Death Positivity vs. Fear of Death

‘They’re in a better place.’ ‘It was their time to go.’ ‘Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.’

These statements are fillers that Americans are taught from a young age to avoid discussing death. Although every person will inevitably experience death, at a minimum their own death, the American norm of death avoidance is perpetuated in our communities without much thought to the impact it has on those grieving. These simple, relatively superficial one-liners are embedded into our conversational vocabulary with the intention of helping the bereaved, but all of these pat statements simply further the notion that death avoidance is the proper and natural way to deal with death.

Everyone grieves differently and faces death in their own personal way, so common catch phrases cannot serve as a panacea for anyone working through the grieving process or even just contemplating death — their own or that of a loved one. The concept of a grieving period from Kubler-Ross’ work has been largely misinterpreted, with many taking away the idea that comfort is only needed immediately after death, neglecting the range of possible responses from grief as a life-long process to a complete lack of the need to grieve.

Fear of Death is American Norm

Although it may seem that Americans have always been uncomfortable with the topic of death, this attitude developed only in the last 120 years. Before the commercialization of modern medicine, overall life-spans were also much shorter, with the average person only living until age 30, less than half of today’s average (Roser). This was in part due to astonishingly high infant mortality rates.

In the 1800s and earlier, death was a prominent part of everyone’s daily life and a process that happened primarily in or near one’s home. As the United States entered the Civil War, mortality rates rose and life expectancy dropped even further as young soldiers were killed
in massive numbers. Now however, many deaths were happening far from home. Getting a dead soldier back to their family for burial required preserving the body to allow it to survive long train trips without decaying.

Death Moves Out of the Home

To achieve this, wartime morticians adopted the practice of embalming the soldiers’ bodies (“History of Embalming”). This normalized embalming for the U.S. public and the process has remained one of the most common post-death practices in the country. Where previously, families would care for and bury the deceased’s body shortly after death and most funerals were held at home, the adoption of embalming meant that families were unable to perform burial preparations themselves.

Home funerals were replaced by funeral parlors or funeral homes. Trained professionals now embalmed and prepared the body for a
viewing. Bodies could now be made to appear beautiful, almost alive, moving the reality of death even further away from focus.

As death and funerals moved out of the home, so did the discussion of death and dying. Becoming more and more taboo as a topic of public conversation, death and dying moved into academia. Scholars who took an interest in death and dying created the field of study known as
Thanatology (Fonseca). Death Education, the study of death, dying, and bereavement, became increasingly popular among Thanatologists and scholars such as Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and Ken Doka developed theoretical frameworks of grief (Hymovitz).

Death Positivity is Growing

Other academics took an anthropological approach, such as Ernest Becker’s investigation of death avoidance in his book, The Denial of Death. Scholars including Heflick, Heidegger, and Diggory and Rothman started to explore the reasons why Americans experience death avoidance and denial, creating the infamous Terror Management Theory (Castano).

Today, the field has progressed to the point that there is an annual Thanatology conference; interested people can access significant resources in the form of publications, seminars and classes; and for those so inclined, there are Thanatology certification programs. One school, Marian University, even offers a Master’s degree program in Thanatology. With the emergence of Thanatology as an accepted academic field, the popularity of the Death with Dignity movement skyrocketed.

What is Death with Dignity?

The Death with Dignity movement promotes the belief that everyone should be allowed to choose how and where they die. The movement also emphasizes the importance of wills and trusts as tools to ensure the proper treatment of one’s body and property after death. A related
development is the rise of the Death Positivity Movement. Though death avoidance and denial are heavily integrated into American life, the Death Positivity Movement fosters a narrative surrounding death and dying that is open, inclusive, and tolerant of all perspectives.

An organization called The Order of the Good Death has sprung up, promoting the value of having conversations surrounding death, rather than celebrating death per se (“Welcome to the Order”). The Order of the Good Death conducts online and in-person meetings known as Death Salons or Death Cafes, first held in 2013. The field of Thanatology and the momentum of the Death Positivity Movement and the Death with Dignity movement continue to grow.

Acceptance of Death is Healthy

As a member of the Thanatology community, I often face backlash explaining my passion to others. Although I know I am combating widely held norms of death denial, I feel my actions in rebelling against death narrative norms promotes a healthier view on life.

I am often confronted with awkward reactions from people asking what I study and why I chose to study death care. When I tell people, many of them shut down and the conversation ends. In contrast though, I have also had people divulge their story of grief and ask for advice, as though my course of study gives me individualized answers for everyone’s loss.

What I will say about my learnings in Thanatology is that everyone grieves differently, every loss can be grieved, and grief does not pertain only to death itself. Just as grief is ongoing, losses are as well. Dealing with each new loss may require completely different tactics, but with a death embracing outlook, working through loss feels much more attainable. I hope that one day everyone will subscribe to a more neutral view of death and dying as it has helped me and those around me be more comfortable with accepting death as a normal, and even healthy, part of our lives.

Works Cited

Parts of this blog were taken directly from research conducted at the University of Southern
California by Symon Braun Freck, 2019.
“Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Healthier Mothers and Babies.” Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1999,
www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4838a2.htm.
Castano, Emanuele, et al. “Ideology, Fear of Death, and Death Anxiety.” Political Psychology,
vol. 32, no. 4, 2011, pp. 601–621. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41262882.
“Death Salon.” Death Salon, deathsalon.org/.
Fonseca, Luciana Mascarenhas, and Ines Testoni. “The Emergence of Thanatology and Current
Practice in Death Education.” OMEGA – Journal of Death and Dying, vol. 64, no. 2,
Mar. 2012, pp. 157–169, doi:10.2190/OM.64.2.d.
“History of Embalming.” National Museum of Funeral History | Beneath the Surface: Funeral
History Museum Explains Embalming, www.nmfh.org/exhibits/permanent-exhibits
/history-of-embalming.
Hymovitz, Leon. “Creative Teaching Strategies in Death Education — Thanatology.” American
Secondary Education, vol. 8, no. 1, 1978, pp. 7–18. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/41063199.
Roser, Max. “Life Expectancy.” Our World in Data, 23 May 2013,
ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy.
“Welcome to the Order. Welcome to Your Mortality” The Order of the Good Death, 27 Sept.
2019, www.orderofthegooddeath.com/.

Learn more about Symon at her website: Video Editor | Symonbraunfreck

Read more from Symon on Open to Hope: https://www.opentohope.com/cemeteries-as-cultural-landmarks/