Advancing Life, Dismissing Death

Throughout this quarter in “Culture, Medicine, and the Body”, we studied and compared perceptions of health and medicine by investigating the very social fabric that informs these notions. The pattern of biological commodification that Western medicine exemplifies became increasingly obvious through the weeks but in our final sweep of examining and questioning this trend, we focused on the recent and relatively uncharted field of bio-regenerative technology. The sophisticated experimentation currently underway that uses human embryonic stem cells (hES cells) to expand our understanding of life by regenerating it reflects the value that our society places on eliminating death and reversing ageing. The popularity of portrayals of immortality and supernatural abilities in the media confirm societal interest in the indefinite extension of life. As biotechnology improves, these once-fantastical plots in science fiction novels and movies represent a distinctly possible reality.

In the plot of any captivating story, a twist arises that complicates or thwarts the efforts of the characters that then slows the realization of their goal. Based on this simple analogy and on the hubris of Western biomedicine, I argue that the repercussions of our intentional and unscrupulous altering of the natural processes of life and death will incur consequences that future societies will be ill-equipped to handle. Who will benefit from technologically perpetuated life and what will this mean for unaffiliated populations? Additionally, in the purported “crisis of old age”, will the current trend of biotechnology eliminate health disparities or escalate them?

Both assigned articles acknowledge the crisis of old age and question the methods that fields like economics and science use to reverse it. Melinda Cooper writes extensively about the World Bank’s preoccupation with the globally growing elderly population since the extant resources and infrastructure cannot absorb the vast addition to society that result from the baby boom. Cooper explains that the crisis is even more extensive than this issue of population support because instead of addressing questions of infrastructure, we focus on research and “a much more malleable concept of biological limits, one that situates age as a movable threshold between surplus and waste, obsolescence and renewal”, or concepts like stem cells (Cooper 3). The effect that capitalism has on our understanding of life and death is well-documented as its tenets of productivity and reaching full potential influence the mindset that biotechnology’s use of regenerative medicine reduces the human waste that otherwise occurs in death. The commodification of life has been confirmed in our study of Western medicine this quarter to which Cooper responds that it resulted in “a profound legal reconfiguration of the value of human biological life” (Cooper 13). She further explains that, “the potential person will not be commodified – but the surplus life of the immortalized human stem cell will enter into the circuits of patentable intervention” (Cooper 13).



Courtesy of Mode Weekly



The cartoon above depicts Michael Jackson, a now deceased pop icon who famously underwent several plastic surgeries to alter the shape of his nose. Stem cells, according to Geron’s Annual Report from 2000, “can develop into any of the body’s cells, including heart, muscle, liver, neural and bone cells…due to this ability for self-renewal, hES cells are a potential source for the manufacture of all cells and tissues of the body”, which is why the depiction shows Michael Jackson with a regenerated nose (cited in Cooper  14). This comic relief regarding stem cell research and the future abilities that an individual may have in recreating organs and other cells may actually be a possibility soon. The optimization of body image and personality that individuals in Western culture already demonstrate through plastic surgery and age-reversal therapy could escalate to unforeseen levels if this technology allows the resuscitation of life and denial of death.

Several examples of immortality in pop culture exist like vampire legends and tales about hidden resources found in nature like special water that ensure immortality for its human users. Tuck Everlasting, a novel by Natalie Babbit that was published in 1975, explores immortality and the hardships that come with it. The main character befriends a family who drank from a spring of water that made them immortal and toils to guard their secret from a society that would surely capitalize on this resource. The plan that the family hatches goes awry and the unhappy ending implies that mortality is a necessary process that should be accepted. The image below shows the romanticized portrayal of life for the immortal boy, Jesse Tuck.

Courtesy of The Film Journal

Another example, the popular Twilight series, tells the story of another immortal family of vampires. The human main character lusts after the immortality that her transformation into a vampire would offer her, a notion that many in our society today seem to harbor through our emphasis on age-reversing and life-prolonging technology and medicine. The image shows a similar perception of immortality to Tuck Everlasting’s portrayal. The vampire family from the series are also characterized as beautiful, established, individuals who have the good fortune of living forever with optimal physical and mental qualities.



Courtesy of bloodrinako



Lafontaine’s “The Postmortal Condition” mirrors Cooper’s account in that she also discusses our dismissal of death and fixation on an ever-increasing lifespan. She brings up the same themes that these pop culture examples present. “The technoscientific desire to indefinitely prolong life is based on a particular conception of human perfectibility”, she writes of the true desires behind our “our quest for immortality” (Lafontaine 301). The patent laws that Cooper mentioned in “Resuscitations: Stem Cells and the Crisis of Old Age” pass because of science’s supposed mission to improve the quality of life for those with incurable conditions among other medicinal reasons. However, we clearly have other agendas too. Lafontaine speaks to this, “quoted by many researchers as the miracle solution to human weakness and death, nanotechnologies embody the technoscientific ideal of a world without mortality” (Lafontaine 304). Society values an increased quality of life for those that are privileged enough to access these technologies but the subsets of society that purchase exorbitant organs from other countries and invest in cryogenics represent a small portion of the global population. I wonder what the social landscape of the world will look like in the future if only the most powerful and affluent individuals preserve their existence while everyone else-those in developing countries especially- remain exposed to the same inequities that threaten their health today.  

Bibliography:

Cooper, Melinda. "Resuscitations: Stem Cells and the Crisis of Old Age." Body & Society. 1st ed. Vol. 12. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2006. 1-23. Print.

Lafontaine, Celine. "The Postmortal Condition: From the Biomedical Deconstruction of Death to the Extension of Longevity." Science as Culture 18.3 (2009): 297-312. Print.



Revitalizing Death

 

Death, an inevitable phenomenon in life (so far), incites fear among individuals of varying cultures and beliefs all over the world. Those of agnostic identity freely admit to little confidence in the existence of an afterlife while atheists assert that no higher being or cerebral haven waits to welcome us when we quit the Earth. Meanwhile, individuals who subscribe to a religion usually belong to the camp that allows for some version of an after-life or preaches a divine purpose in existing. Despite religious convictions or the lack thereof, death still represents a feared enigma to many. I will provide arguments as to why I believe Americans encounter particular difficulty in accepting death as an inevitable outcome to our earthly journey. Another fascinating aspect of this topic is how sub-cultures in America and other cultures around the world perceive life and death. Why is it that Americans reduce death, a feared event, to a medicalized process instead of celebrating its merits, which for some include an end to physical suffering and to others an excuse for the deceased individual’s social network to gather? 

The video above from New Orleans’s The Times Picayune discusses the traditional Creole funeral rituals that frequently occur in Jackson Square and in other parts of the French Quarter. The “jazz funeral” or “funeral with music” involves a brass band of variable size, family members, friends, and miscellaneous community members who begin marching from the deceased individual’s home or church. They process through the streets of New Orleans toward the cemetery with the band playing sorrowful dirges or church hymns. The mourning ends after the burial in the cemetery. On the return trip, the brass band strikes up ragtime tunes like “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In”. I grew up near New Orleans and witnessed several funeral processions when visiting the French Quarter. African, French, and Caribbean cultures join together to create this beautiful community-wide reaction to death.

In Margaret Lock’s “Living Cadavers and the Calculation of Death”, she discusses the cultural constructions of life and death that predominate in Western medicine contrasted against the beliefs in Japan. She measures our distinctive value system against Japan’s by studying the criteria that both cultures use to determine when life ends. Understanding how brain death affects overall death is an increasingly sensitive matter as Western medicine prioritizes organ procurement and transplantation in its approach. Lock asserts, “knowledge, particularly from the Christian tradition, buttressed by Enlightenment philosophy, contributes to a tacit understanding that makes it appear rational to think of brain-dead bodies as objects that can be commodified” (Lock 144). To legally and ethically justify the extraction of organs from a technologically sustained- but still warm- body, Western medicine developed standards for determining the time of death.  

Courtesy of "Eternal Beauty", this image of a Scottish cemetery depicts a scene representative of death

The individualistic values promoted in America parallels to the commodification of brain-dead bodies in our ICUs. Our capitalist society values individuals who contribute to the economic system by remaining productive. The high probability that a brain-dead individual will not function again as a productive member of society leads to their quick commodification. Western medicine’s emphasis on organ procurement reflects this belief. Medical practitioners developed criteria so that brain-dead patients could qualify as an organ donor, in effect our way of ascertaining that we squeeze the last productive elements from their technologically sustained cadaver.  In Japan, doctors allow respectful space to families of brain-dead patients and never broach the subject of organ procurement unless families inquire about it. Japanese culture, much more community-based than that of American culture, emphasizes “family desires” as well as indigenous medical concepts like “the substance of ki”, and “kokoro as the centre” (Lock 148).

An article from National Geographic discusses another culture that regards death highly, that of the Torajan people in Sulawesi, Indonesia. “Funerals are really the cornerstone of Toraja's social fabric,” the author explains, “bringing together far-flung families and communities” (Hile). To properly honor the dead, Torajans go to great lengths in the planning and execution of lavish funerals that the author likens to American weddings. Ancestors are believed to allow good crops, fertility, and health if their funerals meet expectations. The author offers an astonishing portrayal of their funerals, “A typical ceremony for a farmer's family may have as many as 1,000 guests. Hosting them can saddle the descendants of the deceased with staggering debt that may take as long as 15 years to repay” (Hile). The celebration of life seems possible only through an acknowledgement that death actually occurred, which Americans avoid by fearing it and by increasing longevity through technology.

Eric Krakauer in “To Be Freed from the Infirmity of (the) Age” introduces the life-sustaining technologies of Western medicine like hemodialysis and mechanical ventilation and the ethical dilemmas that they cause. He mentions a concerning dichotomy, “The great gift of this technology brought with it the unforeseen danger of exacerbating suffering” (Krakaur 382). While the fear of death did not serve as the catalyst for innovative medical technology, the ethical dilemmas that are frequently associated with the technology relate back to our inability to process and to accept death as an outcome. Dr. Iva Byock speaks to this unpreparedness by mentioning the increased deaths in nursing homes where elderly are left to die and American ICUs that aggressively intervene until an individual only lives through wires and machine. He adds,

“This is not the way anybody really wants it, but we have never had a cultural conversation about what a healthy last chapter of life looks like, what that would actually look like to be taking the best care possible of one another professionally and socially in a way that is not always seeking to prolong life, and it corporates this notion that dying is going to happen at some point” (Byock).

American society would benefit from the emotional catharsis that the acceptance and welcoming of death allows. The Creole culture invites a wide range of emotion when acknowledging the phenomenon of life and death through a musical parade. The Japanese resist commodification of brain-dead individuals because of their respect for the social connections that keep their cadaver alive. Torajan culture honors the dead in a great show of respect as a matter of necessity for their community’s health and well-being. Mainstream America could learn from these examples.  

 

Bibliography:

Byock, Iva. "Why Are We so Afraid of Death?" Big Think. Big Think, Inc., 28 Mar. 2008. Web.

Hile, Jennifer. "Lavish Funerals on Indonesian Island Spur Tourism, Debate." National Geographic Today 23 Jan. 2002. National Geographic. National Geographic Society. Web.

Krakauer, Eric L. "To Be Freed from the Infirmity of (the) Age." Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations. Joao Biehl, Byron Good, and Arthur Kleinman, eds. Berkeley: University of California, 2007. 381-97. Print.

Lock, Margaret. "Living Cadavers and the Calculation of Death." Body and Society. 10 (2-3). 2004. 135-52. Print.