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> Are there interesting differences in how cultures
engage/avoid engagement with death? ... (I)t seems to me that to
have consciousness is inevitably to have an uneasy, more or less
ritualized relationship with death. <<br>
<br>
Although this universal inevitability is a fact, there
nevertheless are cultural differences. Even near death experiences
do vary in different cultures. And personally I find it hard to
deny that modern science-orientated culture has more problems to
handle that "uneasy relationship" than most traditional cultures
have bzw. had. When you look at a guy like Ray Kurzweil and his
slightly childish effort to defy death by swallowing hundreds of
food supply pills every day, this becomes obvious. There is, in my
opinion, a loss of dignity in our modern non-acceptance of death.
You may differ on that.<br>
<br>
A good ethnological study here is <i>Dancing on the Grave</i> by
Nigel Barley:Â Â <br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://library.alibris.com/Dancing-on-the-Grave-Encounters-with-Death-Nigel-Barley/book/1463958?qcond=6&qsort=c&matches=2">http://library.alibris.com/Dancing-on-the-Grave-Encounters-with-Death-Nigel-Barley/book/1463958?qcond=6&qsort=c&matches=2</a><br>
<br>
<small><span class="bea-portal-theme-alibrisMain"><span
class="bea-portal-theme-alibrisInvisible">> Seeking to
merge the information of theologians and anthropologists,
this book looks at the variety of ways in which cultures
around the world deal with death and give it meaning. In
some cultures, most famously Ancient Egypt, families would
virtually financially ruin themselves in order to deal with
the death of just one person. Other cultures such as the
nomadic peoples of southern Africa, simply pull down the
roof of their dwelling onto the body and move on, while the
wrapped bodies in Torajan (Indonesian) houses are used as
shelves. The reader is guided through such diverse areas as
myths about death, belief about ways to mourn, joking at
funerals, post-mortem videos, cannibalism, headhunting and
royal mortuary ritual. <</span></span><br>
</small><br>
<br>
On 03.02.2015 17:12, Monte Davis wrote:<br>
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<blockquote
cite="mid:CAK8E3SFmEQ8JVk5Fi0XN2ZYFrXjAC=aKs_K=rt8Z4essdtvONA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Yes, I see
significant influence of Norman O. Brown on GR (with
accompanying seasoning of Freud, Jung at al). Yes, Pynchon
returns to how cultures engage with death as recently as
Xiomara's account of Xibalba and how Windust fit into it (BE
442-444). Yes, as a Pynchon reader all that engages me, and
we'll be spending a lot of time soon on questions such as "Is
Rebekah haunting Mason or vice versa?".</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Beyond the
books, though... Are there interesting differences in how
cultures engage/avoid engagement with death? Sure: people who
routinely hunt game, slaughter livestock, and see lots of
their infants, children, and mothers in labor die -- and see
ALL their old people die at home -- are bound to be
interestingly different from us with our shrink-wrapped
protein, vaccinations, and ICUs. But nearly every argument
I've seen that "Germany / Europe / America / the West /
modernity is uniquely oriented to / in denial of death" is
built on a foundation of bogus ethnology/anthropology (one of
Freud's specialties, BTW) and grinds some variation of the
same axe: that simple, natural, Edenic tribe X -- or more
often, unspecified "primitive peoples" -- had the True Mellow
Understanding which we've lost.</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">That's where
I bail out. From the earliest Neanderthal burials we know of,
through abundant observations of apes, elephants, whales,
etc., to Facebook posts about dogs sleeping at gravestones, it
seems to me that to have consciousness is inevitably to have
an uneasy, more or less ritualized relationship with death. <br>
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<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 10:20 AM, Mark
Kohut <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:mark.kohut@gmail.com" target="_blank">mark.kohut@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Of course,
we can all squirmingly argue a long ways down this<br>
deathslide...(or is it up the sloping tower?)...But, don't
we<br>
generally think Pynchon, at least, from Brown and others, is
trying to<br>
focus on which societies, nations, cultures,<br>
etc. embody more of the 'death instinct' than others?....<br>
<br>
Do we believe THAT is a viable question? No matter our own
personal<br>
immersion in The Question?<br>
<br>
Are there not, have there ever been---yes, echoes<br>
intentional---societies which could not formulate, no one
or, none but<br>
the bleeding edgers, the concept of a death instinct. Which
did not<br>
even think about it???................<br>
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5"><br>
<br>
<br>
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 10:01 AM, Monte Davis <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:montedavis49@gmail.com">montedavis49@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
> This. I've never been able to subscribe
wholeheartedly to lucubrations on a<br>
> death instinct, or to anyone's (even Pynchon's)
case that any one society or<br>
> culture has a specially fraught relation to death.
Seems to me that for<br>
> sound evo-psych reasons, ALL of us spend nearly ALL
the time looking away<br>
> from the obvious and inevitable... and then --
d'oh! -- find that there's<br>
> something numinous and fascinating about it.<br>
><br>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 9:42 AM, rich <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:richard.romeo@gmail.com">richard.romeo@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> fwiw<br>
>><br>
>> if you're alive, you're already a member of a
death-orientated system. out<br>
>> plots are all charted and we know what they
tending towards. cant escape it<br>
>> man<br>
>><br>
>> rich<br>
>><br>
>> On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 9:22 AM, Mark Kohut <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:mark.kohut@gmail.com">mark.kohut@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
>>><br>
>>> Now there is Bonk, almost a truncated,
acronymically compressed<br>
>>> rendering of Brock Vond, the Voc Bigfoot.<br>
>>><br>
>>> Seems the sexual repressions and attempted
expressions in these<br>
>>> current chapters which Laura has
articulated might be one place to<br>
>>> look for such.<br>
>>><br>
>>> On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 7:55 AM, Mark Wright
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:washoepete@gmail.com">washoepete@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
>>> > Bigfoot and his Bananas point to GR
along multiple vectors: banana<br>
>>> > breakfasts; phallic forms of rockets
and of, well, phallii black,<br>
>>> > white, and<br>
>>> > of Official Commendation. In PTA's
film of IV one catches a whiff also<br>
>>> > of<br>
>>> > Brigadier Pudding the coprophage. (No
wonder there are crippling<br>
>>> > therapy<br>
>>> > bills!) This is Pynchonian vengeance
upon and warning to those who most<br>
>>> > eagerly made themselves into the human
tools of Death Oriented Systems<br>
>>> > (DOSs).<br>
>>> ><br>
>>> > Where will this theme bob to the
surface in Mason & Dixon?<br>
>>> -<br>
>>> Pynchon-l / <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l"
target="_blank">http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l</a><br>
>><br>
>><br>
><br>
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