Official Discussion Forum for the works of Stephen R. Donaldson
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Sorus wrote:I'm currently reading a book about funerary customs around the world (From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty). It's fascinating, though the guy reading over my shoulder in the laundromat didn't seem to agree - he spent the next hour giving me weird looks.
Linna Heartlistener wrote: (Did I ever mention that sometimes I take great glee in scandalizing and/or "weirding-out" people? If not, I'm sure that comes as a surprise to everyone here.)
A German painting of the Danse Macabre from the 18th century. Nine women of different social rank from empress to fool dance with the dead. The entire economy of salvation is depicted, from the Fall, through the crucifixion, to Heaven and Hell. Twelve more traditional Dance Macabre figures, from pope and emperor down to fool, surround the central image. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons.)
Dance of Death (Danse Macabre) murals typically depicted decaying corpses dancing amid representative figures of late medieval society, ranked highest to lowest: A pope, an emperor, a bishop, a king, a cardinal, a knight and down to a beggar, all ambling diffidently toward their mortal end while the corpses frolic with lithe movements and gestures.
In the Halloween season, American culture briefly participates in an ancient tradition of making the world of the dead visible to the living: Children dress as skeletons, teens go to horror movies and adults play the part of ghosts in haunted houses.
But what if the dead played a more active, more participatory role in our daily lives?
It might appear to be a strange question, but as a scholar of late medieval literature and art, I have found compelling evidence from our past that shows how the dead were well-integrated into people's sense of community.
[…]
When modern viewers see images like the Dance of Death, they might associate them with certain well-known but frequently misunderstood cataclysms of the European Middle Ages, like the terrible plague that swept through England and came to be known as Black Death.
My research on these images, however, reveals a more subtle and nuanced attitude toward death, beginning with the evident beauty of the murals themselves, which endow the theme with color and vitality.
The image of group dance powerfully evokes the grace and fluidity of a community's cohesion, symbolized by the linking of hands and bodies in a chain that crosses the barrier between life and death. Dance was a powerful metaphor in medieval culture. The Dance of Death may be responding to medieval folk practices, when people came at night to dance in churchyards, and perhaps to the "dancing mania" recorded in the late 14th century, when people danced furiously until they fell to the ground. But images of dance also provoked a viewer to participate in a "virtual" experience of a community. It depicted a society collectively facing up to human mortality.
[…]
In the modern era entire industries have emerged to whisk the dead from view and alter them to look more like the living. Once buried or cremated, the dead play a much smaller role in our social lives.
Could bringing the dead back into a central role in the community offer a healthier perspective on death for contemporary Western cultures?
That process might begin with acknowledging the dead as an ongoing part of our image of community, which is built on the work of the dead who have come before us.
Yes, absolutely.Could bringing the dead back into a central role in the community offer a healthier perspective on death for contemporary Western cultures?
Sorus wrote:And in related news, Happy Dia de los Muertos.
Avatar wrote:Well, we do tend to have an unhealthy view of death.
--A
Margaret Atwood wrote:In Mexico they do this festival the right way, with no disguises. Bright candy skulls, family picnics on the graves, a plate set for each individual guest, a candle for the soul. Everyone goes away happy, including the dead. We've rejected that easy flow between dimensions: we want the dead unmentionable, we refuse to name them, we refuse to feed them. Our dead as a result are thinner, grayer, harder to hear, and hungrier.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking is a major reason for this.Avatar wrote:Well, it's cause we don't like to think about it. It's not the dead per se I think, but the intimations of mortality that make people uncomfortable.
I'm still on the fence about this whole thing. I wouldn't want it for myself. But imagine - stepping way into scifi territory here - being able to ask questions - have that conversation you were never able to have - maybe you never worked up the nerve to ask, maybe you were afraid, maybe you thought you had more time.Linna Heartlistener wrote:
Anyway, now that my mind's been in this place for a bit, I think I have an answer to Atomic's original Q:
An AI like me at my funeral?
I don't care how good a simulacrum, no WAY!
My friends and family will be longing for my presence, not that.
A video made while living, maybe. Though it would likely make things weepy, it would be an animated snapshot of -ME-. (Also, I'm pretty sure I'd say "I love you" a lot in it.)
Dunno, depends what you mean by "materialistic."Linna Heartlistener wrote:Yeah, that's what I was thinking is a major reason for this.
Otoh, I was raised to think with a VERY materialistic worldview, as I infer you have, Av. (or try to have)
Y'know, sometimes I think about stuff like that, (the same being true of my family (lost history that is, not fear of controversy)) and regret it, but at others I realise it really doesn't matter...we'll all be dead and forgotten soon enough, and while that stuff was relevant to the people who lived through it, it really isn't a few generations later.Sorus wrote:On the other hand, most of my family's history is lost because people were afraid to talk about anything that might be even slightly controversial, and that's a shame too.
It probably doesn't really matter. None of the stuff I want to know about would change my life in any way at this point, but I'm still curious. I'd like to know more about a relative who died when I was young. We were close, and I think she probably had some truly fascinating (and probably very dark) stories to tell. On the other side of my family, I'd like to know the full truth about some things that were revealed in my grandparents' will that contradicted everything I was told when I was growing up. It wouldn't change anything, but I'd still like to know.Avatar wrote: Y'know, sometimes I think about stuff like that, (the same being true of my family (lost history that is, not fear of controversy)) and regret it, but at others I realise it really doesn't matter...we'll all be dead and forgotten soon enough, and while that stuff was relevant to the people who lived through it, it really isn't a few generations later.
Yep I kinda think the sameAvatar wrote:Dunno, depends what you mean by "materialistic."Linna Heartlistener wrote:Yeah, that's what I was thinking is a major reason for this.
Otoh, I was raised to think with a VERY materialistic worldview, as I infer you have, Av. (or try to have)
Y'know, sometimes I think about stuff like that, (the same being true of my family (lost history that is, not fear of controversy)) and regret it, but at others I realise it really doesn't matter...we'll all be dead and forgotten soon enough, and while that stuff was relevant to the people who lived through it, it really isn't a few generations later.Sorus wrote:On the other hand, most of my family's history is lost because people were afraid to talk about anything that might be even slightly controversial, and that's a shame too.
A couple years ago I was given a whole bunch of ancient family photo's from a distant relative...no idea who the vast majority of the people in them are. And it doesn't matter at all, because it's not like I will pass that on or anything anyway.
We're born, we live, we die, we get forgotten, none of it really matters at all.
--A
