The Taboo on Death
The first time I came across the concept known as the American Death Taboo was in my bioarchaeology class as an undergrad. I can’t remember what article I first read it in, but it stuck with me. So much so that it is what inspired me to start A History of Death.
As I’ve started my journey with this blog and its associated social media channels, I’ve noticed that more bloggers and channels dedicated to certain aspects of death, like funeral homes and hospices, are also speaking out against the death taboo.
However, I also noticed that there is a lot of content centered around death and dying. There are Death Cafes all across the world, and in the United States, both in-person and online. The portrayal of death in the media is almost constant.
So that begs the question, is there a social taboo on death in the United States?
The Death Taboo
Let’s start by answering the question, What is the death taboo?
The ‘death denial’ thesis is pretty straightforward, it’s in the name. It is this notion that ‘modern Western’ society avoids accepting and discussing death. Much of the death denial literature focuses specifically on the United States, as ‘America does death differently.’
One of the reasons why when I first came across the American Death Taboo was because I had experienced it first-hand, in multiple scenarios. When I was younger, I had an uncle who died unexpectedly at only 20 years old. And although we decorated his grave every holiday and in the summers on his birthday, my family never really talked about his death, even 30 years later.
When my mom died from bone cancer in 2016, when I was 21, my family was very much in denial. Although I could see that my mother was dying, they couldn’t accept it. It has been almost 10 years since my mother’s death, and they still don’t talk about it.
During my undergrad, I worked for a mortuary in my hometown as a funeral assistant. It was obvious to see why many families were resistant to talking about death. But even in my personal life, this taboo lingered. My family, who are normally quite nosy in my goings-on, stopped asking me about how my work was going. This was also true when I told them I was studying human remains in an archaeological context (bioarchaeology), they stopped asking me about my studies.
I had always had an unspoken understanding of death, which I credit to a childhood spent in the cemetery where my uncle, and now mom, are buried. So why was it seen as so taboo?
Why a ‘Denial of Death’?
One researcher states that death is the ‘ultimate failure of rationality’ (Bauman 1992, as quoted in Mellor and Shiling p412), that “the human inability to reconcile the ‘transcending power of time-bending mind and the transience of its time-bound fleshy casing’.” (Bauman 1992, as quoted in Mellor and Shiling p412) In other words, humans are capable of thinking beyond their present time, to either the past or the future, while the body is constrained to the present.
Some researchers argue that the denial of death acts as a sort of defense mechanism. Dumont and Foss argue “that social systems must both accept and deny death. They must accept it if their members are to retain grasp on reality while they construct their daily lives, yet must deny it in order to allow their members to go about their business with any sense of commitment.” (Dumont and Foss as quoted in Mellor and Shiling p411)
In other words, in order for a society to function smoothly, it has to have an ounce of denial in order for its people to go on with their lives. This makes sense in the sense that one can become easily fixated on one’s own death, leading to an existential spiral.
But why does this taboo seem so strong in the United States?
Death in America
In order to understand the denial of death in America, we must take a trip through time.
In Early Colonial America, “the culturally proper place for death, it should be noted, was in the home with loved ones” (p299). The death of the individual had an impact on the overall community. Where there are only hundreds or so individuals living in one community, each with their own role to play in that society, losing one individual creates a gap in that society.
Death was ever-present during this time; families could expect to lose around three children, and there was little medical intervention. Naturally, the mortuary treatments and funerary rituals were performed by the community. Deathcare was considered ‘domestic care,’ which included the dressing and laying out of the body, the construction of the coffin, the digging of the grave, the placement of the body into the coffin and subsequent grave, and of course, the filling of the grave. Death was ever-present in the day-to-day.
But this would all change.
Death in America: The Civil War
With the American Civil War came what has been termed by some as the ‘dying of death,’ or the beautification of death. Due to mass casualties dying far from home, corpses had to be transported hundreds of miles in order to be returned home to families. This led to an increase in embalming and funerary goods. Due to the high demand, coffins, which had previously been constructed by cabinet makers or undertakers, were now mass-produced for the first time in American history. This mass production is one of the reasons we transitioned from the coffin to the casket.
Now that they didn’t have to worry themselves with the construction of caskets, undertakers could focus on the embalming and preserving of the corpse. The position became ‘professionalized’ in 1882 with the founding of the National Funeral Directors’ Association. French Historian Phillipe Aries points out that the concern of preservation was a “peculiarly American aberration.” (Aries as quoted in Jackson, p304). Because of the war, “the dead had become precious. The attention to burial receptacle and to the body constituted assurance that the deceased, properly reposed in an aesthetically pleasing setting, almost lifelike in appearance, would not really die for a long time to come.” (Jackson, 304)
Caskets also offered a softening and beautification of death. Coffins used to have a more anthropomorphic (human-like) shape, with a widening at the shoulders and a tapering at the feet. Caskets, on the other hand, are rectangles, their shape vague and offering no indication that there is a body concealed within.
Not only did mortuary treatment and funerary hardware undergo a beautification, but so too did the words around death. Coffins became caskets. Graveyards were more frequently referred to as cemeteries. The undertaker was now the funeral director.
With the professionalization and beautification, death is being removed from the home. Except in more rural locations, the mortuary practices and funerary rituals are being removed from the domestic sphere. This is when, at least in America, we begin to see a change in perceptions around death.
Death in America: The Roaring ’20s
Aubrey Incorvaia, who has a background in Social Work and Public Policy, cites the 1920s as the era in which the separation between the living truly began in the United States. She credits this time as it was after the First World War and the Spanish Flu Epidemic.
It was also the time of the ‘so-called revolution of manners and morals’ which accompanied the 1920s. Jackson discusses the idea of ‘fun-mortality- as postulated by Nathan Leites and Martha Wolfenstein, or the duty to enjoy oneself, which would prove that one is psychologically well adjusted, while not doing anything “which would diminish the enjoyment of others” (p309).
In addition to a change in how bodies were handled, cemetery management also changed, ’Perpetual care’ burial meant that loved ones were no longer responsible for tending grave sites; burial plots were increasingly depersonalized” (Incorvaia, p1234) In other words, graves were left in the ‘perpetual care’ of the cemetery, removing the responsibility of upkeep from the family.
Death In America: The 20th Century
By the end of the 19th century, the dead were almost fully separated from the land of the living. Jackson argues the forces behind this separation were urbanization, medicalization, and bureaucratic specialization.
Urbanization
With larger populations in a condensed area, there could be multiple individuals fulfilling social roles in the community. When an individual died, there was no longer a social gap to fill, with the exception of family roles. In addition, the city environment made it difficult to host the dead within the home.
Bureaucratization and Medicalization
As we will see, these two notions go hand-in-hand and are complicit in the perceived death taboo.
Medicalization of death refers to the medical advancements that allow for the prolonging of life through medical intervention. Jackson argues that the medicalization of death in the United States got its start during the ‘therapeutic revolution’ of the 1930s, but really took off after 1950. Now, “the hospital replaced the home as the normal setting for death” (p306).
The taboo exists within the hospital setting as well, “in one sense the hospital has a monopoly on death: as soon as illness seems serious enough an individual, already redefined as a ‘patient,’ is sent to hospital, where this person is treated in much the same way as a person recovering from serious surgery” (Mellor and Shiling p418). It was the 20th-century mindset, and in many hospitals still is, to withhold from the dying patient that they are, in fact, dying.
I have spent alot of my personal time in hospitals and have discussed this with nurses and doctors, many of whom have told me they withhold this information and do not undergo formal training to handle these conversations. Jackson argues the possibility that the medicalization of death also reflects an “unwillingness of Americans in this century to involve themselves in the occurrences of dying and death.” This was a result of the Bureaucratization I mentioned.
Bureaucratization of death primarily refers to the bureaucratic processes aimed at death, such as the sequestering of the ill and dying in hospitals and hospices. “Direct exposure to death and the dead was thereby minimized for many – one of several ways in which Americans came to lose contact with death this century” (p305). The segregation of the ill and dying leads to a social death; an individual’s decline is behind closed doors rather than the center of the home. “The dying make death real, startlingly present, so people tend to cut themselves off from the dying emotionally and spatially, locating them in hospitals away from everyday life”( Mellor and Shiling p417). We also begin to see a shift in the demographic of the dying. When once there was an increase in the death of the young, there came a shift to an increase in the elderly, as medical intervention has enabled humans to live longer than previously.
But What of the Taboo?
What is a ‘taboo’?
There are many academics and researchers who have critiqued the death denial thesis, some going so far as to question its existence. Many draw upon the definition of the word ‘taboo.’ There is actually no single definition for ‘taboo,’ Meriam-Webster offers four such definitions. While a quick Yahoo! search offers, “ a social or religious custom of forbidding discussion of a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.” Which I personally find to be a much better definition.
If we take Yahoo! definition literally and apply it to death in America, is death taboo?
There is no custom forbidding discussion around death and dying, nor are funerals and mortuary treatments forbidden. The actual act of death is physically impossible to forbid.
So, is there a taboo on death? Or perhaps, a social avoidance towards death?
Death in America: The 21st Century
Incorvaia cites the ‘nuclear age’ as instigating death awareness, drawing on the publicized Vietnam War, the AIDS epidemic, climate change in the Anthropocene, and the COVID pandemic.
The academic discipline of thanatology came about in the 1960s. Thanos – meaning death and -ology meaning the study of. Following this we begin to see some of the most influential works of literature being published around the topic of death. These include but are not limited to Kate Mitford’s American Way of Death and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s On Death & Dying. Incorvaia cites Kubler-Ross work as being “the beginning of the Death Awareness Movement in the United States” (p1235) and the catalyst for the current death positivity movement.
In the 1970s, the discussion around death reentered the public sphere. Dr. Cicely Saunders initiated a movement in England to specialize care for the dying. Focusing on “comfort and mitigation of suffering” (p1235). This would be implemented by the U.S. by 1974 and would become the model for hospice care.
The 1970s became transfixed with the “right to die” movement. In 1972, a series of hearings were initiated by the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, with the main objective of these hearings to investigate the “right to die,” or the right to refuse medical intervention or services which may be life-sustaining. 1973, a Death with Dignity resolution was passed by the American Medical Association (AMA). Under this resolution, the terminally ill, or their family, could “sign a statement requesting that they be allowed to die and not be sustained by artificial means” (p1236). According to Samuel, as cited by Incorvaia, this resolution was highly significant as it was “the first time doctors had directly confronted the moral and legal consequences of artificially prolonged life” (p1236). (2)
In the 21st century, there has been a rise in what has been termed as the ‘Positive Death Movement.’ Under this movement, “the dying should be cared for in special venues that target individualized care or be supported at home” (p1239). Even in her 1969 On Death & Dying, Kubler-Ross, according to Incorvaia, states that the dying would rather do so at home than a medical institution.
Some “identify the movement as filling a cultural void in society that shifted away from religiously based understandings and practices concerning death” (p1240). As American society largely became more secular, Funeral rituals became…well less ritualistic. The new Death Positive movement works to fill that cultural and religious gap.
In addition to a focus on the fair treatment of the dying, there has also been a shift in focus on how human remains are handled, such as more green burial options, water cremation, and human composting. Embalming, to many, is seen as unnecessary and costly. Cremation, while cheaper, carries a heavy environmental impact.
Death is also returning to the community through Death Cafes, “a free, unscripted gathering for people to ask questions and talk about death” (Klein, p1). Death Cafes got their start in the UK in 2011 when Jon Underwood initiated the first Death Café. Since then, over 78 countries host Death Cafes, which can be found all across the United States. Like many things, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Death Cafes moved into the virtual sphere. I myself host a month Death Café on Tik-Tok Live.
So with all this discussion on death since the 1960s, is their a social taboo on death in America?
Death Avoidance in America
When I first came across the Death Taboo in that bioarchaeology class, I was instantly a proponent of that thesis. I believed wholeheartedly that a taboo existed, I even had proof from my life experiences.
But the more that I learned and researched, heck even just doing research for this article, I began to question that thesis myself. America’s acceptance and understanding of death has changed drastically since it was first colonized. And unfortunately, there isn’t much available research on the perceptions of black slaves or immigrants to identify whether these perceptions align with all those who reside in America.
I do think there for a time, between the Civil War and the 1960s, death had left the community sphere, and a social taboo had settled itself around talk of death in pleasant company.
But with the amount of research in death studies that has occurred over the last eighty years, coupled with the rise in Death Cafes and social media, I believe that taboo has been lifted.
And rather, an avoidance has been left in its place.
We are confronted by death daily through the media, including pop culture and news outlets. Social media is rife with users talking about death; there are other death historians, hospice nurses, and funeral directors who also share the goal of educating others on death.
The conversation around death is strong and present.
However, there are still many individuals who do not want to discuss, or even think about, death. They avoid it. There is no social custom that forbids it, they simply aren’t comfortable being a part of the discussion.
So, while I do think we have a long way to fully open the discussion on death, I think we have pushed past the taboo and are simply in an avoidant state.
