By Keira McTernan
As a third-year sociology and philosophy student, my interest is primarily focused on social issues, trying to understand the workings and meaning of society and life more broadly. One absolute truth in life is that we will and must all die. Death therefore has become a dominant interest in both my academic and personal life.
Death did not always intrigue me the way it has in recent years, it was not until I experienced a passing of someone very close to me that death became a topic I could no longer ignore. I simply did not understand death, therefore I took it upon myself to learn. My first introduction to studying death was the realisation of socially acceptable death language such as ‘passing’, ‘in a better place’ and anything to refuse the words of death and dying. It has become habitual in many homes and cultures to avoid the dooming word, death. This realisation felt as though fog goggles were being lifted from my eyes, as someone who had also refused to use the words death and dying because they appeared too morbid and too ‘real’.
Not to imply that death-denying language is necessarily wrong to use. Upon further reflection and reading it became a realisation that Western culture can be widely described as death-denying, this can be demonstrated by the use of death-denying language as described above and the taboo nature of mentioning the topic of death, this can shape our understanding of death to be linked to morbid, negative associations. It is common for Western funerals to involve wearing all black and to show respect to family members and the deceased by remaining quiet through the process and offering condolences to those closest to the deceased, further making death and grieving an individualistic process. Compared to other cultural customs to death such as the Day of The Dead which is celebrated in places such as Mexico and South America it can be illustrated that Western culture treat death with negative emotions which can translate to death-denying.
The next question which appeared to be stuck in my head after learning about death-denying culture was; why is death bad? Death and ageing are associated with decline, fragility, sickness and something which should be fixed. The philosopher Epicurus addresses this fear of death and states that we should not fear this as once death comes there is nothing, you will not feel or experience death you will simply be dead and further that the living cannot be affected by death as death has not happened to them. Scarre (1997) picks up on this point and states that this process of moving from being to non-being is something in which particular humans fear. Marcus Aurelius comforts himself from this thought by stating that death happens to every individual; it does not treat you differently to others therefore you ought not to fear your own death. However, this may not comfort everyone as the fear of the unknown persists. To refer more specifically to this negative association with death, Marcus states that death itself is not bad or negative, but rather it is a statement of life and it is only our judgements about death which affect us (4.3), therefore he encourages us to address these associations and acknowledge that we can influence our judgements about such topics (4.7).
The medicalisation of death frames death as being something which should be treated and avoided as long as possible through the use of medical intervention. Of course, medicine has resulted in curing diseases, ‘fixing’ defects and has led to longer life expectancies, and many would agree therefore that this is a predominantly positive development. However, the underlying message that death is bad and to be avoided is something which cannot be escaped. It is common to see ageing individuals taking copious amount of medication which does this and that to prolong their life. The most striking example of the medicalisation of death is palliative care, this is provided to patients who are deemed near the end of their life where no additional medication can cure them of the inevitable. This can involve making the patient as comfortable as possible with an array of painkillers to ease discomfort and family members can gather to say their goodbyes.
Although this appears to be a decent and relaxing way to pass away it can be noted that many do not view palliative care in this way. Seymour (1999) expresses that palliative care is a “dehumanisation of death” (p.693) as the patient might not always be fully conscious and may further experience unpleasant side effects such as drowsiness or insomnia (Emanuel and Emanuel, 1998). Therefore, this too can be widely associated with a ‘bad’ death. Death again is linked to negative connotations which leaves us feeling that it should be something to avoid. The question persists as to why we fear our own death? Why can we not come to terms with not being? And finally, should death be feared?