness of death.

The Buddhist parable of death involves a young woman, Kisa, paralyzed by grief over the death of her baby son. She cannot let go of the son (literally or figuratively). She goes to the Buddha and the Buddha instructs her that, in order to bring her son back to life, Kisa must bring back mustard seeds from her village.

There is one major condition; Kisa must acquire mustard seeds from villagers who have not experienced death in their homes. While all the villagers had mustard seeds, none have households free of death. In the end, Kisa cannot bring the Buddha any mustard seeds as she cannot find the combination of possession of values and freedom from mortality—which is the crux of impermanence.

Jesus educated his followers via a metaphor of the mustard seed, telling his supporters (as indicated in Matthew 17:20) that the mustard seed makes all things possible. The mustard seed begins as the smallest of all seeds, but burgeons into an existence larger than all other garden plants.

Alas, it’s existence cannot endure forever, but while it does, other animals in the garden (e.g., birds) can make use of the large plant for unique purposes (e.g., building nests). In effect, we recognize death as we reflect on how the life of anyone or anything contributes to the lives of others.

1. The Reality of Impermanence—the parable of the mustard seed from Buddhism, deals with the fundamental reality of impermanence —while such a reality seems commonsensical, to fully grasp it one must understand temporality—or how the past and present inform the present and give our present centered lives structure. Grasping the concept of death as it relates to how humans deal with the past and project futures is necessary in order to cope with loss.

1. Death and the Powerful Recognition—the Christian familiarization with death deals with the hard boiled and deep-rooted faith in continuation. Death, as a recognizable finality, nevertheless inspires conviction in our general (humanistic) preservation—we are destined, as individuals, to expire, but we also take comfort and find meaning as we grasp our collective destiny to live on as humans.

1. Death as a Sociological Stranger—despite our awareness of the impermanence of life and how familiar death has become to us via personal experience, media, or various objective reminders (e.g., graveyards), death represents a fundamental interruption of our lived experience that we define as non-habitual or significantly disruptive.

[Clips from Children of Men]

A. The Absurd Characteristics of Death and Strange-Ness—the often untimely aspect of death (as it seems to come out of nowhere and completely transform a social setting, makes death (and causes of death) appear as permanently lurking and consistently unpredictable.

1. Death as a Non-Sequitur—death often comes when we least expect it; the possibility of death, sudden death, lingers as a specter in our lives. When it occurs, it has nothing to do with what preceded it, making it appear absurd.

1. The Death of the Past—while extreme, death, especially sudden death, alters our memories of how our lives begin. The famous novelist, Ernest Hemingway wrote, “All great narratives end in death.” With all due respect, I contend that our great narratives can begin with death—that all which preceded death becomes irrelevant. The Clive Own character in Children of Men has a new purpose in life which makes him forget his past failures.

B. Death as a Familiar Stranger—Death, even unexpected death, makes its way into our life worlds—or places filled with people we know, love, and with whom we feel comfortable. Extending the idea of death as an interruption, death also alters our life worlds—as they can transform from sources of comfort to sources of nausea.

[Clip from Buffy the Vampire Slayer]

1. The Fated Illusion—Death represents horror—the sort of horror we have become accustomed to seeing in films and melodramas—in which all seems serene and life has every day, taken-for-granted appearance, but a life changing (or ending) phenomenon lurks out of a person’s awareness.

2. The Shock of Recognition—while Christ held that once we recognize death as a foundation of life, we, as individuals, are existentially unequipped to deal with the emergence of the reality of lifeless-ness, especially when we are expecting mundane and taken-for granted life.

Tuesday, August 30th

3. Death in the Specious Present—many times, death is so real and so resistant to our wishes, that we must begin the long and hard process of grief. While I will provide more details about grief, the general and blanket statement is that we grieve so that we can accept the death of another. Whether or not we ever reach a point of complete acceptance, however, cannot be stated. The core aspect of acceptance is acknowledging that no other alternatives aside from the death of another can exist in this world. Sometimes, even when confronting the rock solid truth of death and the impossibility of in-this-world alternatives, we do engage in a process of wish fulfillment, or an imaginary in-this-world reality in which desire overpowers common sense.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer an overwhelmed Buffy imagines that the paramedics save her mother’s life and that Buffy visits her revived mom in the hospital. The contradiction in this context is strong; Buffy is a vampire slayer—she fights and defeats all sorts of strong and ominous opponents. Yet all Buffy can do in the face of her mother’s death is wish for a scenario that is impossible in-this-world.

4. Death and the fractured life world—the life world, as defined by Schutz and Luckmann, is a “thickly peopled” environment, distinct from every day, fleeting gatherings. We are sustained by the primary bonds in our life world and the intense shared histories we establish as we experience significant events “shoulder-to-shoulder.” As we will see, one of the great impacts of death, as far as humans are concerned, is how such death affects the stability and durability of the life world.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer the life world (and the “earthquake” of death) becomes symbolized in various ways. Obviously, Buffy is shaken by the sudden departure of her mother—and the transformation of mother-to-body; all that which was familiar (the surrounding scene of the household) seems strange (to the point that Buffy experiences nausea); after she calls 911, she immediately calls Giles, her mentor, to provide support but also to indicate that the life world remains.

5. Restorable Reach—the loss of someone vital to one’s life world can make life, at least temporarily, seem absurd—without normalized meaning. The present and the past appear, suddenly, incongruent…a person once “always there” is no longer “being.” This feeling of “not there” or a lack of being, gives one a sense of “nothingness.” One way to deal with such nothingness is to re-imagine a time in the past in which the person existed; another way is to imagine a present in which the person “not there” is “really there, but hidden.”

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer Buffy immediately recounts a Thanksgiving dinner that her mother organized and for which her mother cooked. The people from Buffy’s life world, glued together by this dinner, appear in this image with her mom in the middle of it all.

1. The Hidden Persistence of Death—we all know that life ends but we do not always appreciate that we are continuously surrounded by the shadows of death. The shadows can become hidden when we feel that we are engaged in the pressures of surviving everyday life. We do occasionally recognize that despite profound differences (and feelings of differences), we are companions in regard to the pain that haunts us.

A. Persistence of Death and Symbolic Reconstruction—At times, we struggle to connect the past with the present when we deal with the death of a vital person (vital to the life world). We feel that we should know more about the person—and we try to think back to a time when the person did or said something that has current significance. In so doing we create stories/ anecdotes/or sequences of events that can help us create an act of burying the past—and the person with it…even though we will never really feel we have reached complete closure, we engage in an act or a memory that, for the time being, keeps the person buried.

[Clips from Friday Night Lights ]

In Friday Night Lights, Matt Saracen, who has always had a distant relationship with his father (a professional soldier stationed in Afghanistan), learns about his father’s death. The father’s death was violent and the funeral “required” a closed casket. But Matt insists on seeing his fathers’ remains—we do not know what he sees, but he is visibly upset. This upsetting sight proves to be a cathartic event, enabling Matt to give a proper eulogy about a fond memory of his father—and become symbolized as Matt grabs a shovel and finishes the burial of his father’s body in the casket.

1. Object catharsis—refers to a realization that the departed had a perspective and life beyond one’s own grief…the catharsis enables us to “take the role of the departed other” and, at least temporarily, stand in this departed other’s shoes. This cathartic event occurred with me in regard to my father as it also did with Matt when he saw his father in the casket.

2. Articulation—as you all know, articulation in general, is a process of expressing thoughts—and doing so as clearly as possible. In regard to symbolic reconstruction, articulation signifies a particular story or narrative that defines a person in the moment—and especially, that defines part of the favorable essence of the person. Often, articulation creates a counter-narrative by which we can remember a person favorably—in a flattering light.

3. Return to the Myth of Closure—in this context, myth does not mean that which is untrue or that which is misleading…myth, in this context signifies a key element of mythology—which is to bury the dead and move on…the act of burying provides an “undeniable disappearance” from which one can use as a beginning of new appearances—and new lives.

B. Death and Its Haunting Aftermath—as indicated in the scene above, a young man, very different from his departed father, seeks to deal with his grief and bereavement as he also becomes obsessed with the fact that he barely knew his father. Yet despite his distant relationship, he manages to find a way to relate to his father.

1. Death and Our Fundamental Interdependence—while we have our own unique interpretations of death and experience an end of life as individuals, we soon come to recognize, even when it comes to those with whom we have an adversarial relationship, that death can symbolize an ongoing bond that anyone can share.

1. Death and the Basic Human Duality—Death binds even the most different types of people via our eventual awareness of the distinction between physical things that separate us and the deep meaning structures that connect us. Death and the reminders of death force us to assume equal knowledge of each other, even when we attempt to engage in non-revelatory strategies that create and maintain knowledge differentials.