Morbid Musings
Sometimes I think about the most random things and have some really weird questions as a result. Last night was one such occasion. I don't remember how it happened, but Joshua and I started talking about morticians. Oh - I just remembered how it happened, but that doesn't matter now. Anyway, I think a mortician is one of those careers that you can't imagine anyone actually wanting. Coroners are a different category - there is something medically sterile enough about that for it to make sense to me. Morticians? Doesn't make sense. Who wants to spend their time dressing, styling, and make-upping the dead? I just don't get it. So I think that morticians have to be one of three things:
1) Very disturbed people who are interested in corpses out of some neuroses;
2) Caught in the family business; or
3) People with very rich philosophies/theologies of death.
Your job is to tell me which of these three things you think makes up the majority of morticians.
Editors note: In the interest of full disclosure, I want to say that I am very uncomfortable with dead bodies. I am existentially disturbed to the core of my being when I'm in the room with a dead body. I cannot make any sense of it and it's very philosophically troubling to me. I guess that's why I can't understand why a person becomes a mortician.
11 comments:
Maybe also because it pays really really well? I hvae a friend who really did want to become a mortician, but said she couldn't because most of the business are family run and owned and it's hard to get into. She became a beautician instead, because it required a lot of the same schooling. I guess she's just NOT at all disturbed by dead bodies. She's a little weird, but not "very disturbed" or into corpses and death and stuff. But I agree, it is a weird profession to choose.
I actually think it's number two more than anything. I would think #1 would be more applicable for people who do autopsies, and podiatrists. I'll give #3 to any of a wide variety of extinct, indigenous peoples.
The answer is definitely number 2. However, the real question is why did the person in the family who started the "family business" become a mortician?
I would guess it goes back to the day when there were no morticians. Then when someone died, a community argument developed over who would take care of the body. Finally, reluctantly, a townsman by the name of Mort Tician (fictitious) said, "I'll do it!"
From that day on, whenever someone passed away, the people would say, "Mort knows how to do that kind of stuff." But by this time, he started charging for it, and supply and demand rules, so since he was the only one willing to do it, he charged a ton of money. (Therefore Redhurt's answer gets addressed regarding people getting paid a lot.)
From that day on, he made tons of money and named his business Mortician's Death Service. Finally another family saw how much money could be made, and they decided to venture into the capitalist society and undercut Mort, just a little bit to make their fair share...... and on and on to this day.
It's really interesting that you posted this, Mair.
First, have you seen Six Feet Under? Great show, accurate or inaccurate.
Second, I wrote a paper for the Ritual Studies class I told you about, where I discussed the ritual role of the viewing. There are many interesting theories about the integrity of the "death care industry", but that was not the focus of the paper. I took for granted the practice of the viewing despite those who accuse American funeral homes of socially constructing a notion that the viewing is necessary for grief therapy. I discussed the ironic juxtaposion of life and death whenever a mortician embalms and beautifies a corpse to pask the evidence of death, and I tried to interpret the meaning of that ritual.
Fascinating ritual, I think, no matter how one gets into the business, and no matter what might be the origins.
I'm interested to see what my professor thought of it...
Mair and I get into arguments about this on a fairly regular basis, but at the time of my death, I want to have a beautiful service, etc., but I do not want to be beautified in any way. I want to be viewed as an ugly corpse in simple clothes with coins on his eyes. Take that manicured America.
To answer the question, though, it is definitely #2 followed closely by #1.
I'm not sure either. The human psyche is so complex, I don't think it's possible to decide all this from their choice. I think we have to know something about their experience and personality. Maybe they don't love the whole "making up the dead" thing but think it's an important service to help people overcome the grief in their lives and provide closure.
Personally? I want to be cremated. "You are dust and to dust you shall return," says the liturgy. I see no point in making my family pay for $10000 casket and a cement vault in which my casket will be interred. My body won't even return to the earth in any real sense, and I think it's important to come full circle like that. Yeah, it's not sophisticated as theologies of death go, but it works for me.
Oh, and you wanna learn some interesting stuff? Read the Wikipedia article on interment.
I'm not sure either. The human psyche is so complex, I don't think it's possible to decide all this from their choice. I think we have to know something about their experience and personality. Maybe they don't love the whole "making up the dead" thing but think it's an important service to help people overcome the grief in their lives and provide closure.
Personally? I want to be cremated. "You are dust and to dust you shall return," says the liturgy. I see no point in making my family pay for $10000 casket and a cement vault in which my casket will be interred. My body won't even return to the earth in any real sense, and I think it's important to come full circle like that. Yeah, it's not sophisticated as theologies of death go, but it works for me.
Oh, and you wanna learn some interesting stuff? Read the Wikipedia article on interment.
I'm not sure either. The human psyche is so complex, I don't think it's possible to decide all this from their choice. I think we have to know something about their experience and personality. Maybe they don't love the whole "making up the dead" thing but think it's an important service to help people overcome the grief in their lives and provide closure.
Personally? I want to be cremated. "You are dust and to dust you shall return," says the liturgy. I see no point in making my family pay for $10000 casket and a cement vault in which my casket will be interred. My body won't even return to the earth in any real sense, and I think it's important to come full circle like that. Yeah, it's not sophisticated as theologies of death go, but it works for me.
Oh, and you wanna learn some interesting stuff? Read the Wikipedia article on interment.
Ay! Sorry about the double-post. It won't let me delete one of them.
Wow! Thank you all for your replies. I was at a Christmas party Saturday night, talking to a woman we work with and we got on this topic in a very interesting way. Anyway, she said she knew a girl who wanted to be a cosmotologist and couldn't get into the school she wanted, so she went to being a cosmotologist to the dead. She said it was because it is so comforting to families to see their loved one looking nice on last time. So, for her it was a way to help families grieve. I guess that is noble.
Lolly - I remember Fran the Mortician. He was a little bit odd.
EAP - I never knew you wanted to be cremated. I see where you're coming from and that makes sense to me, I guess.
Well, this is a very morbid discussion, so maybe I'll have some time this week to post something a little more in the holiday spirit!
Here's an interesting comment on cremation- the prof I had for Intro to Philosophy made the comment that for a lot of people the debate over mind/body dichotomy had changed into the belief that the mind and body are connected and can't be separated (mind causes physiological changes, body causes psychological changes), and for the most part what I've read seems to support this. His point then was- in heaven there must be some part of the body that remains or else we are fundamentally different people than we are now. There is no more such thing as a "brain in a vat" since in the act of removing the body you remove a significant portion of the person's person-hood. I think I could probably explain this a bit better, but I think assuming this comment train is already done, so I'll leave it at that.
I'm assuming J. Morgan will have something most interesting to say about this.
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