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death by socrates
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Introduction
Death is one of the most discussed topics in the entire world. It surpasses any boundaries pertaining to subject, topic, discipline, or even religion. Quite a lot of people have made incredible quotes and written volumes of literary works pertaining to the subject. One of the most prolific philosopher, Socrates, expressed his various attitudes about death. From his works, he held three attitudes about death. He stated that death is unknown, in which case anyone who is afraid of death would be basing his fears on ignorance as he does not have any knowledge of it. In his later works, Socrates expressed the goodness of death and reasoned that it must be either going to another place or a dreamless sleep. However, he could not tell whether death was better than life. In still another literary work, Socrates opined that the soul lives even after death and offered various arguments to the effect that the virtues of the soul are rewarded. Of these three arguments, I think the first one is the most plausible. Little is known about death, in which case anyone who fears it would be basing his fears on ignorance.
First, it is worth noting that all these positions are made by the same individual. The fact that he held three positions about the same thing should confirm that there is little or no knowledge about death. This is the same case that applies to the various arguments about death. The disagreements about the various aspects are allowed to continue without much challenge since no one knows about death. In essence, all arguments about death are mere speculation with no basis on truth since there exists no way of ascertaining their truth.
Moreover, it would be extremely impossible to verify or ascertain whether there is life after death. Of course, quite a lot of literature has been written about life after death. This is especially so in religious literature that outlines that there is another life after death. Other forms of religious literature insist on reincarnation and state that an individual is born again in the same world as a human being, or another animal or plant depending on his or her actions in the previous life. However, it goes without saying that there is no way of ascertaining these claims, simply because no one has ever died or gone to the other life and returned to tell the side of the story. In any case, if human beings used to live before their present lives, how come no one seems to remember any aspects of the previous lives? Of course, clinicians have tried to support this notion using some near-death experiences of their patients where patients talk of their experience and even outline some aspects that seem to indicate that the soul continues living after the body dies. It is worth noting, however, that these are near death experiences and not death in its entirety. In essence, these experiences cannot be used as conclusive evidence of the notion that the soul will survive the body. This confirms the fact that virtually nothing is known about death in which case feelings about it are based on faith rather than facts.
Moreover, there exists an element or aspect of ambiguity as to the beginning of life and its end or even the beginning of death. While there are quite a number of definitions, there is agreement that death means that the soul has been separated from the body. In this case, it would be deduced that the soul adds life to the body. As much as it would be reasonable to assume that the mind and soul and the body are two distinct things, it, however, does not imply in any way that the soul continues living after the “conventional” death. In fact, death may, as well, mean that the soul itself has died, in which case it does not add life to the body, thereby causing what people know as death. This, therefore, raises doubts on the notion that the soul or life survives the body and that it is rewarded in the afterlife for all the virtues that it incorporates. This is simply because there is no clear way of exactly what death encompasses. In the same way, it would be impossible to confirm the goodness of death or even to state whether it is better when alive or dead. People have not been provided with sufficient empirical evidence or even facts pertaining to death as to make clear, logical and conscious deductions pertaining to death. This blurs the notion that death is better than life or even whether death is a dreamless sleep. In addition, it remains unclear whether the soul survives the body. This underlines the fact that death is unknown in all or at least most of its aspects. In essence, any emotions tied to any “knowledge” of death are baseless as there is virtually no knowledge about the same. Death may be the stepping stone to a better or worse life or eternal sleep. Either way, there exists no way of ascertaining or knowing about it other than going through it, leaving people in the circle of ignorance.
Death at a Funeral is a manifestation of racial identities typical of contemporary American cultural presentations.
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Death at a Funeral
America is at the heart of a fresh era of films with racist connotations. The films define race in a very different way as compared to early films – a far more open approach to racism. Of course, racism has dominated American films for decades. The earliest movie that made racism a subject was The Birth of a Nation in 1915 in which the roots of Ku Klux Klan was celebrated. Movies also highlighted slavery in light of the white perspective on the topic. Classic movies like Gone with the Wild paid greater attention to the manner in which brute slave labor enhanced the lives of the whites – their idealism, romance and gallantry. The civil rights movement came out strongly to strike a balance between whites and blacks by the counter-narrative – Roots – that revealed the disguised cruelty in the white charm. Divisions have intensified since these early times. Movies by white people often justify the struggles whites endure in coexisting with the blacks. Similarly, movies by black people often justify the struggles blacks endure in coexisting with the whites. The division has intensified even in movies that incorporate aspects of both blacks and whites. Jungle Fever and Do the Right Thing were a manifestation of the difficulty in reconciling black and white narratives. At one moment, the two are together as depicted in some films while at yet another moment the two are torn apart in other films. This confusion is even worse than what used to be at the beginnings. Death at a Funeral is a manifestation of racial identities typical of contemporary American cultural presentations.
Introducing the Expert
Kwame Anthony Appiah is a Ghanaian of British origin. He is a novelist, cultural theorist and philosopher. His areas of interest are philosophy of mind and language, political and moral theory, and African intellectual history. Appiah was bred in Ghana but pursued his Ph.D. at Cambridge University. He taught philosophy at the Princeton University before proceeding to the New York University early this year. Currently, Appiah is a member of New York University’s departments of law and philosophy.
Appiah’s dissertation at Cambridge University was an exploration of the challenges in semantics. He is attributed to the 1992 award winning novel In My Father’s House. His later books included The Ethics of Identity, Color Consciousness and Cosmopolitan: Ethics in a World of Strangers. He was also an editor of Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. In 1995, Appiah became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Appiah believes that racial identities are part of expressing membership to particular groups, but the same should be practiced in a manner that does not violate other people’s membership to the larger society.
Summary of Death at a Funeral
The film is all about a funeral ceremony. Aaron and Ryan’s father is being buried. The funeral is marked by comical events, which are sad at the same time. Race is at the helm of these comic events. One Frank, a white man, comes from nowhere to mess up with the burial arrangements. He claims he had an intimate relationship with the deceased and has photos to prove his point. The funeral owners, all blacks, cannot take any of that. They decide to silence Frank through a heavy dose of a hallucinogenic substance. When Frank is unconscious, they stash him in the coffin. Unfortunately, Frank regains consciousness when the funeral program is underway. He breaks away from the coffin, with the photos scattering all over the ground, raising tensions.
Appiah’s Take on Racial Identities
Appiah is the postmodern Socrates. He questions what being an African or African-American entails. However, the answers he offers raise pertinent issues that are all inclusive (that is, encompass all people). Appiah’s major concern is how people construct themselves individually in the society, privately or publicly, presently or in the past. This situation prompts him to explore the complexity of the process of personal possession. He stresses the dangers and opportunities of self-creation in a world that is culturally hybrid and ethically fluid. He formulates standards to measure the morality of people’s lives today while obliging people to examine those lifestyles and restructure them accordingly.
Death at a Funeral is racially charged. Blacks dominate the cast, and the atmosphere is one against the whites. Aaron and Ryan are determined not to cause shame and embarrassment to their deceased father. The white man – Frank –, who appears from the blues on the funeral day, is armed with loads of evidence to tarnish the deceased’s name. He encounters a combined force of black men. The demonstration of hatred starts when Frank ridicules Aaron’s novels as lacking flavor. This comment angers Aaron to the extremes until Aaron withdraws from the $30,000 deal he had made with Frank to keep him off the funeral. Aaron and his group resort to tyranny of numbers to eliminate Frank. They administer a toxic drug to Frank, which makes him run wild. As if that is not enough, the black group does the extraordinary – they fix the white enemy into a coffin. Although sounding comical, the racial setting and interpretation is quite sad. This incident is one of the gravest manifestations of racial identity. The blacks are so tired of whites that burying them alive is the best remedy.
As Appiah articulates, “…racial identification is simply harder to resist than ethnic identification. The reason is twofold. First, racial ascription is more socially salient… Secondly, race is taken by so many people to be the basis of treating people differently” (Appiah 46). So entrenched is racial identification in American society that all spheres of life, including cultural presentations, want to manifest it. Death at a Funeral is among many other films that present race as a cultural aspect of the society. According to Appiah, “There is not now and there has never been a common culture in the United States” (50). Appiah then argues that collective identities force people to behave in certain ways so that to fit within the ideals of their group: “The large collective identities that call for recognition come with notions of how a proper person of that kind behaves: it is not that there is one way that blacks should behave, but that there are proper black modes of behavior” (57).
The language in the film is laced with racial connotations. The tone is in most cases a commanding one. The word “negro” is prevalent, portraying the extreme extent of division. Frank rubbishes Aaron’s writings as worthless and with no grip at all on sensitive issues. What he means is that Aaron writes issues that do not relate to the “ideal” lives of dominant whites. Frank despises Aaron’s works, saying that he cannot spend a cent his to purchase the same. The same happens to the language of Aaron and his squad. They talk ill of Frank when he becomes unconscious. The decision they make to stash Frank into the coffin is totally against moral considerations. They rejoice at that collective action, which to them is well deserved. Appiah comments as follows, “An African-American after the Black Power movement takes the old script of self-hatred, the script in which he or she is a nigger, and works, in community with others, to construct a series of positive black life scripts. In these life scripts, being a Negro is recorded as being black: and this requires, among other things, refusing to assimilate to white norms of speech and behavior” (59). Blacks are adorned in black suits matching their color whereas whites are adorned in pale colors. The viewer notices this disparity outright.
Conclusion
Death at a Funeral, therefore, is a classic manifestation of the racially charged American society. Much has been done to fight racism from all angles, but it will certainly never end. As Appiah has articulated in his academic work, racial identity is different from other forms of identity. However, in as much as people identify themselves along racial lines, Appiah urges people to recognize contingency and practice irony. It is only better for the film industry to reconsider racial connotations of the films they release. Hollywood influences huge masses, and their presentation of race as a good thing will only polarize American society more and extend it to the world.
Works Cited
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race. New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1996. 40-60.
Cinema Blend. Death at a Funeral (2010). Cinemablend, 2010. Accessed at
HYPERLINK “http://www.cinemablend.com/reviews/Death-at-a-Funeral-2010-4581.html” http://www.cinemablend.com/reviews/Death-at-a-Funeral-2010-4581.html 8 November 2014.
Death And Funeral As It Relates To A Social Institution
Death And Funeral As It Relates To A Social Institution
From a social perspective, death translates into difficult encounter that the members of the affected social institution would like to get over soon. Loss and grieve characterize the mood of the bereaved in nearly all social institutions, a phenomenon of the advanced social life that human beings have. In a general setting, the departure of the diseased creates a somber detachment since the social bond that binds the members of a social institution is usually strongly manifested at that time. Loss of a loved one can leave a huge mark on the bereaved, especially in the family setting to such an extent that the emotional aspect of grieving is extended long after the burial. In such scenarios, assistance is necessitated by the fact that psychological breakdown can easily be experienced.
In the family setting for instance, the loss of a member can result in a serious foiled attachment consequence if the necessary psychological assistance is not accorded to the victim (Kennedy, 45). Some of the most devastating grieving experiences occasioned by the death of a family member include; loss of a child, loss of a spouse, loss of a parent and loss of a sibling. There may be other serious grieving scenarios where members of the extended family were closely attached to a member of the family such as what happens in a nuclear family. An example of a serious loss experience is when a grandparent dies when exercising the custody of his or her grandchildren, who get the shock upon the death. Te basic element of such grieving is the attachment that members of the family develop with each other over the years. In some situations, where the relations are tense and inappropriate to befit a family setting, death may not affect the bereaved.
Coping with the death of a close member of a social institution is a psychological state that only a few can handle. Psychological assistance is offered in assisting the grieving members to come to terms with the fact that the departed is finally gone and assist them continue with life without the dead. A series of stages are brought out in the grief and loss therapy where denial and anger are first dealt with. Acceptance of death and healing from the shock of the loss of a beloved one should facilitate the necessary coping that ends grieving (Moshe, 238). Episodes of bitter emotional breakdowns are expected in the sessions since grief and loss is a highly emotional therapy. Silence does not imply that every member of the family is well with the results of the loss and counseling sessions should be offered to tackle any withdrawal symptoms.
From a social conflict perspective, it is largely agreeable that several disputes arise from death of a member of a social institution. Ranging from petty burial site conflicts to complex inheritance rows, death has been recorded as a source of discord among members of a social institution. According to Maslin (8), the death of a parent can be a source of misunderstanding and conflict among siblings. In areas where a family’s rule may be seen to be under threat, the death of the parent may cause tension not only among the members of the family but also among the power searching opponents of such a political organization thereby creating a conflict (Scheele, 860). From the conflict perspective, it follows that the death of a member of a social institution creates an instability that seems almost impossible to be present while the member is alive. For instance, for inheritance wrangles among members of a family upon the death of a parent, the conflicting parties would find it inappropriate to instigate any differences in the presence of their parent. As reported by McGoldrick (441), issues arise regarding the will of the dying which can result in a preventable conflict. The author holds the opinion that if the appropriate intervention is sought before the dying leaves the uncertainty in the will at the final moments of life, then conflicts would not be prevalent.
From a symbolic interactionism approach, death is a moment that defines the relationship that one has over his or her entire life. People create relationships with both humans and objects to build their own constructs about life and they stick to their perceptions till death. At their hour of death, what was uniquely dear to them may be manifested to reveal a part of their character that others did not know. One of the main reasons why people develop such unique relationship perceptions is dependent on their social life with their social world. According to Abbuhl (1), it is clear that at death, one’s own social life may be subject of analysis to reveal how important social life is to every human being. For instance, the disclosure of love for musical instruments attested by the presence of a variety of collections for the same can be used to draw a conclusion of how the dead person lived among music lovers.
Works Cited
Abbuhl, Shannon “Extreme Isolation of Symbolic Interaction,” 2010. Web. HYPERLINK “http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~sa337397/symbolic.htm” http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~sa337397/symbolic.htm (Accessed 25 April 2011)
Kennedy, A. Your loved one lives on within you. New York, NY: Berkley Publishers, 1997. Print
Maslin, Janet “Carefree Look at Death Reveals Family Conflicts: Review.” New York Times, Issue 24 April 1992, p.8. Print
McGoldrick, Monica “Thoughts on the Importance of Wills in Family Relationships: A Clinical Approach to Elizabeth Stone.” Family Process, 47.4(2008):441-444
Moshe, Israelashvili “Staying Normal in an Abnormal Corner of the World: Mental Health Counseling in Israel,” HYPERLINK “http://search.proquest.com.ezp.pasadena.edu/docview.lateralsearchlink_1:lateralsearch/sng/pubtitle/Journal+of+Mental+Health+Counseling/$N?t:ac=198719833/12EF3B6DF0C196740A1/2&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocks” o “Click to search for more items from this journal” Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 27.3(2005):238-248
Scheele, Judith “Algerian Graveyard Stories.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 12.4(2006):859-879