Lecture 1: Death and dying in contemporary society

Transcription

1 Lecture 1: Death and dying in contemporary society Agenda: Investigate AS WE THINK ABOUT DEATH - ANSWERS AND EXPLORE SURVEYS LECTURE ON DEATH AND DYING IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY FILL OUT ATTACHMENT QUESTIONNAIRE Time remaining watch video 1

2 Checking in with folks who didn t share last time? Questions (fear of death) Death anxiety >>> what were you taught / conditioning growing up? What rituals around grieving?

3 AS WE THINK ABOUT DEATH Explore Kastenbaum Article (themes and surveys) EXPLORE PERSONS PERSPECTIVES / ANSWERS Kastenbaum suggests we should go beyond the standard death denial question and inquire into 1. What aspect of dying and death are being shared with other people, under what circumstances, and why? 3

4 Development of Current Attitudes to Death and Dying Setting a perspective: Illich states: the dominate image of death in society determines the prevalent concept of health So what?

5 What is our dominant image of death today?

6 Phases and Stages Stage 1: Dance of the Dead 15th century Prior to the 15th century death in the hands of god (death is grim) During the 15th century notion of death becomes more part of life Thus people were able to develop a relationship with death Readiness for societal change death a natural event?

7 Stage II: Dance of Death16th - 17th century Dance represents a change from being a transition into the next world to an accent being put on the end this life

8 Dance of Death (contd). Reformation - institutional/religious/social upheaval, black plague Faith was challenged individual now faced with understanding death on their own terms Death becomes an adversary, whereas in earlier medieval times a doctor /healer would not attempt to prolong life* Folk and superstitious practices were employed to ensure a good death By end of 17th century corpses were no longer sacred as before Ars moriendi

9 Stage III: Bourgeois death 17th - 18th century Industrial revolution creates employment and wealth Health of a nation becomes economic management (knowledge about good health) Those who can afford it, now pay to keep death away Middle class employs doctors and society begins to give them the power to tell when death will strike Death is viewed as an untimely event for those who are both healthy and old

10 Stage IV: Clinical Death19th century Death is a product of disease (certified by doctor) Mid 19th century doctors become part of a now powerful middle class Clinical death originated in the emerging professional consciousness of the new scientifically trained doctor

11 Stage V: Health as a Commodity 20th century Doctor in a struggle with death Society deems it to be a civil rite (to prolong life) People eventually lose their spiritual capacity to deal with death Death losing control

12 Doctor in a Struggle with Death 12

13 Health can be sold?

14 Stage VI: Death in Intensive Care middle of 20th century Critical condition in ICU Individual is protected against death by modern medicine We no longer can set a scene for our own death (death rituals are medicalized) Preoccupation with health and living has repressed any meaningful preparation and acceptance of death Stage 7 Death denying culture... Socially dead before biologically dead! Is our grieving process being threatened? Not allowed? Lack of death/grief rituals? Lose connection with understanding life Medical professionals view death as a failure OR...

15 Are we Returning to... Stage 8? Where holistic concepts and a transformative ideology of death and dying are embraced. Understanding death as a rite of passage?

16 What does stage 8 look like? A return to holistic care dance of the dead Finding meaning in life and death Taking responsibilities for our death / dying rituals

17 Rituals in other Societies?

18 Are we stuck at Level 7 in the West?

19 The Crux of the Matter? The West is frequently described as a death-denying society. Numerous scholars have observed that recent generations of North Americans lack the firsthand familiarity with death and dying that our ancestors had. Meanwhile, our popular media and many of our cultural mediums appear to have an obsessive fascination with death, dying, and the dead. Nowhere is this paradox more apparent than in our popular culture (i.e., tv, music, film, etc).

20 The Crux (contd) So what do folks think?

21 The Crux (contd) Is it that: We are not a death denying culture? Or We are a death denying culture, but our insulation from death causes us to crave some degree of information and insight concerning death, and we feed that craving through popular-culture depictions of death and dying. Or Again we are a death denying culture, but through displacement we socially neutralize our death anxiety?

22 The act of neutralization Reconceptualizes death into a form that stimulates something other than primordial terror. These phenomena may be considered fascinating / entertaining, depending on the social context (i.e., visit to Elvis Presley s grave). Through detachment, (i.e., horror movies, video games) suspend belief about death. Enjoyment of this type of humor / entertainment per se requires us to laugh at our own mortality. Ultimately, North American folk may vest interest in popular culture to dilute our anxiety and desensitize death, so as digest death making it easier to live and transcend death.

23 Is this Neutralization?

24 Grave Digger Is this neutralization?

25 Stages in the process of social death in primitive societies Initial social status Period of transition Rite of passage New social status Living person Soul in Limbo Dead ancestor Rituals marking biological death (process not at one time event) Rituals of mourning Rituals of social death

26 Stages in the process of social death in modern western societies Initial social status Period of transition (fast) New social status Living person Hospital patient Body and Soul in Limbo Dead ancestor Rituals of admission hospitalization and / or institutionalization Anticipatory grief Social death Biological death and rituals of mourning take over of the body by professionals

27 For This Week... Continue to Journal Read attachment theory