How are we to speak of the dead?
For instance, when a public figure dies, how should people respond—particularly his ideological opponents, and most especially those who regard the public figure’s life, causes and behavior as reprehensible?
A flurry of discussion around these issues was occasioned by the recent death of Andrew Breitbart and the ensuing spate of commentary in the media, blogosphere, Twitter, etc.—much of it consisting of solemn right-wing eulogizing and gleeful left-wing celebration.
Similar displays have of course followed in the wakes of other public figures, and when a left-wing icon dies there is the same sort of eulogizing and gleeful celebration from the opposite camps. Breitbart himself responded to the death of Ted Kennedy with a torrent of vitriolic tweets—“a special pile of human excrement” is one of the more printable things he tweeted in the hours after Kennedy died—that were as far beyond the bounds decency and propriety as some of the invective unleashed by his own death.
Catholic New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote a typically thoughtful column, offering his own take on the excesses of “The New O-Bitch-uaries,” as the headline of a Katie Roiphe article put it, and responding to defenders of what might politely be called obituarial bluntness, including David Frum and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Douthat’s angle is political: He argues that the ideological divisions separating left and right in our age are comparatively small and disproportionate to the violence of the rhetoric accompanying them.
My take is humanistic and existential: I think that many things become smaller and recede in the face of the overwhelming fact of death.
On one level, it seems to me that to take a man’s death as the occasion for attacking his shortcomings as we see them, however serious they may be, is not entirely unlike walking into a wedding reception and starting to complain loudly about the groom’s scofflaw ways or the bride’s shabby treatment of her family.
On a deeper level, when a man goes to give account before the Judge to whom we all stand or fall, it is has widely been felt appropriate for lesser judges to make at least a gesture of holding their peace, at least for a moment.
Resisting this line of thought, a friend asked pointedly, “So when can we be honest?” This was in a discussion several years ago following the death of Jerry Falwell. My friend had offered a withering assessment of Falwell’s life and work in an online forum I frequented, and I (and others) offered some resistance to this. My friend’s rejoinder is worth contemplating:
My views on Jerry Falwell are the same as they were last week, when he was alive, and they will be the same next week, next month, and next year. Typically when a public figure dies, there is an assessment of his life. And that is what I saw going on in this discussion. If that’s a violation of proper decorum, then someone will need to explain proper decorum to me. What is the length of silence required to ensure proper respect? I’m willing to abide by it, but I don’t know the rules.
What can we say to that?
I don’t think it’s a matter of rules, and certainly not of honesty or dishonesty. Let’s agree from the outset that neither ideological agreement nor concern for propriety regarding the recently deceased is occasion for outright dishonesty about their failings. Likewise, let’s agree that uncharitable vitriol is always wrong, regardless whether someone has recently died, is alive and kicking, or has been dead for half a century.
Our opinions of the recently deceased may be the same as they were last week. But if there is a time and place for everything, last week and this week may not be the same time for the same thing.
I’m intrigued that those who share this sense of post-mortem decorum are prone to express their sensibilities in pleas like these:
“The man is dead.” “The guy isn’t even cold yet.” “The earth hasn’t even settled on the man’s grave.”
There seems to me something significant in those depersonalized, universal references to “the man” or “the guy”: a kind of plea to a human impulse toward solidarity in the time of trial and duress.
Last week, perhaps, the deceased was a public figure of note and notoriety. At some point in the future he will be a figure of history and mythology, with a place in the pantheons or demonologies of his advocates and detractors.
There is, however, a privileged moment in which he is simply “the guy” or “the man”—a fellow human being whose straitened circumstances constrain us to regard him in this moment precisely as another bearer of our common humanity, a man of like substance with ourselves, who has gone the way of all flesh as each of us must do.
How long a moment? I don’t know. I don’t know whether such a question can be answered, or whether it makes sense even to ask it. Such matters are best felt from within, not analyzed from without.
The fundamental point, I think, is that our first response to the news of death (or any calamity) befalling anyone be one of human solidarity rather than drawing lines and casting stones. This is not to say that there is no place for drawing lines or casting stones at all. Beyond that, it is a matter of human intuition, culture and understanding.
A thought experiment that may or may not be helpful. What if the news had been, not that our ideological enemy had died, but that he had been in a car crash and was now a quadriplegic? What if we heard that he had lost his children in a plane crash?
How would we respond to such news? As an occasion to comment on our differences with his theology and public stances? Or as an occasion for a moment of human (and Christian) solidarity?
A trivial example. Around the time of Falwell’s death, Roger Ebert posted a column about receiving flowers at his house, with a note signed “Your Least Favorite Movie Star, Rob Schneider.”
What occasioned this gesture of goodwill from the star of the movie that Ebert reviewed with the phrase that became the title of his book Your Movie Sucks? Ebert had been gravely ill. What if Ebert had remained in good health? Obviously, he would hardly have been receiving flowers from Schneider. In principle, I wouldn’t have been surprised had I heard (not that I’m remotely offering any commentary or speculation about Schneider’s character) that Schneider had in some way been rude to or snubbed Ebert in public.
Yet in fact Ebert got sick, and Schneider sent him flowers. At a time of duress, differences become comparatively less important, and common humanity—and, for Christians, Christian charity—comes to the fore.
Granted, a snarky review of a disposable comedy is small beer compared to the issues many people have with people like Jerry Falwell, Ted Kennedy or Andrew Breitbart. At the same time, the guy is dead. Take a moment. Take off your hat. Say a prayer.
Those are my thoughts. What do you think?
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I hope to be talked about like I live. If a person attacks the weak, lies to the public about others, steals or injurs people. Even in death, they deserve the talk if it’s true.
I love your question “How long before I can be honest about the dead again?” Thought provoking.
I’m saddened when a any person is injured or their children die, but, Andrew got what he gave (specifically re: Ted Kennedy). His cruelty came full circle.
Andrew, meet Karma.
Rover Serton: Actually, far from karmic justice, I think Breitbart probably would have been, as Douthat suggests, delighted with the vituperation spewed in the wake of his death. Hitchens too. Both were polemical and polarizing figures who didn’t mind giving offense, took pleasure in outraging their enemies, and would have rather died than play the victim card or plead for pity or sympathy.
This post is absolutely not about pleading for sympathy for Breitbart—or Kennedy, or Falwell, or anyone else. I’m trying to raise a larger question, not about what the dead deserve, but about what is right and healthy and human for the living. Is it good for us to celebrate the deaths of our ideological opponents, to greet the news of anyone’s death with a hearty “Good riddance”?
When I hear anyone has died that I know through a personal relationship, a casual relationship or a Jane Q. Public media relationship, I try to remember my obligation to pray for their soul to rest in peace.
I completed Breitbart’s last book, Righteous Indignation, just last night, and it really was a look back for him. He was honest about himself, blemishes and all, which made the book a good read. He thanked a lot of people in his life who made a difference to him.
One interesting thing that came through was that he was an agnostic that had those moments recently in his life where he called out to God and got an answer that caused him to not dismiss God’s existence outright or to be disrespectful of the possiblity. It seems to me as Catholics, we should ask ourselves about these people, or people like them around us, how in our lives we did not step to be a better example of the Gospel. We can be honest and condemning about the impacts of their ideas or infamous actions and harm, but we dare not condemn them. We should not eulogize them into the Book of the Saints as that would rob them of the prayers their soul needs. Certainly we should perform the spiritual work of mercy often praying for their departed soul to rest in peace. That is what matters for them and for us in the grand scheme of things.It helps us to realize that those of us still in this part of life have souls that need charity, mercy and forgiveness, bar none of us.
“Is it good for us to celebrate the deaths of our ideological opponents, to greet the news of anyone’s death with a hearty “Good riddance”?
No, it is not good. The guy is dead, let it go, get over it (whatever you didn’t like about him). I think kicking the dead man is classless and childish. Doesn’t matter if the dead guy was classless, or getting what they gave. We are supposed to be better than that. Remember the Golden Rule? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Treating someone, dead or alive, with disrespect or cruelty and to justify it with “well, that’s what he did to others”. is childish. My kids say “HE DID IT FIRST!” when they are caught in the wrong. Rover must be one of my kids. Time to grow up, Rover.
I really don’t know much about Breitbart so don’t take this as defending him in any way. I am responding the question Steven posted which was more general in nature.
I think one of the reasons why speaking ill of the dead is a rule is because the dead cannot defend themselves. When alive, the person can counter critique and defend their actions. When dead, the conversation/argument is one-sided.
When someone spews vitriol against the recently deceased, I take it as a sign that the person has passed into the sort of militant hatred that is harmful to their self and their cause. Basically, if someone can’t pause their anger for a bit to recognize the shared humanity at such an obvious time, then they weren’t just angry over policy or philosophical differences, they really did *hate* the person.
I’ve often found myself with a puckish wish that these people would suffer setbacks in their positions due to their vitriol, and even when they are the same as *my* positions, just because I don’t want the hateful to prosper by it.
I agree we should be honest about the dead. But if the death is recent I would emphasize *politely* honest, out of respect for our shared humanity and for the people who were hurt, even distantly, by the death. People who say instead say hateful things and then say “Hey, I’m just being honest!” aren’t fooling anyone but themselves and people who share their militancy.
“why speaking ill of the dead”
Sigh, should be “why NOT speaking ill of the dead”
Another good column, all around.
My two cents:
When Tony Snow, former radio host and retired Bush Press Secretary, succumbed to cancer, I saw the standard venom spewed at him by the extreme left. They weren’t the majority, but they were enough to matter.
Were Jay Carney, Obama’s current spokesman, to kick the proverbial bucket, I would, with God’s grace, not even dare to take a moment’s satisfaction in his passing. I don’t say this as a brag. The temperament required to take joy in the death of anyone you consider your political enemy strikes me as certifiably abnormal and probably evidence of mental instability.
It’s not just about putting aside politics. It’s about a total lack of perspective, whether when critiquing the dead, or dancing on their graves.
Colin Gormley:
There’s something to that, and any critique of the dead should bear this point in mind. But I’m talking about a special restraint regarding the recently deceased. I’m certainly not saying that the dead have a permanent free pass! If all the deceased were exempt from all criticism, then the notion of the “judgment of history” would be an empty one. In the course of time, it is both possible and necessary to seek to render a verdict on deceased public figures, or at least to argue our various briefs as best we can, both for and against the deceased. I’m just saying that there is something inhuman, and certainly unchristian, about taking the death of a public figure as an occasion for celebration or condemnation.
I guess we wouldn’t want to be speaking ill of the dead any more than we’d want the dead to be speaking ill of us. After all, in (hopefully) many cases, they’re a great closer to the Lord than we are!
De mortuis nihil nisi bonum.
I think that, first of all, a distinction has to be made between (a) the death of the individual as such and (b) the likely consequences of that death. Take, for example, the death of Yamamoto in WW2. It would be entirely appropriate for a Catholic sailor in the Pacific fleet to (1) pray for his soul but (2) rejoice that justice was done and (3) hope that this would speed the end of the war. I think we can apply a similar format in many other cases. I can have pity on the soul of Christopher Hitchens without thinking that the mortal world is worse off for his loss.
My first thought: It’s more important to be charitable while someone is alive! When they’re dead, what you say about them has no impact on them whatsoever, though you may deeply wound their grieving family members. There is a serious lack of charity for the grieving when people rip people apart who truly aren’t even cold yet! You don’t have to say glowing things. You can just keep your trap shut if you don’t have something good to say. After all, what difference does it make now? The person is gone and you’re just blowing off steam.
But here is what drives me absolutely nuts: When some public figure dies, all of the sudden they get all this glowing praise, even when in fact they did some horrible things and appear to have never repented of them. For example, someone who spent a lot of time attacking the Church or a Catholic who was seriously and publicly unfaithful to Christ’s teachings or helped the Church’s enemies is suddenly applauded for all their various talents and supposed good deeds. This makes me want to puke, and even moreso when they are given a lavish Catholic burial with all kinds of eulogies. It’s nothing but pleasing man and kow-towing to the world.
We should never rejoice in anyone’s death, but it is not appropriate to applaud and basically lie and misrepresent the reality of someone’s life either!
What we really need to do is pray for the souls of individuals as they are dying, that they will die in a state of grace and not go to hell. That is charity.
I doubt he minds right now. I hope his family isn’t hurt. That is part of the issue, being kind to the family no matter what you thought of the person. Can you imagine if his mother is alive (don’t know if she is or isn’t) and she has to listen to this type of thing?
No matter what you think of the person, it is common human decency to allow the grieving friends and family a respite.
Steven. Thank you for the excellent reply. I think the salient point is, an opponent in political discourse is not your enemy, just your opponent. Hitch might be the exception because he wanted your God to be killed off and religion with him. He developed many religious friends but he was an enemy of it.
His fear of having a posthumous deathbed conversion has happily not been realized to my knowledge.
I appreciated his intellect, resented his pro war stance, and was impressed he allowed himself a waterboarding to prove it was torture.
No matter how we feel, we should pray for the person’s soul. Jesus tells us to love our enemies; He never tells us to pretend that there’s no such thing as an enemy.
Also, there is too much talk, not enough thought about famous people. Years ago, I learned something about Jerry Falwell quite by accident, and though we differ theologically, I found that I did admire him, very unexpectedly.
I was driving, flipping through the radio stations in the car, and came upon a Christian radio station. They were interviewing a man whom I did not know at the time was Falwell. The topic was Pro-Life, and so I kept listening. The man was recounting a debate he had had with an abortion advocate. He talked about how important it is to treat your opponent with respect, and to be able to learn from even those who disagree with you.
He said that in this debate, the abortion-advocate, a woman, was at first very shrill and angry, accusing pro-life people of hypocrisy, saying to him: “What have YOU done to support all those extra babies who would be born if abortion were illegal?” He simply replied: “Not enough”.
The conversation got him thinking, and he decided then and there to start and support pregnancy centers, helping women in crisis pregnancies. I don’t know if his opponent ever changed her mind, but many mothers and their babies were helped as a result of that exchange.
It also made me realize that the previous opinion I had had of Jerry Falwell was based more on media sound-bites than on any real information. After all, I hadn’t even recognized his voice on the radio. How much could I possibly have known about him? It seems to me that a lot of people have some very strong opinions with just as little basis as I had. We can all learn a lesson here.
“Good riddance”
I have to disagree with Ann
When Ted Kennedy died I had no real emotional feelings about his death. However at work some one asked me what I thought and I said ‘good riddance.’ Well that brought up a discussion about if I was glad he was dead. After we hashed thing out a little. To come to grips with what we thought and believed. I was not glad he was dead. I was happy that we would no longer have a pro-abortion senator, claiming to be catholic, representing us. I was happy that the evil that was being done by his pro-abortion stance had come to an end.
There are people and groups of people, who promote the killing of Christians and Jews, should we not be happy or relieved if they were to die and could no longer promote evil? I am not advocating killing them, but if they were out of power would that not be a good thing?
We have to find a balance between a few things. First we can be happy, or relieved if bad things or evil things have come to an end by the death of an individual or individuals. Second we can not judge the soul of any individual or individuals. We can judge the actions, and words of an individual. Next we have to ask ourselves if we have done everything in our power to convince that individual, prior to their death, of the errors of their ways. (Are the people, who are critical of the dead individual, done anything in the past to convince the dead individual of their their errors and done so in charity?) In death we can reference the errors of someone’s way but we should point out the correct way, so that others don’t follow the way of errors. In death we should always hope and pray that an individual recognized and repented of the errors of their way.
Writing about someone’s death should be done in charity. They should neither be canonized nor condemned to hell, which is what seems to be being done by most of the comments about someone’s death. The fact is many people are in purgatory who need our prayers.
I think that, sometimes it is hard to separate being happy that an evil has ended and sad that an individual soul may have been lost to damnation. Living in the ‘real world’ as we do, the happiness that an evil has ended is apparent. The soul that may have been lost is not so apparent. Happiness that an evil has ended can be celebrated (try not confusing that with celebrating the death of the individual causing the evil). Mourning the loss (or possible loss) of a soul to damnation may be seen as celebrating the evil that an individual was responsible for (try not confusing those either).
Respectfully, Don
There are lots of people who hold views I dislike - Ted Kennedy was one of them. When he died, I said a prayer for his soul and hoped he repented. Then I kept my mouth shut.
There are very few people whom I can say I loathe - Hugh Hefner is one of them. When he dies, I will say a prayer for him with gritted teeth and then I will keep my mouth shut.
Intellectually, I understand the difference between celebrating that evil is no longer being done (theoretically ok), and celebrating that someone is dead (not ok). But I think the line is very, very thin in practice. Emotionally, how can I be glad that someone is no longer alive to do evil, but not be glad of their death? Certainly it will be hard to convince any watcher of the difference.
And that’s only a step further removed from hoping someone will die so they stop “doing evil” (in my limited grasp of the total impact of their living). Expanding on that a bit, what do I know of the full affect on humanity of one of these public figures (Breitbart, Hitchens, Kennedy, etc)? Basically just what I hear nth-hand. Like a big game of Telephone. I don’t feel confident enough, that the world is better off without them, to be glad of someone’s death.
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” -Tolkein
Really no need to cut anything so close. It costs me nothing a but a bit of mental effort to shrug, think “It’s too bad”, and let it go. And I’m better off for the practice.
Ellen, you are right. When someone we hate dies, say a prayer and do what you and I desperately hope God will do for us, look at his goodness. Once you have given him a bit of the respect he deserves, you can go back to work.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those…..”
I’m not saying that you need to ignore the evil of [insert public figure here], just that the method has changed. You need to shift from attacking the fact that he is the one who holds the view, (which by now, has had his sins or accidental failings laid out before him to either be forgiven or condemned, so he knows) to obliterating his faulty veiw. From the point of his death on, he is more of a reference or an example of a problem than the actual problem.
About being glad someone is no longer around to do evil: I don’t think this is the same as wishing someone to die.
I’m thinking of Hitler’s death, for exmaple. Even in such a case, it is inappropriate for Christians to rejoice at someone’s death. But it would be natural, and I think not at all wrong, to feel relief that the tyranny ended as a result of the person’s passing, if that indeed occurs. Perhaps there’s a fine line, but I don’t think it’s the same as wishing them to die.
Or, if an abortionist dies, I do not rejoice in his death. I fear for his soul, and sincerely hope he is not in hell. I could not wish hell on anyone! At the same time, if that particular day, several human beings escape abortion because the abortion center has no doctor, I am glad that they escaped. You see what I mean?
Maybe it’s just this: it’s not that we’re glad the person is dead, but we’re glad the evil has stopped.
Bill Buckley had it right. When someone of note passed away he usually wrote the obituary for the National Review. Truthful, sober—occasionally winsome, but never too over-the-top. If the deceased was someone he admired, even a political adversary, he said good things. And if that person’s passing had been a net gain for humanity he’d write a succinct description of the person’s deeds and finish with R.I.P. Nothing churlish. The brevity said it all.
And God will judge.
@Mouse
> Maybe it’s just this: it’s not that we’re glad the person is dead, but we’re glad the evil has stopped.
Sure, in extreme cases like Hitler I’ve got no practical problem with that. I’m thinking of the more every day cases like divisive political figures of one extreme or another (basically the main group in Steven’s blog post). I tend to believe that some people do so much damage to the public discourse that their net effect is very likely negative. But the very likely gets me. And even if their net effect really was negative, it’s not like they didn’t have family, friends and followers. And they weren’t wholly, perfectly evil (no person is). So I can be glad specifically that their divisiveness has stopped, but that wasn’t all they were. So I’m conflicted.
I think this classic by Father Rutler says it all:
Speaking Well of the Dead
www.catholicliturgy.com/index.cfm/FuseAction/ArticleText/.../9
In one of two pieces I did a few years ago upon the death of Jerry Falwell, I suggest that secularization and/or theophobia may be at the heart of the increasing popularity of the “O-!@#$%-uary.”
“But reading [Amanda] Marcotte and the rest of the liberal netroots on Falwell, it becomes clear that the less one believes in God, the more psychological need there becomes to do the damning yourself. Or to put the same thought another way, if you believe in a providential God and an afterlife, you will handle with equanimity and maturity the unjust person (let us stipulate) dying happily. Knowing that it is ultimately all in God’s hands can do that; in death, there is no political enmity.”
http://courageman.blogspot.com/2007/05/jerry-falwell-1933-2007.html
First time reader, first time commenter!
I am Rob Schneider. I sent flowers to Rodger Ebert (unpublically) because I didn’t want to be like most people who wait until someone passes away before they say nice things about them or realize suddenly how special they WERE!
When I heard Mr. Ebert was ill I felt a wave of sadness. Not because I remembered how much he hated my movies, or that he named a mean-spirited title to his book based on my film. I felt that sadness because I remembered how much I admired and respected this amazing lover of cinema. And how his affection for movies was (and still is) contagious. Mr. Ebert, along with his partner, Gene Siskel, opened my eyes, and countless others, to world cinema! I am grateful for all the wonderful films, big and small, that I got to watch and enjoy because Siskel and Ebert were so adament in their paise.
Their collective excitement about championing the films they loved became an entertainment in itself. I admired how their joy created a cottage industry of critics, for better or ( in my case) worse.
The expression “Life is too short” means that the gift of time that God gives us is finite. But if that time is spent doing what you love then that life can be a great gift to others. This is our gift to God.
Unfortunately, some people realize it too late or not at all. I’m sure if Mr. Breitbart had an inkling of his imminent mortality he would have spent his days and words in a more peaceful and joyful manner.
Lastly, let us not judge this man or any man. Mr. Breitbart was a provacatour-entertainer in a very caustic field. I don’t really believe for one minute that he believed all the negative things he said. His words are endemic to a cynical world view. But this world view is just one side of the coin. The other being, kindness, acceptance, tolerance, compassion, joy and love.
Thank you for thinking of me!
Rob Schneider
Rob Schneider:
I’ve always appreciated your contribution to this combox. I think of it again now that Roger Ebert has actually died. God bless you for your gesture of good will to him when he was alive and could appreciate it.
Cheers, SDG
“Let’s agree that uncharitable vitriol is always wrong” - THANK YOU!! The common humanity point you make is also a good one. This extends to compassion for the grieving family. Whether or not one likes/agrees with the deceased person, this person has left people behind who are suffering. There is something kind of monstrous about unnecessarily adding to the pain of people for the smug satisfaction received in extra subscriptions and extra $$$. Out of decency to those grieving, we should exercise mercy and restraint! As for being honest - being honest doesn’t necessarily need to happen in the public square, surely? Being honest to yourself about how you feel, even if that feeling is relief at the death of another, is a healthy thing. But once that opinion is inked or rendered or broadcast, it has far-reaching consequences and impacts other people. I find myself wondering if in this age of instant media we even realize what immense responsibility the power to express public opinions brings along with it?
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