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We do not know
what comes after death. But as human beings, aware of our mortality,
we inevitably relate ourselves to our mortality. One output of
such relating includes various beliefs about how the life of
a person, his/her death and after-death existence are connected.
Different beliefs have different ethical consequences and different
impact on life. The beliefs do not have a direct influence, but
they presume the actualisation of awareness of death.
This paper
shall focus on the conditions of such actualisation and describes
the accompanying phenomena. It is shown how, depending on environmental,
cultural-ideological and personal qualities, people may become
aware of death either in a relatively harmonic way or it may
be a traumatic experience.
The concept
of awareness of death
Death-related
beliefs is one of the best-survived fields of tradition, rich
in associations and an interesting source of research as such.
The subject of death is among the most widely treated fields
in the humanities. There is an enormous and inconceivable amount
of tantalogical, psychological, philosophical and religious-historical
literature related with death. It can be quite confidently stated
that death awareness as a phenomenon in the cultural space of
Europe has usually been talked about in connection with a crisis
situation (loss of a close person, learning of an incurable disease)
or ageing.
The phenomenon
of death is also interesting in the context of value regulation,
i.e. how and to what extent the beliefs of death do influence
our everyday life and choices. The value-regulative influence
may be broadly divided into two. One part accounts for specific
beliefs about death: whether it is believed that death is the
absolute end of the human existence or that death is followed
by existence in the otherworld or reincarnation. Different beliefs
bring about different ethical consequences. The other part is
for death awareness as a phenomenon. A man may believe in the
existence of heaven and hell, but in the case of non-actualised
awareness of death, its real impact will be relatively modest.
Treatment of
death awareness in the value-regulative context inevitably raises
the need to treat it also in the framework of people's everyday
life.
Death awareness
may be situational or abstract. The first can be met in situations
where there is actual danger to one's life. Such awareness presumes
concrete or situational thinking. In the case of abstract awareness
of death one may be aware of mortality, feeling good and safe.
Such awareness presumes abstract thinking, which for a long time
has been considered typical solely to human beings.
A human is
aware of his/her death, but it is difficult to say if this is
his/her monopoly or do higher animals possess similar awareness.
Modern animal psychology has explained that the difference between
humans and animals is smaller than it was believed earlier. Efforts
to prove situational ability to think, followed by some elements
of abstract thinking (ability to remember, longer reaction time)
have produced convincing evidence that at least some higher animals
have the ability of abstract thinking (see the film "Dolphin
Dilemma" from the Great Book of Nature series). It may presumed
that higher animals also possess abstract awareness of death.
Whether it is really so, has not been proved yet, but there are
numerous documented examples that allow to presume this. The
mourning of wolves, but also elephants, dolphins and several
species of apes after their loss of a partner is generally known.
The documentary "Why Dogs Laugh and Chimanzees Cry"
describes how a dog sacrificed itself for a member of the family.
On a dusty road the driver did not see a cyclist who had got
stuck in the rut. The dog ran barking beside the car and then
jumped under the wheels. The car stopped a few metres from the
cyclist.
Cognizing
the thought of death
But back to
people. Abstract awareness of death is divided into the latent
and actualised awareness. In the case of the latent awareness
of death one is aware that all people die, but there is no direct
knowledge of one's mortality. One rarely thinks of death, especially
one's own death, because thinking of it is considered useless
or even harmful. The thought of death and mortality is accepted
in general, but one tries to disregard events that actualise
these facts, and if it is not possible, to forget such events.
In modern European culture the principled awareness of death
is the predominant type and one of its characteristic features
is that the fact of mortality does not elicit any emotions. It
is just an abstract knowledge that we do not cognise in our daily
life.
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