", at least in advanced capitalist nations such as the UK and the US, where the processes of secularisation have recently been distinctly uneven, we don’t quite know how to behave in places that, in Erin-Marie Legacey’s phrase, make space for the dead. I can remember provoking a similar morally outraged reaction when, a decade ago, I took my small children to the local cemetery for a picnic"
I... what?
Atheist, raised by atheist parents in France, being respectful in a cemetery is not about religious education. It is about empathy and not being an asshole.
People who go there are most likely mourning. That's the last place where it is appropriate to bring kids playing.
And that author, talking about "advanced capitalist nations" like UK was one and France was stuck, like he seems to be, in the 19th century...
A lot of things happened in France between the revolution (1789) and the first stable republic (1871). A lot of it had to do with religion and monarchism, which were highly political. Secularism would really reign triumphantly only at the very beginning of the 20th century with the 1905 law of separation between the church and the state and this has been a very crucial turning point.
Talking about 19th century religious sentiment in France won't be relevant if you ignore the secularization process that has happened during the 20th century.
Something, dare I say, the "advanced nation of UK", with its official religion and archbishops having a voice in legislative matters, has never gone through.
> Atheist, raised by atheist parents in France, being respectful in a cemetery is not about religious education.
Doesn't the burial itself have religious roots even when it's no longer administered by a church? Anecdotally, there has been a recent trend away from cemeteries altogether now that the religious reasoning isn't there, with people having there ashes scattered somewhere meaningful or kept with family.
> People who go there are most likely mourning. That's the last place where it is appropriate to bring kids playing.
The last "funeral" I went to was an ashes scattering at the beach, which is basically a huge playground with kids running around everywhere. It didn't detract from the mourning.
I am not talking about funerals, which are weird one-off social events. I am talking about the typical crowd going to a cemetery. When you "have something to do" there it usually involves mourning and a trip to memory lane. You want some peace and a meditative atmosphere.
It is not about the deceased, it is not about the magical fluff around the funerals, it is about the living and their grief.
Bringing kids to play in the middle of cemetery is to me like bringing them in the middle of a library with a lot of people deep into their books.
If you do that, you are an asshole. It is not about religion. It could be about culture, but I want to believe that what I am saying is pretty obvious to most Americans as well.
This is going to vary across cultures. I have seen cemetery picnics in South American cities, the UK, France and here in New Zealand. There were many many families at weekends at cemeteries in Chile.
It seems that family picnics at the cemetery used to be common in the US too.
Well, we are in front of two different cultural habits then: one that requires quietness and one that does not. The second one is incompatible with the first one.
You can't claim to be respectful of other's cultural habits if you insist on using yours knowing they are incompatible.
And I'd like to point out that the author of the article presents (what I believe to be) the French typically accepted attitude of quietness in cemetery as the result of being a "less advanced capitalist society" where secularism is less developed. Which is a laughable claim done by someone who obviously does not know the history of secularism is France after the 19th century or the demographics of religions there.
And gosh, I do have a young kid and I know how noisy he can get without him meaning any harm. And I do see other parents oblivious to the noise of their own kids. Seriously, that's not about cultural differences. That's about understanding that not everyone developed the tolerance to your kids behavior that you develop during the first years.
Imposing your kids to other people, especially when they want to focus on something else, is an asshole thing to do. That's the case in France, and that's the case in any culture that does not elevate kids-breeding to a cult that needs to be protected at any cost.
I think kids have every right to visit cemeteries. They too have dead relatives, and it's probably healthy for them to be in touch with that. But being kids, they're unlikely to remain quiet for very long.
If people are using the cemetery as a playground with no regard for the people buried there, then I agree with you. But other than that, I think it's important to accept kids as part of life. Perhaps especially so at cemeteries. And seeing a new generation grow up can also be a comfort.
>Doesn't the burial itself have religious roots even when it's no longer administered by a church? Anecdotally, there has been a recent trend away from cemeteries altogether now that the religious reasoning isn't there, with people having there ashes scattered somewhere meaningful or kept with family.
Treating your dead as anything else than an annoying piece of meat to dispose of has religious roots.
The idea to attach some sentimental value to our dead, is one of the oldest manifestations of civilization (neolithic age and before), and tied to viewing humans and our relations in a different light than mere animalistic.
So keeping an old broken watch your grandfather gave you because you have sentiments attached to it is also religious ?
I think you're mixing up sentiment and respect to something that use to have value to you with religion.
>So keeping an old broken watch your grandfather gave you because you have sentiments attached to it is also religious ?
Well, it's worth is metaphysical, not practical. Doesn't have to be tied to an explicit religious mythology to be so. As a gesture it's part of the same process from where religion (and religious sentiment) emerged.
What? Its simple sentimentality. Love, hate, sorrow are normal human emotions. Related to/hijacked by religion. The real root of burial is emotion, not religion?
Yes, but humans weren't always humans themselves, but more like animals (and before that, exactly like animals). Those emotions were developed and honed over thousands of years, and the religious experience one of the major carriers and early expressions of those.
>The real root of burial is emotion, not religion?
Not much difference. Early religion was akin to organized emotion (including sorrow, mourning, fear, hope, etc).
"The earliest evidence of religious thought is based on the ritual treatment of the dead. Most animals display only a casual interest in the dead of their own species. Ritual burial thus represents a significant change in human behavior. Ritual burials represent an awareness of life and death and a possible belief in the afterlife. Philip Lieberman states "burials with grave goods clearly signify religious practices and concern for the dead that transcends daily life."
"In the latter part of the twentieth century, theories of religion that emerged especially from the social sciences reiterated the claim that emotion was central to religion. In the work of Robert Bellah, Clifford Geertz, and, eventually, Rodney Stark, “feeling” of one sort or another was integral to religion"
They're different, if one is built on the other. One is at root; the other is an effect.
We have ritual in lots of things. In fact, in almost everything. What we consider proper to wear, to eat, to say, to do. The existence of ritual proves nothing about the presence of religion.
>Atheist, raised by atheist parents in France, being respectful in a cemetery is not about religious education. It is about empathy and not being an asshole. People who go there are most likely mourning. That's the last place where it is appropriate to bring kids playing.
That's culture-specific. You don't bring kids playing next to a funeral, but occasional walks, strolls, etc, to a cemetery are quite common in many countries.
For cultures that are not skittish with the dead, cemeteries are also big, peace-full, tree-laden, places. Also ideal to contemplate how short life is.
In Mexico, of course, they also have all kinds of celebrations in cemeteries...
But personal/family visits/strolls (and even picnics) have been a staple all around the world...
Ultimately the dead cannot have a permanent resting place on this earth. There are 100 billion people who have died, if it takes 25 square feet to bury one, the space occupied by the dead will eclipse that occupied by the living.
After 100 years or so burial plots should be recycled.
Burial is something that humanity should be able to let go as a whole. It pollutes. It wastes resources and space. We need to find other ways to mourn, remember and symbolize. Ways that will let us treat the body as compost would be ideal, but hard to sell to the general population.
There’s a relatively recent novel set during the removal of Les Innocents to the new catacombs (Pure, by Andrew Miller). A good read, and like many discussions of these events, it makes the obvious connection to the moribund Ancien Regime.
20 comments
[ 41.2 ms ] story [ 196 ms ] threadI... what?
Atheist, raised by atheist parents in France, being respectful in a cemetery is not about religious education. It is about empathy and not being an asshole.
People who go there are most likely mourning. That's the last place where it is appropriate to bring kids playing.
And that author, talking about "advanced capitalist nations" like UK was one and France was stuck, like he seems to be, in the 19th century...
A lot of things happened in France between the revolution (1789) and the first stable republic (1871). A lot of it had to do with religion and monarchism, which were highly political. Secularism would really reign triumphantly only at the very beginning of the 20th century with the 1905 law of separation between the church and the state and this has been a very crucial turning point.
Talking about 19th century religious sentiment in France won't be relevant if you ignore the secularization process that has happened during the 20th century.
Something, dare I say, the "advanced nation of UK", with its official religion and archbishops having a voice in legislative matters, has never gone through.
Doesn't the burial itself have religious roots even when it's no longer administered by a church? Anecdotally, there has been a recent trend away from cemeteries altogether now that the religious reasoning isn't there, with people having there ashes scattered somewhere meaningful or kept with family.
> People who go there are most likely mourning. That's the last place where it is appropriate to bring kids playing.
The last "funeral" I went to was an ashes scattering at the beach, which is basically a huge playground with kids running around everywhere. It didn't detract from the mourning.
It is not about the deceased, it is not about the magical fluff around the funerals, it is about the living and their grief.
Bringing kids to play in the middle of cemetery is to me like bringing them in the middle of a library with a lot of people deep into their books.
If you do that, you are an asshole. It is not about religion. It could be about culture, but I want to believe that what I am saying is pretty obvious to most Americans as well.
It seems that family picnics at the cemetery used to be common in the US too.
It wouldn’t be appropriate during a funeral, but why is it not ok outside that time if it isn’t disrespecting graves or mourners? https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.atlasobscura.com/articles...
Kids shouting are not compatible with typical mourning, sorry. Would you let your kids play in the middle of a reading room or a meditation session?
Sure, some people do that in all cultures. And across all cultures, we use different expression to convey the sentiment "they are being assholes".
That's like your opinion.
To quote a famous playwright: "Pardon him. Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.”
You can't claim to be respectful of other's cultural habits if you insist on using yours knowing they are incompatible.
And I'd like to point out that the author of the article presents (what I believe to be) the French typically accepted attitude of quietness in cemetery as the result of being a "less advanced capitalist society" where secularism is less developed. Which is a laughable claim done by someone who obviously does not know the history of secularism is France after the 19th century or the demographics of religions there.
And gosh, I do have a young kid and I know how noisy he can get without him meaning any harm. And I do see other parents oblivious to the noise of their own kids. Seriously, that's not about cultural differences. That's about understanding that not everyone developed the tolerance to your kids behavior that you develop during the first years.
Imposing your kids to other people, especially when they want to focus on something else, is an asshole thing to do. That's the case in France, and that's the case in any culture that does not elevate kids-breeding to a cult that needs to be protected at any cost.
If people are using the cemetery as a playground with no regard for the people buried there, then I agree with you. But other than that, I think it's important to accept kids as part of life. Perhaps especially so at cemeteries. And seeing a new generation grow up can also be a comfort.
Treating your dead as anything else than an annoying piece of meat to dispose of has religious roots.
The idea to attach some sentimental value to our dead, is one of the oldest manifestations of civilization (neolithic age and before), and tied to viewing humans and our relations in a different light than mere animalistic.
Well, it's worth is metaphysical, not practical. Doesn't have to be tied to an explicit religious mythology to be so. As a gesture it's part of the same process from where religion (and religious sentiment) emerged.
(I don't mean to knock it, by the way).
Yes, but humans weren't always humans themselves, but more like animals (and before that, exactly like animals). Those emotions were developed and honed over thousands of years, and the religious experience one of the major carriers and early expressions of those.
>The real root of burial is emotion, not religion?
Not much difference. Early religion was akin to organized emotion (including sorrow, mourning, fear, hope, etc).
"The earliest evidence of religious thought is based on the ritual treatment of the dead. Most animals display only a casual interest in the dead of their own species. Ritual burial thus represents a significant change in human behavior. Ritual burials represent an awareness of life and death and a possible belief in the afterlife. Philip Lieberman states "burials with grave goods clearly signify religious practices and concern for the dead that transcends daily life."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_origin_of_religio...
Or:
"In the latter part of the twentieth century, theories of religion that emerged especially from the social sciences reiterated the claim that emotion was central to religion. In the work of Robert Bellah, Clifford Geertz, and, eventually, Rodney Stark, “feeling” of one sort or another was integral to religion"
https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Handbook-Religion-Emotion-Hand...
We have ritual in lots of things. In fact, in almost everything. What we consider proper to wear, to eat, to say, to do. The existence of ritual proves nothing about the presence of religion.
That's culture-specific. You don't bring kids playing next to a funeral, but occasional walks, strolls, etc, to a cemetery are quite common in many countries.
For cultures that are not skittish with the dead, cemeteries are also big, peace-full, tree-laden, places. Also ideal to contemplate how short life is.
In Mexico, of course, they also have all kinds of celebrations in cemeteries...
But personal/family visits/strolls (and even picnics) have been a staple all around the world...
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/09/24/picnic-in-the-ceme...
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/03/our-fir...
After 100 years or so burial plots should be recycled.