ON THE EXTRAORDINARY BANALITY OF DEATH

EXISTENTIAL AMENDMENTS TO SOCIOLOGICAL FALLACIES

THEORY VS. DEATH

Living well is proving nothing.

MORE STORY, LESS THANATOLOGY

We have lost the sense of failure in regard to what we see as our obligation to die, together with the sense of an eventual victory over death.

BLAME IT ON THE ACADEMIA?

BLAME IT ON THE MEDICAL SCIENCE?

BLAME IT ON SOCIETY?

WHAT IF IT’S US?

Who expects what?

THANATOLOGY: A CHRONIC

DISCIPLINARY INSUFFICIENCY

The Academia

“HANDY” SCIENCE?

Death has become “just” a social challenge among others.

over-theorized or under-theorized

IS THERE AN ESSENTIAL APPROACH

OF DEATH?

IS THERE DEATH BEYOND THE

INSTITUTIONS IN WHICH WE MOSTLY

DIE?

SOCIALLY CORRECT DEATH

CORRECTLY SOLVED DEATH

“THE GOOD” DEATH

-eco-friendly-medically correct

-psychologically acceptable-administratively predictable

-financially affordable-culturally explainable

DEATH IS SOCIAL/SOCIOLOGICAL, OR NOT AT ALL

THE CHALLENGE

Imagination: What is going to happen the minute I die?

Comprehension: Can I really grasp death?

SAVOIR MOURIR FOR PERSONAL USE

INSTRUMENTALIZING…

Practicalization of a deeply existential matter inherently promotes an abstinence

from meaning.

THE SACRED SPARKLE

SACRED AND FEARED

THE FEAR

“His eyes were not from this world”

Whatever fails to be identified as a known sociological or social problem, must be a feared (and therefore rejected) ontological concern.

SOLUTIONS + MEANINGS

…justifying and promoting the need for immortality

DEATH IN THE SPIRIT AND THE

LETTER OF MEDICINE

Medical Science

MEDICINE GAINS SOCIAL CONSENSUS

Medicine has safely and irreversibly become the religion of the majority because it holds the whole picture of modern worries together.

ECOSYSTEMIC HEALTH

DESIDERATUM OF HEALTH,

DESIDERATUM OF HOLINESS

A GIFT OF “GRACE”

The “vocation” of being healthy

THE “BOOK OF BOOKS”

The corpus of medical science

THE THEORETICAL UNIVERSE OF MEDICINE IS INFINITE AND

THANATOCENTRIC

THE HOPE FOR SALVATION IN THE

BODY

Finitude = an avoidable medical failure

Medical practice becomes the victim of the gap between its concrete tasks and its prophetic discourse.

THE MEDICO-LEGAL ROUTINE

The medical construction of death

AN “ITCHY” LACK OF ESCHATOLOGY

Successfully dissimulating…

THE MEDICAL HORIZONS ARE INEVITABLY CLOSED

The aftermath of a medical failure is a “sacred counterargument” for immortality.

The problem of the quest for (a positive) meaning of death will never go out of fashion.

BLAME IT ON SOCIETY?

THE “TOTAL” VERDICTS

„saved”-„unsaved” „moral”-„immoral”

“good”-”bad”

COMMITMENT IS RARE

… symbolical and practical constraints on the possible interpretations of commitment in general

SAVOIR VIVRE PRECEPTS?

Privatization of religion, free spirituality, relativism, individualism

etc.

THE POWER OF CHOICE

We are what we choose, or not at all.

The paradox in a society built on the priceless value of freedom of choice is that such value has no real value.

The arbitrary character of our social, cultural and existential decisions

VERSUS Death (the least arbitrary matter of

them all)

It is relative, non-exemplary, apparently un-sharable, and therefore problematic.

“SOCIAL ATHETICS”

OPTIONS THAT NEVER BECOME

SOLEMN CONVICTIONS

Once the choice has become insignificant, it becomes nothing but the most convincing expression of our cognitive and emotional inability of taking our occupations upon ourselves.

DEATH, AN ABSURD CROSS TO BEAR

The individual will suffer most from the consequences that he controls the least; that is, from the consequences of those options that concern him most intimately.

HAVE WE EVEN TRIED TO

PRESERVE THE ART OF DYING?

THE NORM

The difficulty of placing the other one’s savoir mourir in your very own, intimate universe of significances.

“Biographical solutions to systemic contradictions” (Z. Bauman)

…Genuinely looking for a sense for their biography.

A COHERENT SELF-NARRATIVE

death

…THE “BARE HANDS” OF OUR LITTLE FAMILY

BONDS

“Mommy, what exactly happens when you die?”

“OUR LITTLE TRUTH”

A (generalize-able) solution for legitimating a particular savoir mourir, for administrating the loneliness, and for edification of hope for a reunited family.

THE “FREE-STYLE” STORIES

largely justificative, elaborated, complex and “epicisized”

THE “OBLIGATIONS” OF THE STORY

TELLER

• To recapitulate on their own all the basic existential questions

• To critically revisit the largely accepted narratives

• To affectively, intuitively, committedly and practically (but not necessarily rationally) decide on a discourse that can be held true.

All testimonies on death cannot be denied or contradicted and, quite often, cannot be forgotten.

“ONTOLOGICAL” AGENDA

A DISJUNCTION

All personal death stories are inherently normative and always in the process of mainstreaming.

Death “resists” a random and excessive scattering of its meanings.

A SIDE-NOTE