Changing Death Management Practices by Melisa Welch
DEATH and how death management practices have changed. When we are approached with the idea of death, we as humans, immediately shut down, disingage, and try to avoid the subject all together. Over time our attitudes toward death, and the way it is managed has changed drastically. In traditional times, death was direct. "It was what it was", death, had no "filters or influence" of how one was "supposed to feel or react" when presented with death. In modern times, death is not as direct. With the rise in technology, our preception on death has become much more "influenced and flitered" than ever before. Over the years, death has had a significant place in our social and cultural worlds through the manner of how death is portrayed by mass media, language, music, literature and visual arts. Mass Media has greatly influenced how we think about and respond to death versus the traditional communication influence on how we think about and respond to death. Factors that changed our preception and response on death started after World War I, the flu epidemic of 1918, the decline in religion, and the evolution of modern medicine. Death that was onced viewed as natural, was now being viewed as being horrible. In modern times, with advances…show more content… Humor is not only great for a smile, but it can also serve as a protective psychological function. Laughter and humor are recognized and in all different types of cultures. In traditional times, humor was thought of as taboo during times of grief and loss. As if to mock or make fun of the deceased. In modern times, humor is in several ways relative to death. Humor not only raises the taboo stigma about death and gives us a way to talk about it, it also provides a release from pain andn promotes a sense of control during traumatic
