Thanatology

what makes us unique recarding death

• uniquely aware

• we can reflect on that

What is a death system

• interpersonal, sociopolitical, symbolic systems that shape how people experience death in a given society

who came up with the idea of a death system

Kastenbaum

Components of a death system (5)

• People

• Places

• Times

• Objects

• Symbols

4 stages of Death Mentalities (Aries)

1) Tamed Death

2) Death of Ones Own

3) Death of the Other

4) Forbidden Death

Key components of forbidden death (3)

• Medicalisation

• Secularisation

• Privatisation and deritualization

Who is considered “Masters of death”, and who said this?

• Doctors

• Aries

Critiques of Aries

• Romanticizes the past

• Eurocentric

• Over linear/oversimplified

Importance of Aries stages of history

• shows that death mentalities change overtime with society

Core Ideas of Spectacular Death

• Mediatised (seen through screens)

• Commercialised (sold, branded)

• Re ritualised (new rituals)

• Managed by palliative care and experts

• Specialised as a field of knowledge

Meaning of Mediatisation of Death

• Spectacular death era

• We rarely witness death directly but constantly seen through media

Meaning of Commercialisation/Commodification of death

• Spectacular death era

• Commodification → treating death as an item that can be bought and sold

Meaning of Re-ritualisation of Death

• Spectacular death era

• Secularisation in forbidden death reduced peopels use of traditional religious rituals

  • Society had to find new ones → demand for new rituals

• Erika Doss —> memorial mania

  • Rituals have not disappeared instead society invents new commemorative rituals

Meaning of Palliative Care Revolution

• Spectacular death era

• St. Christopher’s Hospice (1967) → created an alternative to purely curative medicine

• Holisitc approach → physical, emotional, spiritual

What approach do palliative care take

Holisitic approach → physical, emotional, spiritual

Meaning of Specialisation of death

• Spectacular death era

• Growth of thanatology, death studies, grief counselling, death education

What does “the new black” refer to

• Spectacular Grief

• Grief is in and trendy

• Grief is the new black

20th century vs today grief

20th century:

• grief = private, hidden, taboo

• Grief is like “pornagraphy”

Today:

• Jacobsen and colleagues suggest grief has become public, visible, sometimes spectacular

Three Main Trends of Spectacular Grief

1) Individualisation and singularisation of grief

2) Professionalisation and Commercialisation of grief

3) Memorialisation and Mediatisation of Grief

Disenfranchised grief definiton

• Grief that society does not recognizes as legitimate

  • Includes non death losses (injury, identity loss, infertility, breakups)

Why Grievers Often Lack Support

• immediate support appears, but fades quickly

• People avoid the bereaved

• Verbal platitudes

Verbal platitues defitions

• evidence of grief illiteracy

• When people do not know how to support someone who is grieving they often rely on generic, cliche phrases

What do grievers truly need

validation that their grief is significant

6 Myths About Grief

1) Grief is not the same for everyone

2) Grief is not one emotion → affects all aspects of life

3) No distinct stages → Stage mode is outdated

• Kubler Ross 5 stages: was originally about terminal illness, not bereavement

4) No timeline for grief

5) We do not need closure or to “move on”, continuing bonds are normal

6) Grief can bring growth and deeper compassion

Greif literacy defintion

• Breen et al

• The capacity to access, process and use knowledge about loss

3 Components of grief literacy

• Knowledge

• Skills

• Values

Core idea of a grief literate society

• counter the individualising, pathologizing frame of spectacular grief with community support

Beravement definition

the period of sadness after death

Grief definition

complex emotional, cognitive, and physical experience that can occur during the beravement time

Mourning

outward expression of grief, influenced by cultural and religious practices

Breavement Support triangle

base: family + friends (most essential form of support

Middle: community + peer groups

Top: professional mental health

Diamond Model Ecological Grief

• Cooke et al.

• Base: peer support (colleagues who understand the ecological context)

• Small: friends and family may not understand climate grief

• Small: professional support still important for some

Common theme of a grief literate society

• grief is not a private burden, grief is a shared social responsibility

Compassionate Communities Intale

• Breen et al.

• Community involvement in dying and grieving

• Moves responsibility away from only professionals

• Aim →reduce stigma, enhance support networks, normalize grief talk

Assumptive world

your core beliefs about how life works

Types of assumptions (world)

• The world is benevolent (life is basically good)

• The world i s meaningful (events make sense)

• The self is worthy (I am good, competent person)

Core Idea of TMT

Humans manage death anxiety through

1) Cultural worldviews

2) Self esteem

3) Close relationships

What happens when death becomes salient

people defend the core ideas (systems) of TMT harder

Proximal defenses

• when death is consciously in your mind

• Suppress or avoid the thought of death

• ex. ignoring cigarette warnings

Distal defenses

• when thoguhts are unconsious but active

• Seek meaning, purpose and symbolic immortality

What does TMT explain

• Polarizing

• Irrational

• Defensive

reactions to something

easy explanation → When people are reminded of death TMT says…

• When people feel reminded of death even unconsiously, they can become more exterme, less logical and more protective

TMT Four Stage Model

• Jacobsen, clement and petersen

1) death reminders → increase worldview denfense + self esteem behaviours

2) Strengthened worldview/self esteem → reduces anxiety

3) Threats to worldview increase death related thoughts

4) Defending worldview, self esteem, or relationships → reduces mortality accessibility

Defensive responses when worldview is threatened

• Derogation → belittling or dehumanizing the opposite worldview

• Assimilation → tryign to convert outgroups

• Accomodation→ adopting surface level elements of the other group

• Annihilation → elimiation of the outgroup (exterme violence → war genocide)

Reduction of TMT defensiveness by promoting

• humanity

• tolerance

• self awareness

• reduced reactivity to threat

Mediatization

• how the media filter, frame, and intensify our encounters with death

Continuing bonds

• Klass, Silverman and Nickman

  • Maintianing emotioanl relationship with the deceased trhoguh digital objects

  • Profiles, photos, messages allow the bereaved to “stay in touch”

Ethical tension with digital memorialization

• keeps the deceased frozen in time

• Risk of distancing grievers from the material reality of death

• Rasis questions about ownership, consent, and longevity of digital remains

Thanatechnology defenition

• Sofka

• Technology used to cope with dying, death and grief

Re ritualization and technology

• new rituals emerging in digital spaces as old religious or communal rituals decline

• Technology does not eliminate ritual → it transforms it

Social rules shaping online grief

• who has the “right to grieve”

• Grief policing

• Forgotten grievers

Digital Immortality major ethical dilemmas (6)

• Consent

• Accuracy

• Gamification of grief

• Commerical exploitation

• What happens if the company goes bankrupt?

• Blurring realtiy → delaying grief or affecting assumptive world

Cemetries communicate (4)

• Collective values

• Religious values

• Class and status

• Attitudes towards grief, the afterlife and the body

Rural cemetery movement

Hamscher

• Fits death of the other → Aries

• Response to overcrowded, unsanitary city graveyards

• Hamschers Six R’s → describe what rural cemeteries were trying to communciate

Hamschers Six Rs

Describe what rural cemeteries were trying to communicate

• Regret

• Rememberance

• Respect

• Reunion in afterlife

• Religion → through nature

• Romaticism

Lawn Park Model

Hamscher

• Mid - late 1800s

• Increased professionalization + commercialization

• Less religion/sentimental symbolism

• Low uniform markers

Memorial Park Model

Hamscher

• 1900 - Present

• Flat markers, whide lawns → hides death visually

• Represents aries forbidden death

• High commercilzation, pre need sales, standardized products

Revival of personalized markers cemetry trends

• Pushback against uniformed and anonymus look of memorial park

• reflects modern individualism + secular identity

• 1970 - present

Memorialization def

• Ongoing ways we remember and maintain bonds with the dead

• Hoy et al.

Death rituals def

• Actions, symbols, ceremonies surrounding death

• Hoy et al.

What do funerals support

Hoy et al.

• Meaning seeking

• Meaning creating

• Meaning taking

5 anchors of funeral rituals

Hoy et al.

• Significant symbols

• Community gathering

• Ritual actions

• Sociocultural/religious heritage

• Transition of the corpse

cadence and sturcture rituals give

• Rituals give mourners something organized and purposeful to follow, which helps counter the emotional chaos that often comes with grief

• Provide order after loss

What does viewing the body do

• often helps people accept the death, supports emotional adjustmenT

What does full funerals do

• provide sturcutre and support, lowering the change of complicated/prolonged grief

What does active participation in a ritual do

• Planning or taking part strengthens meaning making and improves long term coping

What do rituals do

• give mourners a sense of control and offer ongoing spaces to return to grief safely

Alternate Endings Documentary Key Themes (4)

• Personalization

• Movement away from funeral home standardization

• Reclaiming autonomy in death

• Rituals reflecting identity and values → NOT religion

What does obituaries reflect

• Cultural values, fears, expectations of “a life well lived”

Basic features of traditional obituaries in national papers

• Written by jounalists, usually about famous or powerful people

• First modern obituary: 1731 The gentlemens magazine london

Conventions of traditional obituaries in national papers

• Written in third person, biographical, “dispassionate” tone

• Focus on life achievements, not grief

• Often omit cause/circumstances of death

Social functions of the traditional obituary

• aspirational function

  • Encourage people to aspire to similar values/achievements

• Reproduction of social power

  • a site where social norms, hierachies and power are reinforced

  • Who is ‘important enough to remember’

Trends of New York Times obituary

• Few women, few people of colour

• Renforices societal views of importance

NYT “Overlooked” Project

• Retroactive project to write obits for historically significant women and people of colour previously overlooked

• Takes user pitches → Tiny step toward democratizing who gets remembered

What are death notices

• print and online

• Written and paid for by families or person themselves

Self written obits

• often written by people with a diagnosis

• Give them control over how they are remembered, final message, values, politics

death notices 1970s

Brower

• very short, factual, (name, age, date)

death notices 1970s-2000s

Brower

• Longer, more biography, warmer tone

death notices 21st century

brower

• Focus on personality, humour, emotional connection

• More detail, career, hobbies, end of life, charities

Self written obituaries functions

• control over self representation

• Space to express values, politics, messages to loved ones

• less neutral more openly subjective

Humour and Gallows Humour Obituaries functions

• deflects some of the readers death anxiety

• Makes the deceased feel relatable

2SLGBTQ+

• Two spirted, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning

Institutions and Inequaltiies

• Legal system

  • Legal recogintion is crucial for equal care

  • Wills, POA, and formal planning may be inaccessible especially with marginalization

• Healthcare system

  • Fear of discrimination in long term care is common

  • LGBTQ+ elders often avoid assisted living or hide identity

  • Moving to long term care may separate partners due to herteronormative assumptions by staff

Postmortem “detransitioning”

Weaver

• Families revert trans women and male identity after death

• Erases identity and deepens disenfrachised grief

• Shows funerals can become sites in inequality and cultural violence

AIDS memorial quilt purpose

• Make visible lives lost to AIDS

  • Going from something that people hid and were ashamed of

• Transform private grief into public remembrance

• Resist stigma + honour personhood

AIDS stigma

• Effected all ages and was often rotted in misinformation

Canadian Virtual Hospice: 2SLGBTQ+ Healthcare Bill of Rights (8)

• right to care free of discrimination

• Right to choose an advocate + define future care wishes

• Right for gender identity/expression to be respected

• Right to decide who can visit

• Right to privacy of identity

• Right to protest discriminatory discharge

• Right to refuse harmful/discriminatory treatment

• Extra rights for two sprit + indigenous LGBTQ+ people

goal of end of life care

• alleviate suffering, provide comfort, optimize quality of life until death

Core bioethical Principles (5)

• Autonomy → self determination

• Beneficence

• Non maleficence

• Fidelity → truthtelling

• Justice

Medical futility

• An intervention unlikely to produce meaningful benefit

Conflict with medical futility

conflicts stem from values, beliefs, cultural expectations → not empirical facts alone

Jecker CPR argument

• argues clincians overperforme CPR due to cultural myths, fear of inaction and “rule of rescue”

MAID 1993

MAID prohibited Sue Rodriguez case

MAID 2015

Supreme Court rules prohibition unconstitutional

MAID 2016

MAID becomes legal in Canada

MAID 2021

eligibility expands → no longer requires reasonably foreseeable death

MAID 2027

mental illness as sole condition may become eligible

Top reasons for suffering MAID reasoning both tracks

• loss ability to engage in meaningful activity

• Loss ability to preform activities of daily living

5 of the top 6 reasonings are about independent living

High reasoning for suffering MAID reasoning track 2

isolation and loneliness (nearly 50%)

Goal of Pallative care

• improve quality of life for patients + families