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Culture and Society
According to Zion and Kozleski (2005), culture refers to “The system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of society use to interact with their world and with one another” (p. 3). With regard to the given understanding of culture, a person’s environment provides the essential cementing in the creation and adoption of principles in life. In other words, every human being has ideologies that navigate him or her in life and eventually, said person’s comprehension of death. The aforementioned ideologies are the outcomes of societal interactions where the norms are what people consider acceptable. Therefore, regardless of any personal traits with which a child is born, culture molds the traits to fit in with the society and anything outside that is considered abnormal if not unlawful. Consequently, the understanding of life and death revolves around the societal depiction of the terms and experiences one has to expect in the same. The understanding of how life is and how a person’s death has to be is determined by the societal norms that surround said person.
In the twenty first century, the diversification of cultures is evident since the world embraces the internet as a method of interaction. For instance, with social media sites, relationships are possible across continents. However, the interaction of people within a given society is not only determined by the internet. In other words, cultural diversification takes place whenever people meet with a common purpose. Cohen’s “cultural syndrome” (2009, p. 194) concurs with the perception that assorted relations within the societal setting influences the type of culture a person chooses to adopt. For instance, through religion, belief in a divine being influences a person’s choice of character and understanding of life (Cohen 2009, p. 195). At the same time, the “Socioeconomic status and social class” (Cohen 2009, p. 197) in which a person lies is a great determinant of the culture that said person can adopt. Consequently, the acceptability of specific cultures by the public can hinder or encourage practices associated by the same. Therefore, whilst life forces people from different lifestyles to interact, some tend to find some similarities in their traditions while some contrasts are inevitable. A good example is in the case of the understanding of death where most religions preach of a heavenly afterlife. Thus, with such factors in mind, religion brings a similarity in culture among people despite the possibility of a different background.
The Evidence of Life and the Occurrence of Death
In the cases of life and death, a person understands the concepts with the help of personal experiences and ideas communicated by the society. A being is alive when they breathe and oxygen is supplied to their bodily organs. However, the understanding of life and death varies from one culture to another. It can also be argued that with age, a person’s perception of death and life changes. The changes come because of personal experiences and ideas one adopts from peers and other sources of the information. For instance, among children, “death involves the recognition that the dead cannot come back” (Slaughter and Griffiths 2007, p. 526). Nevertheless, while a child gets older, a “mature concept of death” (Slaughter and Griffiths 2007, p. 531) is adopted as they gain more information on the concept of death. Haraldsson (2006) presents research findings in which people are found to believe that there is still life after death (p. 172). It is clear that the understanding of life and death has uniformity in some cultures and some differences in others. At this point, it is safe to argue that age allows a better integration into culture for a person depending on their choice location to live (Cohen 2009, p. 198). If an individual decides to seclude his family, the children in that house grow up knowing the idealist traditions at the household level. However, a family that has neighbors with whom it interacts will have a diversified culture that is influenced by said neighbors and the rest of the society.
As stated before, religion plays a big role in the understanding of what happens at death. Religion teaches that death occurs when the soul leaves the body and in Biology, one’s heart stops pumping oxygenated blood through the blood vessels. Schools provide a culture to which students belong. Therefore, the biological or scientific understanding of death that develops from a learning institution concurs with the one originating from religious beliefs. Said concurrence is the belief that a person’s life essence is the soul, once it leaves the body organs shut down, and a person dies. The soul is like the body’s battery. On death, where a person ends up upon their demise depends on their deeds on earth (Haraldsson 2006, p. 177). The same way parents teach their children to be good lest they be punished, religious leaders teach their followers to be holy lest they displease God. For example, Christianity dictates that upon death, a person’s soul will go to heaven or hell depending on their deeds on earth. In other words, it is a belief that if a person follows the doctrines taught by the Bible, he or she goes to heaven. It is important to note that, life after death is a concept that “every religion supports” (Haraldsson 2006, p. 177). Therefore, it is evident that religion plays an important role in the understanding of death before which religious teachings govern the lives of believers and the society.
Death marks the end of a person’s life. When it happens, there is no reverse button to press or a second chance for the dead person to communicate with the living. As religion attempts to explain what happens after a person dies, there is no guarantee that present accounts of what happens are legit. Religion offers an explanation to the unknown and reassures those left behind on the fate of their loved ones. The hardest part of death is the coping of the people left behind by the dead. Peacock (2014) writes of possible assisted suicides and cases in which people opt to make suicide pacts with their spouses (The real reasons why death is still so hard to talk about with your loved ones). Peacock’s findings are believable in the sense that the idea of a person dying might terrify those to which he or she is close. Terror comes in the knowledge of never seeing the dying individual again. For example, an old couple might choose to make a suicide pact to die together (Peacock 2014). Either way, death is hard to accept to those left living and can be hard to those aware of the fact that they are dying. For instance, cancer patients know they are dying when chemotherapy does not work. In such a case, death is hard and frightens the patient. Death is hard because there is the fear of the unknown, as nobody knows what will happen after and the people left behind have to cope to a life without the dead individual.
Understanding a Social death
The understanding of life keeps evolving and now, people believe that a person can be breathing yet be dead as the soul is unsatisfied. For instance, when a person fails to live his or her life as per their standards, they are ‘dead’ though still ‘alive’ to the human eye. In “Death: A Cross-Cultural Perspective” Palgi and Abramovitch (1984) suggest “a social death preceding the biological death” (p. 404). When people are aware of their impending deaths, they tend to withdraw from their families and the society. A good instance is in the case of terminally ill patients who opt to exclude themselves from family activities as a way of coping with their impending deaths. Therefore, the state of relationships one has with other people determines whether a person is socially alive or dead. Currently, the internet plays a big role in the socialization of all its users. Through the social media sites and addiction to the internet, adolescents and even adults depend solely on the interactions they make via the internet. Consequently, it is hard to determine whether a person is socially dead or not because people do not need to meet physically for a relationship to exist. Maybe the inability to connect with other people on a personal level counts as a social death and the over dependency on the internet sites is the main cause of said deaths.
Life expectancy
Life, Death and Culture
Cultures play an important role in the understanding of life and death. Consequently, the views people have with regard to their lives and their expectances upon death. The hard thing with culture finds basis in the different traditions that exist. People can experience cultural shocks when introduced to a culture that is different from their own. Therefore, the hardest thing in dealing with culture finds basis in the existence of multiple traditions and societies from which one has to choose. The understanding of life and death connects all societies effectively.
References
National Institute of Aging, 2006. The Future of Human Life Expectancy: Have We Reached the Ceiling or is the Sky the Limit?. Research Highlights in the Demography and Economics of Aging, Volume 8, pp. 1-4.
Cohen, A. B., 2009. Many Forms of Culture. American Psychologist, 64(3), pp. 194-204.
Haraldsson, E., 2006. Popular Psychology, Belief in Life after Death and Reincarnation in the Nordic Countires, Western and Eastern Europe. Nordic Psychology, 58(2), pp. 171-180.
Peacock, L., 2014. The real reasons why death is still so hard to talk about with your loved ones. The Telegraph , 13 May.
Palgi, P., and Abramovitch, H., 1984. Death: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 13, pp. 385-417.
Zion, S., and Kozleski, E., 2005. Understanding Culture. On Point Series, October, pp. 1-20.
Slaughter, V., and Griffiths, M., 2007. Death Understanding and Fear of Death in Young Children. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry , 12(4), pp. 525-535.
