Just came across this while reading Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card, and think it’s totally true… it’s in the introduction, but already I’m hooked. Lemmie know what you guys think; I think this dude is right on the money.
…suffice it to say that I grew dissatisfied with the way that we use our funerals to revise the life of the dead, to give the dead a story so different from their actual life that, in effect, we kill them all over again. No, that is too strong. Let me just say that we erase them, we edit them, we make them into a person much easier to live with than the person who actually lived.
See, I’ve only been to two funerals, fortunately, and while I know the people whom we were remembering weren’t a-holes, I do know that everything they did wasn’t as great as everyone made it seem. Obviously everyone isn’t a saint, but the way people talk at funerals, they may as well be. My thought is that if everyone’s going to talk nice anyways at these things, why am I trying to be a good person now? If I died tonight, sure people might say some nice things, but nobody would believe it – we all know how funerals are. Yet another reason to just act like an a-hole all the time. The case for altruism and morality is sadly getting weaker and weaker.
Slapbacks