Dying and Death: Inter-Disciplinary Perspectives (review)

This book is an important collection of papers with wide-ranging implications for a better understanding of life and death in different places and times. Caught up by the frenetic rhythms of our lives, rapid communication and transportation, we do not seem to have time for genuine reflection about death, as if we were going to live forever. When a near-death situation, such as a terminal illness, touches our life or that of a close friend or family member, we discover that we are completely unprepared to face it. Strangely enough, it is in these circumstances that the meaning of life is revealed and "deep feelings" are shared with others.

Part I explores this fascinating phenomenon from a cross-cultural and cross-temporal point of view. It emerged clearly at the time of the American Civil War, which shows "how a collective work of mourning in the public sphere can become politically productive" (Byock), during the burial rites in the village of Vis in Croatia (Young), in present-day Israel (Kasher), in medieval Serbia (Crouch), and amongst adult children of Holocaust survivors in the U.S.A. (David). These are all powerful examples of how death can help us move from individualism toward collectivism. As Asa Kasher has pointed out, this tendency is also implicit in language expressing "collective emotions." So, for instance, a nation could be "sad" or "happy" about certain events, as though a nation could feel emotions and symbolically represent a person.

The boundaries between life and death are challenged in the reflections about mourning, which are presented in Part II. Gary Peters explores the power of "embodying" the dead loved one from a philosophical perspective. It shows how, when someone close to us dies, it feels as if part of them lives on with us and the relationship with the dead does not disappear, but changes. Again, the separation between life and death diminishes.

Simply stated, we can say that there is a continuum rather than a separation between life and death that makes it difficult to draw clear lines. Such a principle is fundamental to Eastern philosophical thinking, in which there is no clear distinction between life and death. Accordingly, life is present in a sick old man, as death is present in a newborn baby. Probably the easiest way to explain this intricate phenomenon is that of the Taoist symbol of yin–yang. Yang (white) never exists purely as yang, but is always inclusive of some yin (black) and vice versa. In this regard, Dana Freiback-Heifezt observes how our philosophical literature has paid little attention to the significance and status of the relationship with the dead. Marguerite Peggy Flynn will probably agree that it is fundamental to "cultivate" a relationship with the dead for our own emotional well-being. As she so beautifully stated, "mourning is a skill" we need to learn. The argument is carried on in discussions of the public meaning of suicide in early modern Holland (Cruz), in historical Japan (Fouraker) and in the Jazz Age (Jones).

The final part of the book brings us back to excessive medicalization in the context of terminal diagnosis (Armstrong-Coster), palliative care (Taube) and hospice settings (Gill). The doctor's concern is to provide pain relief and extend life, rather than help the patient prepare for death. Sadly enough, death, when it occurs, is seen as a failure.

What can we learn from all this? This book not only makes us more aware of the emotional/spiritual needs of the dying but also brings greater clarity to an understanding of the evolution of these needs in human history. Even more profoundly, I found in all the papers an implicit quest for a renewed sense of "spirituality," which becomes fundamental during life crises. We are used to relating spirituality to religious beliefs and practices, but the message that emerges here is an appeal to make sense of death, dying and grief beyond the prescriptive...