[This is written to participate in Forward Thinking, which is a blogging series about Values and the Making Thereof. Since, despite being a nihilist, I am basically the hugest fan of values, I've decided to participate! The current prompt is about developing ways of collective mourning.]
Like Fincke mentions in the prompt post, it’s very easy for people to say “everyone should mourn as they want!” That would be the easy default for me, too. Social norms smack of People Telling Me To Do Things, and my entire political philosophy basically boils down to this:
[Pissed off movieverse Loki saying "I do what I want Thor!" Original artist.]
Nevertheless, I think that rituals are important. For one thing, people who are mourning often don’t want to have the entire weight of planning the mourning process themselves. For another, a shared ritual offers a way of resolving conflicts like “Pat thinks the appropriate way to mourn is to get really really drunk” and “Robin thinks the appropriate way to mourn is tearing your hair out and covering yourself with dirt.” For a third, humans often find shared rituals beautiful and comforting, which is particularly important in a time of grief. The loss of ritual is actually one of the things I worry most about in a more secular society– possibly because I really like ritual myself.
So what are things we’d include in a secular funeral?
If I were designing it, the core of the ritual would be an opportunity for everyone to share their memories of the deceased. I’m not sure what to do about honesty: sharing only the good memories is dishonest and might rob people of the complexity of their feelings towards the deceased, while sharing bad memories might be rude to some of the others who mourn. One’s speech may be preplanned or improvised, short or long, and those of us who are afraid of public speaking are welcome to have someone else read.
In addition, there would be certain things that are repeated every funeral. My family has someone recite Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night at the end of each funeral; other people may have other suggestions. Probably most traditions would be unique to each subculture, group of friends or family, or belief system, because nothing is going to be meaningful to every group of people. Some people don’t even like Dylan Thomas! Bizarre, I know.
I think you’d need to incorporate things that remind you of the deceased. Favorite songs is an obvious one, as is the deceased’s favorite flowers or a slideshow of pictures. If the deceased knows that they’re going to die, they can plan this ahead of time with their loved ones. (Public announcement: when I go, you assholes better put a quarter under my tongue for Charon.)
Finally, I think you’d end with a dinner, potluck, drunken party, or some kind of social-group-appropriate celebration and opportunity for socializing. The end of the funeral has to reaffirm life and the fabric of the community united by grief.
I really like the idea in some religions of an annual remembrance of the deceased on the day of their death, although I’ve never had someone die who was close enough to me that I would feel obligated to. I might come back with further notes on that when I have more experience of death.
Rituals give people context and they represent an unbroken history, which, I’d wager, most people crave.
Tangential: A spiritual thinker I have a lot of respect for did a short meditation on her blog last year about the significance of coming-of-age initiations and how they have powerful implications for the communities that they’re a fixture of. However, she also mentioned that not having them would also likely have powerful implications for the communities that don’t. But “not having them” being the default for us makes it harder for us to see what those implications might be. Interesting to think about, but when I shared it with my dad he took it as an opportunity to say me and everyone my age are lazy. Oh the double-edged sword of ritual and conservatism.
I love the idea of sharing memories of the deceased person. One of my favourite things we did at my grandmother’s funeral was to give people an A6 piece of card and ask them to write down something they remembered of her – we got back both stories of things people had done with her and some of her well-known ‘phrases’ which made me laugh.
I did, however, really struggle with the amount of religion and religious symbolism. It was totally appropriate to her funeral – she was religious, I’m the atheist of the family! – but it made me wonder how a secular funeral might be shaped, and where it would even take place. I don’t want to be cremated, but nor would I feel comfortable with the idea of being buried in a churchyard. Secular funerals are complicated beasts, for sure.
Weirdly, I’ve actually given more thought to body disposal than mourning arrangements for those who survive me (assuming I don’t engage in my current plan to prolong my life to unnatural levels by stealing the body parts of others to replace mine as they wear out). Most plans involve me being eaten by some sort of large predator, since, based on my preferences in both pets and vacations, this may well be the cause of my death as well.
Could your next post be about your definition of a nihilist? =/
Interesting post! Here in small town flyover country, we already have a secularized version of funerals. Since I am probably older than you (I’m 51) I’ve been to a lot of funerals.
Regular religious funerals are held in church; some religious ones are held at funeral homes–usually shortened versions of the church ones.
Secular funerals with religious overtones (i.e, conducted by a minister but not a big giant Jesus fest) are usually held in funeral homes. As are non-religious secular funerals.
Here, memory cards are set out so that visitors can share their favorite memory. These are usually scrapbooked and given to the family. The family plays a playlist of favorite songs, either religious or otherwise. At my brother in law’s funeral, we finished up with Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.”
Normally, there are two portions to the funeral: the wake, held the night before the funeral,and the funeral itself. My guess is that the wake is held for those who can’t handle the more formal funerals but want to express sympathy for the family.
The wake can be as formal or informal as the family chooses. Booze, food, crying, laughing, long lines of neighbors. All part of the process. One wake I went to, the grieving widow wore are beautiful SCARLET dress, because it was her husband’s favorite color.
I’ve been to biker funerals where everyone comes dressed in their leather jackets and chaps, riding their Harleys. It’s very stylized, very ritualized. There may or may not be God involved, depending on the wishes of the family.
A line of several hundred bikers escorted the hearse to the cemetery.
Oh, and cemeteries (or what I like to call “bury patches”: Most are non-denominational, and don’t have overt symbols, either Christian, Jewish or otherwise. Catholic (and probably Jewish) cemeteries will usually restrict who gets buried there to people of their faith (and other people who ask and buy a plot; they’re really not that picky).
Cremations are becoming more popular now. A furnace was recently installed in one of the funeral homes in town, and other funeral directors also make use of it. It’s especially popular with old ladies, since they really don’t want people looking at them. Several of my mom’s friends have had pretty urns instead of the caskets.
My favorite non-American idea for a funeral is a “sky burial” like they have in Tibet. They have a special caste of “untouchables” who take the body away to the mountains and chop it up and the birds come to eat it. Very return-to-earthy.
In this country, it probably would not do to try a sky burial, but the University of Tennessee has a “body farm” where they conduct CSI type research on dead bodies. See http://web.utk.edu/~fac/
I’d like to do something like the Body Farm. My dad donated his body to the University of Iowa Medical School when he died, and my mom is signed up to be a donor as well.
..yeah, you are the most non-nihilist nihilist I’ve ever encountered.
Personally I plan not to have a funeral, because I plan not to taste of death before the ascendance of human engineering. The grim reaper has merely attracted the attention of an enemy wholly invincible.
And that is a problem, because it makes me have a horrible time any time somebody I care about or my friends/family care about has died and I can’t really respond in transhumanist terms. Once, when I was visiting this mauseouleum which contained mostly cremated ashes of thousands of people, (though nobody I knew) I was struck by a kind of psychic horror.
Krause: Don’t police my identity.
I feel like the transhumanist response to death is certainly *a* perfectly reasonable response to death, although there are unfortunately few poems expressing it. Someone should get on that.
I celebrate “All Hallows Eve” or “Samhain” which happens to be at the same time as Halloween. It is a time we honor those who have died and ask for their blessings… consider practicing these holidays as you don’t need to be part of a religion to do so.
Also, I wanted to offer another perspective on dying. I work in a nursing home, I lose approximately 20~ people per year that I take care of on a daily basis. I think death is a blessing, I see it as…. that person no longer need live in this realm and has moved onto a better life or to start a new one, regardless of how I feel that day. Either way they have moved on. I have watched numerous people take their last breast and there is certainly a feeling of relief as they finally pass, like “Finally its over – now onto a new chapter” or maybe it just ends. Either way, when loving wholely and completely you only want the best for those you truly love, and to have moved onto something else you often feel a sense of pride for them. What they did while they were here…
Also, letting go allows you to think – “It wasn’t meant to be” this I learned when my 3 month old niece passed away.
I know death, I deal with it daily.
@ozy: … I’m not sure what you mean by that in this specific case but I didn’t intend to say anything other than that my subjective interpretation of your revealed personality seems to have less nihil in it than my subjective interpretation of your verbally claimed descriptor.
Poems? Yes, I can do poems, and they tend to come out in an kind of old yet not-uniformly-rhyming style. Some inspired by HPMOR. Have outlined a play also, hopefully will actuall write.
Did you read Less Wrong More Rite’s book? Some of the more serious songs might be suitable perhaps?
Ozy, this is a bit OT, but I’m curious as to what you mean when you say you’re a nihilist? Well, obviously, for starters, that you don’t believe there are mind-independent Moral Facts that sort of float about in some metaphysical ether ready to be discovered by humans. But lots of people believe this, and call themselves constructivists or expressivists or something about morality, rather than nihilists…
So is it a combination of a) not believing in Moral Facts, and b) thinking that this means there aren’t any REAL values, because REAL values would have to consist in mind-independent Moral Facts floating about in the metaphysical ether, rather than something we make?
This is just something I’ve been thinking about, from, among other things, lecturing on Hume. He was a nihilist according to some people’s definition of the word, since he was very clear about not believing in mind-independent moral facts. BUT he didn’t call himself a nihilist; rather, he said that those who do merely wants attention, so the best thing you can do around a self-awoved nihilist is just to ignore him until he goes away (note; Hume’s view, not mine
). Hume thought morality is an expression of certain human emotions, but for him, this was, so to speak, good enough. There’s no need to wish for something more than that. He actually thought that if people in general came to grasp that morality is at root an expression of certain human emotions, like sympathy, people would be like “yay morality!”. And there are philosophers today who take a similar stance.
So… seems to me that what usually prompts a person to call zirself a nihilist is believing, not just a) above, but also b). Although this is just a hypothesis, so I’m curious whether that description fits you.
Ozy: if you’re gonna do that then I’m a Black Muslim Asian anti-theist communist libertarian programmer astronaut from Jackson County, Mars.
COME AT ME BRO.
It’s not really about identity. You can’t just say “I’m a thing” and do a bunch of shit that means you DEFINITELY AREN’T THAT THING. This isn’t like calling yourself a geek (which is okay because the word is so subjective it’s pretty much meaningless), sometimes you are or aren’t something whether you like it or not.
“mind-independent Moral Facts that sort of float about in some metaphysical ether ready to be discovered by humans”
I hate this strawman. Do facts about physical float in the same ether? Or are facts that we’re more willing to accept somewhere else?
Volte: Point taken. Although physical facts are ABOUT something we can point at. This would be true about moral facts as well if moral facts can be reduced to physical/empirical/natural facts. If one thinks they can’t be so reduced, moral facts are ABOUT something which we can’t really point at. And one might think, as J L Mackie did, that this makes moral facts too strange to sit well with scientific world view, and declare oneself a nihilist.
Or, then again, one might think (as I do) that morality can’t be reduced to natural facts since the normative is distinct from the empirical, AND there’s no such thing as mind-independent morality, BUT that doesn’t make it the case that morality and values aren’t “real” – just because morality is something people construct doesn’t mean it’s “unreal”. And that’s why I don’t call myself a nihilist, despite not believing in mind-independent moral facts.
There are philosophers as well who argue that there are mind-independent moral facts that are irreducible to natural facts, but that doesn’t make them strange in any way, acceptance of such facts don’t mean you gotta commit yourself to the idea of something like Platonic forms of morality, but I don’t think these arguments are convincing. I liked David Enoch’s “taking morality seriously”, despite not agreeing with him at the end of the day, because he argues head-on for a very substantive view on morality.
I did an online quiz that suggested I might be a moral nihilist because I’m not sure I believe there’s any positive thing that’s morally obligatory. That seemed weird, but I don’t know whether it’s just the quiz having strange definitions or whether that really does make me a moral nihilist.
@Ozy: Wow. I apologize for opening the nihilism-identity-questioning floodgate.
@Volte: Well yes, there are those who believe various forms of that.
At this rate no one’ll have anything left to say when I actually finish the nihilism post.
I feel like a lot of moral realists believe that morals are real the same way that mathematics is real: you can’t point to Perfect Justice any more than you can point to a Perfect Triangle, but learning things about perfect justice and perfect triangles can teach you things about the imperfect justice and triangles in the real world.
Dvärghundspossen:
I GUESS WE’RE DOING THIS NOW. SORRY OZ.
Morality has always been about finding a way to live that promotes wellbeing/avoids suffering for everyone concerned. The definition of a moral framework means how to achieve the above, it always has.
I’ve yet to see a single moral system, be it religious (do this or god will be pissed and then it’s eternal torment for you), ideological (we must kill x and y people if we’re ever going to have a perfect society for everyone), secular (this is all we’re getting, make the most of it) or even fictional (this elder god is going to murder everyone, best we can hope for is to get him to kill us quickly), that doesn’t have that assumption at its core. Where people tend to disagree are all the ancillary facts and principles that would guide us to that goal.
If you have come across a moral framework that is totally indifferent to the welfare of sentient beings I’d love to hear about it, because I can’t even imagine what they would find immoral. But even then I don’t think it would make a dent; it would no more undermine that goal than finding a tribe of people who value staring at their shoes more than they do learning about the world would undermine science as a whole.
Science has a lot of first principles that require no justification to anyone who’s not a total imbecile: it’s good to learn things; we should decide when we’ve learnt something with reason; less complicated ideas are better. Without any of these you couldn’t have a science of anything. You absolutely have to value learning about chemistry to justify a science of chemistry. Similarly, you would have to value promoting human wellbeing in order to have a science of, if not morality, then promoting human wellbeing. But as I argued in the first paragraph, I think that’s all anyone thinks morality is.
As first principles go I don’t really see how you can be any more reasonable than “it’s good for everything to not be totally shitty for everyone”. It seems to trump even those pretty sturdy principles I already mentioned.
I guess I’ve totally ignored everything you said about mind-independent facts. To be honest I’m not even sure what you mean by that. The science of “get a bunch of guys on the moon” wouldn’t make any sense without minds that desire seeing men on the moon. I think a science of human wellbeing would be justified similarly.
Volte: Uh, yeah, obviously well-being is important to all moral systems. There’s still the question of whether the only moral goal is to produce as much well-being as possible, or whether there are other things that are also important in their own right and independently of their possible contribution to well-being, such as respect and freedom for instance, or whether some acts are good/band in themselves regardless of consequences.
You can’t move from “everyone agrees that well-being is important” to “hedonistic utilitarianism is the ultimate truth” (although I’ve read a paper by Sam Harris where he pretty much makes that mistake, and I think his book “the moral landscape builds on that mistake as well – have you perchance read those?).
So… mind-independent would mean that if, for instance, hedonistic utilitarianism is THE TRUTH, then it is THE TRUTH regardless of whether people realise this or not, regardless of whether it’s the case that a group of rational people trying to agree on basic moral principles would actually choose a more, say, Kantian system, regardless of all that there is A TRUTH which is that hedonistic utilitarianism is the correct morality – if so, moral facts are mind-independent.
Mathematics is commonly assumed to be mind-independent in this sense – 2+2 would still be 4 even if everyone became absolutely crap at math and started believing that 2+2=4,3.
If, on the other hand, morality is mind-dependent, what’s right or wrong somehow depends on how people actually tend to think and feel about moral matters. This is not to say that morality could be absolutely ANYTHING. There are plausibly lots of limits on what a moral system for human beings could look like, and there might be conceptual limits on what a system of principles employed by, say, intelligent aliens could look like if we still were to label it “morality”.
Sorry: Meant to write good/bad, not good/band.
Deadheads inevitably play “Brokedown Palace”–and I recently learned this practice has become pretty widespread.
Unfortunately, one side effect of this happening over and over is: if you hear the song out in public someplace, caught unawares, you will probably burst into tears.
In re: death-anniversary mini-rituals, I have a friend whose (by all accounts, totally awesome) mother passed away several years ago, before I ever met said friend. She has 2 annual get-togethers with local friends to remember her mother’s life and honor her memory: on the mother’s birthday, and the anniversary of her death. Another death-anniversary is coming up, and I’ve been invited (and I feel so honored, because like I said, I didn’t even know the woman). Apparently there will be chocolate cake, which I’ll have to pass on for dietary reasons, but I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Should I comment again afterward with a few further details?
I hate funerals and I can’t deal with people dying. It sounds horrible but the last two friends that died I didn’t even go to their funerals because I was just in such a shitty place in my life and I was depressed and I just couldn’t deal with the idea of dead friends on top of that. Now several years later I still feel guilty and selfish for not attending, like I have to put my own stupid personal problems over standing next to a dead body feeling sad.
The_L: I’d love to hear!
d…: I think it’s important to remember that funerals are for the living. The dead person is gone, they can’t get any benefit from it. (If you’re religious, YMMV.) If funerals do not help you grieve, and there isn’t some other reason to go (perhaps a living friend who needs your support through *their* grieving process), then there’s absolutely nothing wrong with skipping one.
Dvar: shall we move this to the nihilism thread? It’d probably be a better fit there.
I think Buddhism has the right idea about how to treat each other. Although Buddhism is sometimes referred to as a religion, actually it is more a philosophy of life. Essentially the best way to reach enlightenment is to treat your fellow human with compassion and love. So although I am not religious Buddhism teaches a message that is good for just about everyone. Of course this would disclude the out lyers that would like us to kill each other. if you don’t treat people with compassion and love you will not reach enlightenment and therefore will come back to the planet Earth until you do. So the only punishment is to repeat life as we know it.
Volte, you’re right.
Ozy: It’ll be a couple weeks, but sure, I’ll give you a general idea.
Reframing ‘vulnerability’ in sex « Valprehension
Striving: depends on the type of buddhism. Xen Buddhism and whatever type of Buddhism is practised in places like Thailand has many of the trappings of Abrahamic religions. Xen in particular is pretty nuts and was used by the Japanese to justify suicide bombing with their Kamikaze pilots.
Straight-up eightfold-path Buddhism is more like a philosophy though, yeah.
Historically, it’s also the case that most Buddhists have believed in the existence of various gods (starting with Indian Buddhists believing that the Hindu gods existed), and that gods are powerful and can help you in various ways – only they can’t help you to reach enlightenment; THAT’S something you gotta do on your own.
I’d say that if someone believes in reincarnation, and escaping reincarnation through enlightenment, that’s a straight-up religious belief. If Buddhism is gonna be philosophy rather than religion, the whole reincarnation stuff must be thrown out, IMHO.
Well, I just thought about this post again because my grandmother just died. Honestly I’m just glad she doesn’t have to suffer, she’s had alzheimer disease for the last decade or so. I don’t know if I’ll go to the funeral yet.
Ozy: thanks for the advice, I sort of know that but it still feels kind of douchey to skip a funeral. It’s kind of like there’s some kind of unspoken contract, that when someone dies you’re supposed to put your life on hold at least for a day or so.