BEHS380 End of Life Issues and Definition of Grief Midterm Examination Instructions attached below: Answer the following question in well-developed par

BEHS380 End of Life Issues and Definition of Grief Midterm Examination Instructions attached below:

Answer the following question in well-developed paragraphs.

A.Define what is meant by a death system.Then identify and explain some of the elements and functions of a death system.

2 paragraphs(single-space)

B.Provide a detailed definition of grief, bereavement and mourning; explain how they are similar, unrelated, or different.Give examples of each, including your thoughts.

2 paragraphs(single-space)

C.Discuss how the “meaning of death” varies across the life span briefly. Comment on whether the meaning of death discussion in the text seems realistic given your current age and personal experiences related to death.

3 paragraphs(single-space) Midterm Examination
End of Life Issues: BEHS 380
It is the policy that acceptable college level writing is to be considered in grading students’
written work. Take care to express your thoughts in logical, well-organized form.
No credit will be given to short answers consisting of two or three sentences.
Answer the following question in well-developed paragraphs.
A.
Define what is meant by a death system. Then identify and explain some of the elements
and functions of a death system.
2 paragraphs(single-space)
B.
Provide a detailed definition of grief, bereavement and mourning; explain how they are
similar, unrelated, or different. Give examples of each, including your thoughts.
2 paragraphs(single-space)
C.
Discuss how the “meaning of death” varies across the life span briefly. Comment on
whether the meaning of death discussion in the text seems realistic given your current age
and personal experiences related to death.
3 paragraphs(single-space)
Handbook of Death & Dying
The Universal Fear of Death and the Cultural
Response
Contributors: CALVIN CONZELUS MOORE & JOHN B. WILLIAMSON
Book Title: Handbook of Death & Dying
Chapter Title: “The Universal Fear of Death and the Cultural Response”
Pub. Date: 2003
Access Date: March 18, 2019
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc.
City: Thousand Oaks
Print ISBN: 9780761925149
Online ISBN: 9781412914291
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412914291.n1
Print pages: 3-13
© 2003 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online
version will vary from the pagination of the print book.
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© 2003 by Sage Publications, Inc.
SAGE Reference
The Universal Fear of Death and the Cultural Response
Is the fear of death universal? Anthropologist Ernest Becker (1973) seems to think so, arguing that “the idea of
death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is the mainspring of human activity—activity
designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny
for man” (p. ix). There is much about death to fear: Whether by accident, disease, or intentional infliction by
another human, the path to death for all but a few fortunate humans is accompanied by pain. Death can also
be a lonely and isolating experience (Feder 1976). Humans are social beings, and it is our interactions with
other humans that complete our existence and give our lives meaning. Death is thus separation from everything that gives our life form; it is the loss of everything that we hold dear (Hinton 1967). The loss of a loved
one to death is often one of the most emotionally painful experiences that a human can have (Gordon 2000).
Even when the death is not that of a loved one, simply being a witness to death can evoke a natural horror
and revulsion (Malinowski 1948). Furthermore, because of its seeming finality, death presents one of the most
formidable challenges to the idea that human life has meaning and purpose. Given these facts, it should be
no surprise that fear has been one of the most commonly expressed responses of humans to death.
Because the idea of death evokes a number of fears, researchers have suggested that the fear of death is
actually a multidimensional concept. Hoelter and Hoelter (1978) distinguish eight dimensions of the death
fear: fear of the dying process, fear of premature death, fear for significant others, phobic fear of death, fear
of being destroyed, fear of the body after death, fear of the unknown, and fear of the dead. Similarly, Florian
and Mikulincer (1993) suggest three components of the death fear: intrapersonal components related to the
impact of death on the mind and the body, which include fears of loss of fulfillment of personal goals and fear
of the body’s annihilation; an interpersonal component that is related to the effect of death on interpersonal
relationships; and a transpersonal component that concerns fears about the transcendental self, composed
of fears about the hereafter and punishment after death. Because of the complexity of death fears, some authors suggest using the termdeath anxiety to describe the amorphous set of feelings that thinking about death
can arouse (Schultz 1979).
Because of the complexity of death fears, scholars have debated whether such fears are natural or whether
they are social constructs. The most common view that runs through the history of thought on death is that the
fear of death is innate, that all of life tends to avoid death, and that the underlying terror of death is what drives most of the human endeavor. The anthropological, philosophical, and psychoanalytic perspectives offer
evidence and rationales that the fear of death is a natural response, given all the attempts of biological organisms to preserve life. Throughout human history, fear has been the universal response to death. In 1889,
the cultural anthropologist Edward B. Tylor stated, “All life fears death, even brutes which do not know death”
(p. 433). Aristotle (1941) said that “plainly the things we fear are terrible things” and referred to death as “the
most terrible of things” (p. 978). According to the anthropologist Ernest Becker (1973), of the various factors
that influence behavior, one of the most important is the terror of death. The most common view, then, is that
fear is one of the most natural reactions to encounters with death (Charmaz 1980).
On the other hand, some sociologists argue that the fear of death is not necessarily innate; rather, it is a
learned reaction (Schultz 1979). Vernon (1970) states that the fear of death is the result of an individual’s
learning experiences, and not an internal phenomenon. Charmaz (1980) notes that social and cultural conditions may give rise to the fear of death. The industrialism and individualism of modern society, for example,
may create the fear of death: “The rise of individuality with the illusion of selfsufficiency fosters an emergence
of the fear of death. In societies that foster individuality, fear of death logically follows” (p. 14). In traditional
and rural cultures, on the other hand, the fear of death is not as strong. Such arguments seem to suggest,
however, that if the cultural response in a given society is not to fear death, individuals within that culture do
not respond to death with fear. This is a premise that requires empirical validation. Perhaps the most useful
conception of the fear of death may be that it is a variable subject to manipulation by social context. A sociPage 2 of 16
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ety’s culture may offer explanations of death that either repress or encourage fears about death according to
the needs of the society.
In this chapter, we explore cultural responses to the fear of death. The fact that humans are symbolic beings
allows us to construct symbolic systems that preserve the meaning and significance of life in the face of death.
An examination of various cultures throughout history suggests that an underlying fear of death has always
been a major organizing force in human society. Because the social construction of meaning is a fundamental
element of culture, an examination of the universal fear of death and cultural responses to that fear offers us
an opportunity to survey the vast human experience with death, from the earliest beginnings of society to the
present. In that regard, we examine here the major theoretical contributions to our understanding of the fear
of death and its relation to human culture, from anthropological studies of preliterate societies to the religious,
philosophical, and psychoanalytic systems of more advanced societies.
Every culture has generated a system of thought that incorporates the reality and inevitability of death in a
manner that preserves the social cohesion of that culture in the face of the potentially socially disintegrating aspects of death. Early human societies developed religious systems, including ancestor worship, that
bridged the divide between the dead and the living and portrayed death not as an end, but as a transition to
another world that is still very much connected to the earthly one. The Greeks used reason and philosophy to
deal with the fear of death. Early Jews incorporated a variety of practices into their religious beliefs surrounding cleanliness and purity to stave off unwanted death. Christians of the Middle Ages gave themselves over to
the reality of death by associating the death of the body with the freeing of the spirit to spend eternal life with
God. Religious systems of the Eastern world evolved ideas of continual rebirth and the attainment of freedom
from the cycle of rebirth through enlightenment or nirvana. In each case, the symbolic system accords death
a place in society that offers meaning to the individual and prevents the society from lapsing into complete
nihilism in the face of death.
Early and Preliterate Human Responses to the Fear of
Death
Perhaps the most basic human response to death is flight from it. Herzog (1983) describes several groups
of preliterate peoples in Malaysia and North India who had burial practices but simply fled, never to return
to the place where one of their members died. He attributes this behavior to the sheer horror that accompanies the inexplicable change from living to dead as witnessed by tribal members. Another group of preliterate
Malays, however, fled to abandon the dying, but later returned to see whether the person had died; if death
had occurred, they buried the deceased with leaves. Afterward, they would desert the place, returning only
years later. Herzog views this practice as an important stage in the psychological development of humans,
the stage at which humans first confronted death. Only by confronting death could humans gradually begin to
integrate the concept of death into their understanding of the natural scheme of existence.
Early humans did not always flee from death; at some point, they were actually confronted with the dead.
Once confronted, the dead produced a mixture of emotions in the living, ranging from horror at the sight of
a corpse to a combination of fear and feelings of loss for the departed (Malinowski 1948). The deaths of
members of a society were thus traumatic and potentially disintegrating experiences for the group. The development of practices surrounding disposal of the corpse served to reintegrate the community by allowing
members to assert some manner of control over the society’s relationship with death and the dead (Malinowski 1948). Cultural practices regarding disposal of the corpse thus became important in all human societies.
These practices were subject to an infinite degree of variation, but in all cases they served a similar underlying
purpose: bringing what was once an incomprehensible horror within the realm of an ordered understanding
of the role of death in the human experience.
Early humans understood death to be a gateway to an afterlife. The belief that humans live on after death is
almost universal (Frazer 1966). According to Malinowski (1948), preliterate humans were actually incapable
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of imagining death as the annihilation of being. This can be attributed to the fact that humans are symbolic
beings; although human bodies are confined to a series of single moments in time and space, the human
mind is able to traverse many temporal and spatial dimensions simultaneously. Humans are able to imagine,
reflect, and dream. Tylor (1889) notes that animism, the most preliterate form of religion, originated in primitive explanations of dreams, visions, apparitions, and other products of the imagination. Similarly, Durkheim
(1915:66) says that humans’ belief in the spirit world originated in early humans’ attribution of equal reality
to the waking world and the world of sleep and dreams. Because humans, through these mental processes,
could form images of persons who had died, they could use these images and the effects that memories of
the dead continued to have on the living to reason in the most elementary fashion that humans live on after
death.
The prevailing attitude of early human societies toward the dead, with some exceptions, was fear. Frazer
(1966) notes:
While it would be foolish and vain to deny that [the savage] often mourns sincerely the death of his
relations and friends, he commonly thinks that their spirits undergo after death a great change, which
affects their character and temper on the whole for the worse, rendering them touchy, irritable, irascible, prone to take offence on the slightest pretext and to visit their displeasure on the survivors by
inflicting on them troubles of many sorts, including accidents of all kinds, drought, famine, sickness,
pestilence and death. (Pp. 10–11)
Evidence of this fear has been found in most preliterate societies. This is to be expected. For many millennia,
life on the whole for humans has been brutal and short, yet the natural tendency of preliterate groups was to
view life and health as natural, whereas sickness and death required supervening causes that required explanations (Malinowski 1948). The obvious culprits were either disgruntled dead relatives or higher-order beings
who took a special interest in human affairs.
Because of fear of the dead, gods and ancestors became the objects of attempts at either appeasement or
control by the living. These two goals, says Malinowski (1948), branched off in two directions: religion and
magic. Religion is essentially the attempt to appease, whereas behind magic is the desire to control. Religion
sustained fears of the gods and focused on efforts to supplicate them; magic purported to transfer power to
the hands of the magician, giving that individual a degree of control over forces that affected human lives.
In one sense, magic was intensely psychological, as it involved convincing participants of the power of its
wielder. Magic also involved experimentation, however, and some of that experimentation eventually laid the
foundation for more formal scientific experimentation (Malinowski 1948). In the anthropological distinctions
between religion and magic, then, we can see the foundation for humanity’s ongoing efforts to overcome the
fear of death through the opposing tactics of belief and control.
Religion and the Fear of Death
Cultural practices surrounding death combined with ideas about what happens after death to form the basis
of religion, which is one of the cornerstones of all civilizations. Malinowski (1948) asserts that religion “is as
instinctual a response as the fear of death which underlies it” (p. 29). He states, “Of all sources of religion, the
supreme and final crisis of life—death—is of greatest importance” (p. 29). Durkheim’s (1915) simple definition
of religion is “the belief in spiritual beings” (p. 44). According to Durkheim, the purpose of religion is to regulate humans’ relations with these beings through “prayers, sacrifices, propitiatory rites, etc.” (p. 44). Religion
sets up a fundamental distinction between the sacred and the profane. It establishes a priesthood that acts
as guardian of the sacred and serves as interlocutor between the physical and spiritual worlds (Berger 1969).
Religion orders human behavior by setting up a series of taboos and prescriptions surrounding sacred objects
and rites (Durkheim 1963). It thus forms one of the most elemental institutions of social order. It represents
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the human attempt to unite social organization with cosmic organization—to order human society, the spirit
world, and the cosmic and animal world in which humans are immersed into a comprehensible reality.
Cults of the dead, mythical heroes, ancestor worship, and totemism are all forms of religion that embody a
combination of social organization of the living with attempts to influence relations with the dead and that act
as the gateway to a desired type of immortality. In this manner, religion addresses two of the most basic fears
of humans: fear of the dead and fear of what will happen to us after we die.
Religion thus forms one of the basic elements of authority of humans over other humans (Weber 1956). The
fundamental problem of society is the preservation of social order. Humans quickly realized that disorder ultimately leads, through chaos, to death. Order and organization represent a flight from death. Religion, which
capitalizes on the innate fear of death, is one of the most efficient methods of achieving what Durkheim calls
“mechanical solidarity,” which is social order premised on the understanding that all societal members follow
the same behavioral norms.
Underlying religion is power, and the foundation of all power is that of life over death. As Lifton (1979) notes,
the final meaning of religion is “life-power and power over death” (pp. 20–21). Persons in positions of authority, whether priests, warriors, or kings, assume their power by controlling who will live and who will die,
by playing upon the fear of members of society that to disobey authority means not only death, but also the
possibility of an unpleasant afterlife. Rulers cannot rule by force alone. The combination of rule by force and
rule through religious authority has been one of the most effective means of assuring the obedience of a population. Many monarchies share this characteristic (Sypnowich 1991).
Every society remains continually under threat of revolution and disintegration from below by its youth, because of the power of the sex drive (Freud 1936). Each generation must therefore be forever diligent in the
transmission of rules of behavior to the succeeding generation. The collective superego uses both the fear
of death and fear of the dead to enforce the rules and preserve social order. Societies have different levels
of success in generating symbolic systems that are powerful enough to maintain allegiance over time. Wars,
migration, and trade, as well as constant reflection by later generations on the previous generations’ experiences, often lead to transformations of symbolic systems. The most enduring systems are therefore those
that are best able to adapt their symbolic systems to the present set of human conditions.
Killing, Sacrifice, and the Fear of Death
Even though humans instinctively fear death, they also willfully participate in death through killing. Shapiro
(1989) suggests that killing by early humans may have been a response to the fear of death. Killing is seen
to enhance life, to make it eternal. Killing energizes the killer. Killing allows the killer to confront death immediately and intentionally, and with that confrontation comes a sense of power. By killing, humans master the
fear of death, showing death that they are not afraid to face it, and even bring it into being. For early humans,
death was a nameless and formless horror; participation in the act of killing allowed them to identify themselves with death, to give shape and form to death, and, in so doing, to begin to understand it. The power
behind death thus becomes recognizable.
Killing evokes a complex set of psychological responses in humans. Killing was problematic for early humans.
Even when they killed animals, they performed ceremonies as magic practices to “cancel out the event of
death” and thus allay its horror (Herzog 1983). Herzog (1983) describes the practice of murdering the elderly
and diseased group members in many preliterate societies; the variety of methods used included suffocation,
strangulation, burying alive, feeding to wild animals, and abandonment. It was shameful in some cultures for
adult children t…
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