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Debate Score:10
Arguments:8
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 Respect for the Dead (8)

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Respect for the Dead

Why do audiences tend to get uncomfortable when someone makes a joke at the expense of the recently dead, even if people end up laughing? It seems instinctive to experience a moment of aversion when it comes to insulting someone who has just died, even though most people would say the dead person is beyond being angered or injured by it, one way or another. This happens even in situations when a relative of the deceased is not around to be hurt by insults, either.

Why is it that most cultures demand unecessary* respect for a body that no longer has a soul (or never had one, if one doesn't believe in them)? Why does the mistreatment of dead bodies, either deliberate or just negligent, make so many of us feel sick? Did it come about with the development of afterlife beliefs, or is it older than that?

* = By this I mean a custom that isn't observed for sanitation or for the sake of family members who are present. For example, I think a lot of people would feel weird seeing autopsies performed with music blaring in the background and the coroners disparaging the dead people or being rough with the bodies. 

 

 

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2 points

I would hope for my body to be reused appropriately. Buried or burned just seems... wasteful.

The dead are a valuable resource, and to just dispose of bodies (be it in sacrements or just routine elimination) is waste, to me.

Bodies should be harvested for every source they have. Be it for food, medicine, transplants, research, etc.

Of course, this then brings the question: can we correct this issue with government interference? Surely it would be an injustice if government forced loved ones to give up their deceased family members, but is it more of an injustice to allow people to waste such a valuabel resource?

In the end, it comes down to how much you trust government in that issue.

But in general, i don't believe in "respect" in general, so respecting the dead just seems like a waste of good jokes... and other shit.

Edit: I notice how I'm off topic for the most part.

But I don't believe that it's necessary to respect anyone, including the dead.

As long as the jokes are good, why not make them? Sure, don't do it to people who won't laugh... well, go ahead, it's up to you. I just see jokes as being funny... if no one's laughing, you suck at jokes. It doesn't matter if it's because they're offended; if you can't choose your audience properly, maybe you shouldn't be telling jokes. Comedy is about making people feel good. It's a sort of positive movement. Bitter comedians tend to not be funny (look up Bill Hicks... he can be funny, but with his bitterness he just sticks to insults and bullshit and goes nowhere; or Andrew Dice Clay; or Patton Oswalt, who's usually funny, but whenever he gets "bitter", he's no longer saying anything witty or creative... he just gets bitter against people of different political beliefs).

I think when comedians get offended that the majority of their audience got offended is just a major character flaw... nothing more.

But go ahead, tell jokes about the dead... just be funny.

Side: Valuable Resources
1 point

I could care less about dead bodies and what's done to them so long as they are disposed of before disease begins to spread, nor do I care if the deceased are the butt of a joke.

I think though that most people in general and cross-culturally tend to still, despite their religion or because of their religion, even if their logical brain rejects the idea of it-

I think people tend to still see the dead they knew as alive; and empathize with a stranger, as in I don't know them but I could have, so feeling some aversion even if they didn't know the person.

I think this reaction only manifests differently cultrurally and between individuals, but for those who do feel a certain decorum is necessary, I think that could be the heart of it.

It is the majority by far who feel this way. Which is weirdest thing of all of it when you consider it at any length.

Side: Valuable Resources
1 point

Did you ever feel different and did you have to rationalize your way out of it? I can understand the extraneous nature of a lot of reverence reserved for dead people, and it seems especially weird when compared to the fact people don't often give the same respect to the living. But I still have that initial reaction of discomfort when seeing or hearing about the dead being 'mistreated' which is what made me wonder if it ran deeper than a social response. I guess in part it might share some roots with the visceral disgust at seeing someone playing with excrement?

Side: Valuable Resources
2 points

Did you ever feel different and did you have to rationalize your way out of it?

Of course. When I was a child I was taught how horrible disrespecting the dead in anyway was. I remember thinking clearly and with passion after a documentary about the Donner Party for instance that I'd rather starve to death than to have participated in cannibalism. I mean, I was like 6 or 7 and quite stupid, but that was my thinking.

I did not have to rationalize to come to a change in my views though in the way you mean I think. It is more like I realized the underlying reason for my aversion was not out of any logic, but from simply and only what I'd been told. Like a person who is afraid of insects then becomes an entomologist and isn't afraid. But instead of the emotion of fear, replace that with the emotion of reverence or respect.

Time and thought seemed to have brought me to the very opposite conclusion... or video games maybe :p Today quite the opposite, not eating those dead people would have been a terrible tragedy.

But I still have that initial reaction of discomfort when seeing or hearing about the dead being 'mistreated' which is what made me wonder if it ran deeper than a social response. I guess in part it might share some roots with the visceral disgust at seeing someone playing with excrement?

That makes sense.

Perhaps there is some biological based reaction to treat dead a certain way, maybe due to disease or something it started as just an instinct to stay away, but social behavior over time turned it into respect. Disrespect triggers some biological evolved survival mechanism that originally was just fear of disease... or death itself, as if death were contagious.

More likely it's just the idea that you are going to die someday, considering how those no longer here, dead, are treated is a less direct way of thinking about death. Sometimes it's like a back door. When you say "death" we all to some degree have self-protection mechanisms that deflect true direct thought on our own death, but speaking or acting indirectly on death, especially with disresepect, is a "back door" to that inner thought process where you are the subject of death and you are no longer deflecting it with whichever mechanisms are in place.

Either is fairly common I'd imagine, even healthy probably.

That's my psche 101 completely pulled out of my ass theory on the matter ;)

Side: Valuable Resources

After someone is dead, that's it; they're dead. They can't feel anything, they can't think, they have no emotion. They decompose (if buried) or fuck off somewhere into the horizon (if cremated). I honestly don't think they have the ability to give a shit what you do to them or say about them after they are dead.

Side: Valuable Resources
1 point

Okay, but that's not really what I'm asking. Whether or not you believe in an afterlife, it should be plain that many people are reluctant to mistreat the dead or their memory, and I wondered what other people might think about why that is.

Side: Valuable Resources

I'm actually not gonna lie, I kind of just skimmed over the debate and added my argument. It's quite hot here and I feel pretty terrible so I'll add an argument of value sometime in the future ;)

Side: Valuable Resources

I don't believe there is much respect for the dead, because there is verily any respect for the living.

I was always told that you don't go to a funeral for the one that died, but you go to give support to the ones that had the loss. This is why jokes about the recently departed are just in bad taste.

Side: Valuable Resources