I am reading a book about Augustus, which points out, among other things, that violent death was a part of Roman living in a way it is not today. The gladiatorial games that seem so revolting to us were not greatly different from everyday life for more than a few citizens and most slaves (and had nothing like the universal mortality shown in movies).
This made me think about death in realtion to society and values. Until the early 20th century, most people had an intimate understanding of sex, birth and death. Since most people lived on farms, they saw animals engaged in intercourse, saw babies, both animal and human, being delivered, and saw animals slaughtered to become the food they ate. They also saw their realtives and children die. Most deaths, like most births, took place at home.
Not only did ordinary people see these things, but life was significantly shorter than today. Even if we factor out the high child mortality rates which so skew crude survival, the data are startling. I have several books on the English monarchy, and I took ages at death for the English kings from William I (the conqueror) to Anne (the end of the Stuart line). I excluded teens and children killed in dynastic struggles, such as Edward VI and Jane, but included battle deaths and deaths from disease while on campaign. It is not unfair to assume that royalty lived rather longer than the ordinary citizenry, admitting they had different chances for violent deaths.
The results are interesting. The age at death ranges from 33 to 70 (Elizabeth I). The average age of death was 53. And this is for the best nourished people, who had already survived all the childhood problems that lead to death. The results for the Hanoverian kings, and their direct cousins, the Saxe-Coburg Gothas, renamed Windsor (same family, renamed in the anti-German feelings of WW1), are rather different. Average age at death was 73.4. and Elizabeth II is still going. These differences reflect many things, social and medical, but my main point is that death was not something that happened to elderly people in nursing homes out of sight of the working public. Death happened in the midst of society.
Besides the difference in age of death, what our society sees of sex, birth and death is dramatically different. Most people have never seen an animal born except on television. Far more, even farmers, have never seen an animal slaughtered for food, this taking place in centralized factories. Ordinary citizens rarely see animals engaged in intercourse, again except on television. And we certainly do not see the death of humans. The very large majority of deaths today take place in nursing homes and hospitals. In these locations, the realities of death, the process of it, are all obscured, decathected by the 'scientific' smells and equipment so commonly surrounding the dying.
Further, the most typical age of death is such that we rarely see working age adults struck down. Most of those dying are waht would have been called 'in their dotage'- retired, in nursing homes, demented, of limited physical abilities. While the death of loved ones is always an emotional shock and loss, the intrusion of death into everyday life is far less when such elderly individuals die. Not infrequently it is described by loved ones as a mercy, even in their grief.
In circumstances such as our modern ones, it is no wonder death is greatly feared. It is not understood. Since death is abstracted and scientifically removed from our everyday world, we speak of it in inappropriate terms. Doctors talk about 'preventing deaths'. We say 'it's terrible he/she died', when of course it was only natural that everyone dies. We buy meat in packages from the store, wrapped in plastic and displayed in styrofoam. We never see an animal die. We have our pets 'put to sleep', such that we do not even experience the natural death of those animals closest to us.
We naturally fear that which we do not know. Few can become familiar with the process of death in our modern society. Religious faith and values mean something very different in the face of violent and common death than in the face of a sanitized, urban existence. It is easy to soften and abstract life values in our culture, whereas it certainly was not possible to soften them in the face of undeniable reality.
It means something different to believe in eternal life in the face of hidous and real death, than in the face of a nursing home or a supermarket. Sanitizing life and obscuring death makes it easy to sanitize and marginalize the very values that give us moral strength in the face of danger.
Ted
This made me think about death in realtion to society and values. Until the early 20th century, most people had an intimate understanding of sex, birth and death. Since most people lived on farms, they saw animals engaged in intercourse, saw babies, both animal and human, being delivered, and saw animals slaughtered to become the food they ate. They also saw their realtives and children die. Most deaths, like most births, took place at home.
Not only did ordinary people see these things, but life was significantly shorter than today. Even if we factor out the high child mortality rates which so skew crude survival, the data are startling. I have several books on the English monarchy, and I took ages at death for the English kings from William I (the conqueror) to Anne (the end of the Stuart line). I excluded teens and children killed in dynastic struggles, such as Edward VI and Jane, but included battle deaths and deaths from disease while on campaign. It is not unfair to assume that royalty lived rather longer than the ordinary citizenry, admitting they had different chances for violent deaths.
The results are interesting. The age at death ranges from 33 to 70 (Elizabeth I). The average age of death was 53. And this is for the best nourished people, who had already survived all the childhood problems that lead to death. The results for the Hanoverian kings, and their direct cousins, the Saxe-Coburg Gothas, renamed Windsor (same family, renamed in the anti-German feelings of WW1), are rather different. Average age at death was 73.4. and Elizabeth II is still going. These differences reflect many things, social and medical, but my main point is that death was not something that happened to elderly people in nursing homes out of sight of the working public. Death happened in the midst of society.
Besides the difference in age of death, what our society sees of sex, birth and death is dramatically different. Most people have never seen an animal born except on television. Far more, even farmers, have never seen an animal slaughtered for food, this taking place in centralized factories. Ordinary citizens rarely see animals engaged in intercourse, again except on television. And we certainly do not see the death of humans. The very large majority of deaths today take place in nursing homes and hospitals. In these locations, the realities of death, the process of it, are all obscured, decathected by the 'scientific' smells and equipment so commonly surrounding the dying.
Further, the most typical age of death is such that we rarely see working age adults struck down. Most of those dying are waht would have been called 'in their dotage'- retired, in nursing homes, demented, of limited physical abilities. While the death of loved ones is always an emotional shock and loss, the intrusion of death into everyday life is far less when such elderly individuals die. Not infrequently it is described by loved ones as a mercy, even in their grief.
In circumstances such as our modern ones, it is no wonder death is greatly feared. It is not understood. Since death is abstracted and scientifically removed from our everyday world, we speak of it in inappropriate terms. Doctors talk about 'preventing deaths'. We say 'it's terrible he/she died', when of course it was only natural that everyone dies. We buy meat in packages from the store, wrapped in plastic and displayed in styrofoam. We never see an animal die. We have our pets 'put to sleep', such that we do not even experience the natural death of those animals closest to us.
We naturally fear that which we do not know. Few can become familiar with the process of death in our modern society. Religious faith and values mean something very different in the face of violent and common death than in the face of a sanitized, urban existence. It is easy to soften and abstract life values in our culture, whereas it certainly was not possible to soften them in the face of undeniable reality.
It means something different to believe in eternal life in the face of hidous and real death, than in the face of a nursing home or a supermarket. Sanitizing life and obscuring death makes it easy to sanitize and marginalize the very values that give us moral strength in the face of danger.
Ted
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