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DEATH&DYING, LIFE & LIVING

Eighth edition

Chapter 4

Death-Related Practices and the American Death System

Chapter Objectives (1 of 2)

To identify death-related practices as a component of death-related experiences

To explain the concept of a “death system” in every society; including its functions and components

To describe selected examples of death-related practices in the United States:

Human-induced death

Accidents; homicide; terrorism; war, genocide, and ethnic cleansing; the Holocaust; and the nuclear era

Chapter Objectives (2 of 2)

Death and language

Language about death - versus - Death-related language

Death in the media

News reports (vicarious death experiences)

Entertainment (fantasized death and violence)

Death-Related Practices: The Death System

Kastenbaum’s Definitions:

“The sociophysical network by which we mediate & express our relationship to mortality” (1972, p. 310)

"The interpersonal, sociophysical, & symbolic network through which society mediates the individual's relationship to mortality" (2012, p. 105)

"We face death alone in one sense, but in another & equally valid sense, we face death as part of a society whose expectations, rules, motives, & symbols influence our individual encounters" (Kastenbaum, 2012, p. 77)

Every society establishes a system to cope with the challenges that death brings to human existence

A Societal Death System: Functions (and some examples) (1 of 2)

To give warnings & predictions

Sirens, flashing lights, media weather alerts

To prevent death

Police & security officers, emergency medical care systems, Dept. of Homeland Security

To care for the dying

Hospice, hospitals

To dispose of the dead

- Cemeteries, crematories

To work toward social consolidation

Funeral rituals, bereavement support groups

To help make sense of death

Religious, spiritual, & philosophical programs

To bring about socially-sanctioned death

War, capital punishment, slaughtering of livestock

A Societal Death System: Components (and some examples) (2 of 2)

People

Funeral directors, lawyers, medical examiners, florists

Places

Cemeteries, funeral homes, “hallowed ground,” health care institutions

Times

Memorial Day, death anniversaries

Objects

Tombstones, hearses, obituaries, gallows

Symbols

Skull & crossbones, black armbands, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”

The American Death System and the Events of September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001:

Revealed both ineffective & effective aspects of the American Death System

Increased feelings of nationalism among many American citizens

Redefined freedom, rights, & personal liberties in the United States

Led to the invasion of Afghanistan to rout Taliban leaders hosting al-Qaeda

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (1 of 20)

Death caused by Human Beings:

Accidents

Homicide

Terrorism

War, Genocide, & Ethnic Cleansing

The Holocaust

The Nuclear Era

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (2 of 20)

Accidents (135,928 deaths in the United States in 2014; = about 5% of all deaths that year; leading to an age-adjusted death rate of 40.5 per 100,000)

4th leading cause of death in the United States overall; leading cause for all persons aged 1 – 44 yrs

Each accidental death affects approximately 10 survivors

Accidental deaths affect >1 million persons in the United States

Millions more suffer disabling injuries

Gradual increase in overall number of accidental deaths since 2000

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (3 of 20)

Motor Vehicle Accidents (2014)

c. 26% (35,398) of all accidental deaths

Highest death rates

By age

15 to 24 years of age

75-84 years of age

85 years of age & older

By gender

Males significantly more than females

These deaths are typically sudden, unexpected, & violent

Survivors may experience complicated grief & mourning

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (4 of 20)

Homicide = “assault”

An act by one human being that is intended to or actually does kill another human being

Now17th leading cause overall of death in the United States; caused 15,872 deaths in 2014; death rate of 5.0 per 100,000

United States leads industrialized West in homicides

Overall homicide death rates have been trending gradually upward since 1980s

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (5 of 20)

Homicide = “assault”

Demographics of homicide

Age

Highest rates among 25 to 34 years of age (9.6 deaths per 100,000)

Second highest rates among 15 to 24 years old (9.5 deaths per 100,000)

Third leading cause of death among 1-4 yrs, & 15-34 yrs

Almost 69% of all homicide deaths involve individuals between ages of 15 and 44

Rates generally decline after young adulthood

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (6 of 20)

Homicide = “assault”

Demographics of homicide

Gender

Males are far more likely than females to be both perpetrators & victims (nearly 3.8:1)of homicide

Race

Leading cause of death among African Americans

Overall rate of 17.8 per 100,000 (32.1 for males alone)

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (7 of 20)

Homicide = “assault”

Related features

Approximately 50% of all homicides occur between family members or acquaintances

In 90% of all homicides the victims & the assailants are of the same race

Strongly correlated with use (or misuse) of firearms; involved in 11,008 deaths

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (8 of 20)

Terrorism

Violent acts or threats intended to intimidate or create fear

Acts perpetrated on behalf of some religious, political, or ideological goal

Acts that characteristically target or disregard the safety of civilians (non-combatants) in a deliberate way

“Terrorism simply means deliberately and violently targeting civilians for political purposes.”

Richardson (2006)

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (9 of 20)

Perpetrators of Terrorism and Their Goals

Individual terrorism

One or two persons engage in an act that harms or kills others & destroys property

A lone agent or with the support of one or two other individuals

Perceives him/herself to be weaker than his/her opponent

Expressing anger or frustration with those who are targeted

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (10 of 20)

Desires to mobilize the larger society to rectify some perceived wrong or to act in some other desired way

Examples

Timothy McVeigh, with the help of Terry Nichols, bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995

Tamerlan & Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, placed pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (11 of 20)

Perpetrators of Terrorism and Their Goals

Group terrorism

Formally or informally organized group of people who attempt to do harm for religious, political, or ideological reasons to those whom it perceives as its opponents

Goals are:

to force outsiders to leave the country or area

to overthrow a perceived puppet regime

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (12 of 20)

to lay claim to political power

to try to set up a separate state

Examples

Ku Klux Klan (KKK); radical Catholic & Protestant factions at one point in Northern Ireland; Chechen separatists; Boko Haram in northern Nigeria; the Islamic State group (ISIS or ISLS) in Iraq and Syria

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (13 of 20)

Perpetrators of Terrorism and Their Goals

State-supported terrorism

Employed by a political administration against its own or a neighboring population

A stronger side acts against a weaker group

Goals are to coerce certain behaviors or to remove targeted group from society through forced emigration or extermination

Examples

Saddam Hussein employed terrorist tactics against some Kurdish communities in Iraq in 1988

Nazis in Germany 1930s & early 1940s acted to eliminate Jewish people & other groups of persons

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (14 of 20)

Terrorism

Means Employed by Terrorists

Acting at a distance with minimal risk of self-harm (e.g., car bombs, IEDs)

Direct presence of the perpetrator with escape plans but potentially high, life-threatening risk (e.g., snipers, kidnappers)

Self-destruction (e.g., suicide bombers)

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (15 of 20)

Terrorism

Implications of Terrorism

Involves violent means that result in traumatic losses

Brings about sudden death, injuries, & may lead to subsequent death or disability, & damage or destruction of property

Deaths are unexpected, violent, & repugnant in their careless disregard of human life

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (16 of 20)

A single act may cause multiple deaths, mutilation, & direct threats to lives of survivors

Bereavement & grief are usually complicated

Challenges personal security & safety, as well as common assumptions about life & the world

Survivors may feel abandoned by a social system that often is unable to either find or prosecute the perpetrators

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (17 of 20)

War, Genocide, & Ethnic Cleansing

Socially-sanctioned deaths

War

to overcome another society or group (or to repel some aggressive action)

Genocide

violent crimes committed against groups intending to destroy the very existence of the group & its members

Ethnic Cleansing

involves the forcible relocation of population groups; often becomes a form of genocide

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (18 of 20)

War, Genocide, & Ethnic Cleansing

Typically lead to:

Social disruption resulting both directly and indirectly in suffering and death

UNHCR reported 65.3 million forcibly displaced people worldwide in 2016 (more than half = children); highest number ever of such displaced people ever; likely to worsen in immediate future

Difficulties in grasping or making sense of these events and resulting deaths

How to obtain accurate figures; how to grasp or make sense of such huge numbers; danger of tolerating these activities & numbers by giving up trying to comprehend them

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (19 of 20)

The Holocaust – WWII

Nazis’ systematic, ideologically-driven program to eliminate the Jewish “race,” gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, i.e., those said to be the Untermensch or subhuman

The “Final Solution” culminated in the slaughter of 6 million European Jews & millions of others during the late 1930s early 1940s

“We have the choice between the Holocaust as a warning and the Holocaust as a precedent.”

(Bauer, 1986)

Death-Related Practices: Human-Induced Death (20 of 20)

The Nuclear Era: Nuclear Weapons

A form of socially-sanctioned death

First tested July 16, 1945, at Trinity test site, New Mexico, USA

Used as a weapon during WWII

Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945

Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Global annihilation

Concerns about terrorists, rogue governments, other “enemies”

The Nuclear Era: Nuclear Energy

A source of much needed energy world-wide

Peaceful use carries significant dangers to mankind

Accidents

Three Mile Island, 1979, & Chernobyl, 1986

Natural Disasters

Japan’s earthquake & Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant (2011)

Death-Related Practices: Death and Language (1 of 4)

Language about Death

People go to great lengths to avoid saying words like dead and dying

Euphemisms

Substituting a pleasant or inoffensive word or expression for language viewed as harsher or more offensive; “Pleasing ways of speaking”

Arise out of human experiences with death

Over-reliance can distance us from important & fundamental events of life itself

Death-Related Practices: Death and Language (2 of 4)

Language about death

People are comfortable with death language as long as the events have nothing to do with actual death & dying

Common Expressions

Dead batteries, a deadpan expression, a dead giveaway

Being dead drunk, dead tired, dead serious, dead certain, a deadbeat, scared to death

Marksmen hit the target dead center & have a dead eye or are dead shots

Gamblers recognize a “dead man’s hand”

Death-Related Practices: Death and Language (3 of 4)

Truckers “deadhead” back home with an empty vehicle

Parents may be “worried to death” about children who “will be the death” of them

Those who are embarrassed may “wish they were dead” or that they “could just die.”

Death-Related Practices: Death and Language (4 of 4)

Death-related language – its purposes

Emphasis & exaggeration

Dramatization & intensification

Power & dominance

Trades on the ultimacy & finality of death to heighten in the manner of the superlative

Death-Related Practices: Death in the Media (1 of 2)

Vicarious Death Experiences: News Reports in the Media

“If it bleeds, it leads” (Kerbel, 2000)

May create a kind of psychological immunity to the impact of death among the general public

Represents a highly selective portrait of death & life

Unusual modes of death come to be seen as ordinary or typical

Our own deaths are perceived as less likely to happen & more remote

Death-Related Practices: Death in the Media (2 of 2)

Fantasized Death & Violence: Entertainment in the media

Typical portrayals of death are usually very unrealistic or fantasized

The realities of death, dying, & bereavement are rarely apparent

Death is distorted & associated more with violence & gore

Impact on society is a looser grip on the genuine experiences of life & death