Comments on: If I Could Just Be Serious For A Moment…

By: Phil Saunders

Phil Saunders — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 12:37:40 +0000

I guess to an extent you could also apply the same logic to my Funeral Home employee example… the thing in the back of the van is just ‘work’ rather than ‘a human being’.

Which, really, is just a variation on my original point!

But I think with soldiers there are deliberate attempts to de-humanise the enemy. It’s easier to take potshots at an idea (i.e. they’re ‘the enemy’ and therefore ‘evil’) rather than a living individual with thoughts, family and the capacity for pain.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 07:29:30 +0000

Does that rule solely apply to soldiers?

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:00:20 +0000

Can I advance the opinion that a soldier’s warped sense of humour comes much less from their familiarity with death, and more from the state-sponsored, de-humanising brain washing that makes them think of the enemy not as human beings but as ‘Towelheads’, ‘Argies’, ‘Jerry’, ‘Frogs’, ‘Cheeseheads’ etc. etc.

Wow, that was a long sentence.

By: Simon

Simon — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 22:08:15 +0000

People deal with death in different ways. Some of us tragically affected by it choose humour, and this can often be misunderstood as ‘wrong’ in some way. I remember in Australia Ciara and I, who had both lost our fathers in deeply tragic circumstances, used gross humour as a coping mechanism all the time. But every time we’d joke about “Smoking each others dads ashes” people would understandibly cringe or look shocked.

The fact is death scares most people, and the death of those close to us deprives us of an emotional bond and reminds us of our own mortality.

As for the Funeral Home employees, humour is a necessity to cope with that much death around you. Thats usually why soldiers have a warped sense of humour.

By: Phil Saunders

Phil Saunders — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:44:10 +0000

I think we’re making the exact same point… I was taken aback by the juxtaposition and thought it worth commenting on.

By: Knowledge is power

Knowledge is power — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:04:47 +0000

“I wonder if there’s anywhere else in the world where you can see two such radically different attitudes to death within twenty feet of each other?”

Sorry Phil, I may have missed the point completely with this story, as I usually tune out when you start babling on, but surely these are totally unrelated!

As you said, one is a personal and emotional grieving process, the other is someones job.

The undertakers deal with death, day in, day out. They don’t need to get emotionally involved with that days ‘goods’ (for want of a better word) They dont make jokes about the ’stiffs’ or make them touch themselves in funny ways. They have to do a professional job on behalf of people who have lost someone.

We don’t know what sort of ritual or grieving is expressed by those who use the funeral parlour. They too may go to the burial site or even the crash site there daily, weekly or yearly, depending on the relationship and the strength of that person.

What we have here is a case where the son died yards from both the family home and the family business. If it was elsewhere, she may do a similar pilgrimage to where her son fell.

The last paragraph of the different attitudes misses the whole concept. One is a business, the other is family - Sounds like the mafia! But I don’t see the need for you to question the radically different attitudes.
Thats like presenting a picture of a homeless man begging outside Canary Wharf, the two polar opposites. Some people grief at death, otehrs dance.

I just dont get this story at all!