Death… It's A Living

The thought of death is generally not a happy one. As I’ve written before, and will likely write again throughout this site, living things have evolved to avoid death and to fear death-related stimuli and situations. Because humans are unique in their ability to plan for and (somewhat) predict the future, we evolutionarily at risk for getting stuck, always looking over our shoulders, waiting for the reaper, unable to be effective in our lives. We needed to develop a solution so that the thought of one’s unpreventable death might only lead to discomfort and not constant, crippling fear.

Terror Management Theory asserts that fear of death is sublimated to build self-esteem and perform meaningful actions. Thus, humanity’s solution to this problem enables most of us to become inured to thoughts of death and all sorts of negative stimuli, when we view our lives—and therefore our deaths—as having meaning.

I thought of this today as I toured Predjama Castle in western Slovenia (about 30 minutes from Trieste, Italy). The castle was somehow even more stereotypically medieval than a LEGO set as well as nearly as fantastic as something from Game of Thrones. It is built into—and above—two caves, giving it an earthy and unworldly feel.

Windsor Castle this is not. There was no evidence of creature comforts or royal pampering. Rather, the architects and denizens clearly (and only) sought to maintain a remote fortress to keep one’s enemies at bay. In this context, the suits of armor within reveal themselves to be useful implements of war rather than merely decorative. The armory tells silent stories of death. I learned that the morning star flail was so called because soldiers on horseback would have used it to bludgeon the skulls of any victims of a previous night’s battle unlucky enough not to have been killed instantly. It would have been the last star they would ever see.

But most of all, I was stuck by the curation of the castle, which displayed what would have been a dungeon-like area for punishment roughly 15 feet from where the children of the castle would have lived and played. Your childhood may have been different, but I was not reared in a home with a built-in torture chamber. Generations would have not only known about death before they could speak but also would have seen and heard it, perhaps frequently, as children. They may have been shocked; they may have said to themselves “I’ll be a more just lord when I am grown”. But it is more likely that they would have just shrugged it off, in the same way millions of children shrug off media violence today.*

Thus, exposure to a medieval death would have been common and unremarkable. And the cycle of violence in which the children would have been reared likely continued for generations. Only hundreds of years later, after the enlightenment, liberalism, and the formation of centralized governments would quality of life improve enough to provide the luxury of not having to be so close to death. In turn, death retreated from view. Once quotidian, death is mysterious and hidden. And we fear what we cannot see.

Death and Belief

Also near the torture chamber in Predjama Castle was the chapel. This find, however, was less surprising. Where many of us might not think of torture as “Christian” or a dungeon as a godly place, a Terror Management Theorist would disagree. In fact, the torture of our enemies would have been demanded by the beliefs of the castle’s residents. Although it is ironic that the fear of death would nevertheless increase the likelihood of death, the logic is relatively simple: The thought of death as the end of human consciousness is terrifying, so we tell ourselves that a) this world is not all there is, that there is an afterlife; b) what we do on earth while we are here matters; or c) both (i.e., what we do on earth matters because certain behaviors will increase or decrease the likelihood of a particular version of the afterlife).

If all people on the planet shared the same beliefs regarding the possibilities of life after death and how to achieve one, then there would be no problem. But, of course, we don’t. And when one person meets another who holds a different set of beliefs, a problem is created. And to be clear, the problem is not the external conflict of two people arguing, it is the internal conflict created by the existence of a different set of beliefs.

Think about it: The fact that different people can believe different things about something that cannot be empirically evaluated unconsciously emphasizes our lack of assuredness. But, you tell yourself, I can’t be wrong. I know the true way to heaven is through (insert your belief system here). If I was wrong, and the other person was right, then that would make my whole life meaningless. But that can’t be right because I have value. I have meaning. Therefore, I’m right, and they’re wrong.

Many psychological studies have shown time and time again that when people are primed to think about their own mortality, they seek to further establish their own beliefs and enhance their own sense of meaning. In other words, the thought of death causes us to become even more of ourselves.

This is a problem for harmony. Because the easiest way to become more like ourselves is to better distinguish what it means to be someone like us from someone not like us. If this sounds like racism, you are on the right track. It’s really about every sort of intolerance toward people who are different. We could talk about our differences in a peaceful manner, but that doesn’t avoid the distressing inner conflict. The only way to me to assure myself that my beliefs are correct is to eliminate anyone who might think otherwise. All wars are about differing beliefs, but holy wars in particular. So while it might seem frightening to see a chapel so close to a dungeon, it makes sense. Our god demands that we educate, eliminate, enslave, and eradicate the unbelievers. The ones who differ from us. Those people will likely fight back, and many of us might die in this battle. But we’ll die having fought for our beliefs, and we’ll be rewarded for those actions in the next life.

I’m not writing this as a call to atheism (which is itself a belief system, just one without a church) or to present myself as someone asking you to imagine there’s no heaven (it isn’t hard to do) because there’d be nothing to kill or die for. The man who originally wrote those words certainly had not found the inner peace that song might fool a listener into thinking. In fact, John Lennon was a bit of a prick, especially while recording Imagine in the early 1970s as he attempted to downplay the Beatles, attack anything and everything McCartney tried, and drank himself into stupors meant to hide his childhood (and adulthood) abandonment issues.

I have my own issues. I’m not on my own lost weekend, but people who differ from me with regard to my core beliefs still rankle me, if I let them. To give a quick example, I think it is incredibly important to be a humble traveler. I don’t go to foreign countries with the attitude that America is best and demand that others accept it. I travel to learn and have novel experiences. That’s important to me. Not everyone is like that. I try to avoid other American tourists while abroad, but it can be difficult. In a gelateria in Rome, I watched as a customer grew increasingly frustrated, not because she didn’t speak Italian (at least I assume she could not because she never attempted a single word), but because her server didn’t speak English. There was no “I’m sorry, my Italian is poor” or “Thank you so much, I appreciate your help”; instead, there was a lot of heaving sighing.

I don’t know anything about this woman, but at the time, I knew I didn’t like her. In fact, writing this has only reaffirmed my dislike of her. Maybe I just don’t like her because she’s a jerk. But what is a jerk other than someone who acts in a way you disapprove of?

Why is this woman like this? Why is she different from me? As a developmentalist, my default answer is threefold: She has different genes, she had a different upbringing, and her genes and environment interact in ways that are different from the ways mine do. None of this is her fault (or mine). We’re different, that’s all. Where we are the same is that we are both individual exemplars of a single species that evolved to fear death and cope with that fear by building meaning. We are fated to disagree, maybe even fated to dislike.

As I shifted more and more uncomfortably in my chair, I thought about saying something to the woman about maybe remembering we were in Rome and how no one says, “When in Rome, do as Karen from St. Louis”. She was ruining what up until that point was the best pistachio gelato I had ever had. Fortunately, my wife—who knows how to read my body language—was with me. She reminded me that while this woman and I might be fated to dislike, I still have a small bit of free will. Specifically, she said, “You are able to keep your mouth shut.”

And I did. Maybe more of us should.

-The Plague Doctor

*As someone who has taught courses on violence and children, I am compelled to mention that although we are all capable of becoming desensitized to violence, that does not mean it does not affect us. People habitually underestimate the powerful indirect effects of their environments while drastically overestimating the direct instruction of their caregivers. In other words, “Do as I say, and not as I do” is not effective parenting. However, this is also why parents shouldn’t sweat the details: A safe, loving home will have a far bigger impact on development than the specific activities in which the family engages.