[apologies in advance for any oddnesses with vertical spacing in this
post; I am experimenting with a new email program which seems to have
difficulty interpolating new text with quoted material.]
On 3/29/11 11:02 AM March 29, 2011, Jon Cox wrote:
This is a both a gross caricature and a sweeping generalization, but I
think there's more than just a seed of truth in it. While Protestants
usually go for closed caskets, Catholics go for open (unless the
person is really mangled beyond all recognition). Sometimes, people
people touch the face or hands of the deceased. I regard this as a
good thing. Death is hard to comprehend, so anything that makes it
less abstract is a helpful aid to accepting its reality. Aside: I'm
not a religious person myself.
At the recent memorials I've been to, the remains of the deceased are
not even present. There are photos of the dead person, at all stages of
life, but no corpse and no ashes.
When my grandfather died, it was very healing to see him in his casket.
I didn't see my father's body before they took him to be cremated. His
death (from brain cancer) took so long that I didn't feel a need to see
his body after death. The long process of dying was closure enough.
Over the past few years, I realize that I've come to cherish memorial
services. It is a time to honor the deceased and learn about parts and
times of their lives I wasn't familiar with, as well as a chance to
touch base with relatives who are still living.
A more cynical interpretation is that by removing the face of the
victim, you remove some of the passion from those who would otherwise
voice strenuous, heart-felt objections to the war. Could you see a
peace rally inspired by the blurred image? I sure can't. So, is it a
conspiracy of corporate controlled mass media, plain old marketing to
your audience, or just thoughtless habit of our culture? Hard to tell.
Probably a bit of everything.
I think that's not cynical at all. The Vietnam War was the first war to
be televised. Look at all the trouble that caused! People were shocked
by the images of death and suffering on the nightly news, and many of
them expressed their distaste in the form of bumper stickers, signs,
songs, peace marches, and even at the ballot box.
The Bush wars have been very carefully managed to avoid the raw,
visceral images of death and suffering that moved the American
conscience in the Vietnam era. Journalists cannot, in general, publish
the sorts of images that were commonplace in the Vietnam era. If what
they publish displeases the military authorities, they will be denied
all access to the war.
As a result, the gap is being filled by images taken the soldiers
themselves. The front line of journalism is now the common person with a
cell phone. Professional journalists work in a wing of marketing,
putting the correct spin on stories rather than attempting to dish us up
an order of truth, hold the platitudes. This leaves the traditional
field of muckraking journalism open to amateurs. As the muckrakers rise
to the point where people take them seriously, they can either be
co-opted or smeared.
Co-option was one of the great lessons of the 1960s. Instead of cracking
down on dissidents, the powers that be in the United States domesticate
them. They are allowed to speak freely and slowly brought into the fold
(if they are moderate enough). The Reagan/Bush era developed a great
smear machine to handle those who could not easily be co-opted.
One of the oddest aspects of current American journalism is the large
number of people who trust Comedy Central's news coverage over that of
any of the serious news networks. Co-option at its finest. You can't
take them seriously, and their contracts prevent them from taking
themselves too seriously.
I am currently reading a gripping book about the psychology of men at war
called "Acts of War" by Richard Holmes. For me it is a gold mine of
information. The author writes of coping mecahnisms that soldiers use to come
to grips with the randomness of death in war. One such coping mechanism is
what appears like "disrespect" for the dead. The jocular "familarity" with a
corpse - like taking a photograph for the family album is one way of coping
with the idea that the corpse could be you next.
The sanest character in Apocalypse Now was the hippie soldier who
dropped LSD and performed a sort of water ballet/funeral rite for the
corpses in the river, singing to them and decorating the water around
them with flowers.
--
Heather Madrone ([email protected])
http://www.sunsplinter.blogspot.com
I'd love to change the world, but they won't give me access to the source code.
