Death and mourning in the digital age
After reading this NPR article, I have been thinking about how digital technologies are changing the way we mourn and and relate to the realities of death.
A number of comments on the NPR story were pretty rich and speak from this new territory; the following comment (from Craig Waterman aka quakerboy) was really poignant:
My wife passed away two months ago. She was young and had kept many of her friends informed about her illness through “health updates,” using the “notes” feature on Facebook. As her illness became critical, and new updates each several hours, hundreds of people told me how they were checking Facebook. It is weird to realize that after she died I called my wife’s parents, her sister and then posted a message on Facebook. Very quickly everyone who knew her were informed because of the great diversity of who were here Facebook Friends. It made coordinating the service much easier and a centralized source for information in a very diverse group of people.
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I would not be surprised if somebody out there is working on a book manuscript or setting up an academic study related to mourning/dying in the digital age.
Eventually, maybe we’ll see the Kübler-Ross model get revised for the 21st century.
Another interesting question to be answered in time is how to curate the digital artifacts of the deceased…
What will become of the terabytes of digital photographs, video, and other information of our relatives and friends after they pass on?
It will be interesting to see what happens when many of these digital artifacts already have migrated to the cloud where they could exist in perpetuity.
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When it comes to the ashes of loved ones, you treat them w/ reverence, put them on your mantle, possibly include them in ceremonies to honor the dead.
It would seem that the digital ashes of our loved ones – at least for a time – may prove more challenging to commemorate and honor.
What the Resurrection means to me
I shared this in church today…
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To answer the question, I wanted to start out by talking about the human body…
There would be no story of the Resurrection – no story of Jesus transcending suffering and death – without the story of the human body.
The human body – the baseline of all human experience – is closely associated with hardship, limitation, and disenheritance.
It is the human body which anchors us to this imperfect world fraught with violence, colonial attitudes, and indifference towards the other.
For those suffering at the hand of the misguided – the body is a profound liability, an inescapable ground.
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But there is another important plotline in the story of the human body.
The product of millions of years of evolution, the human body is a remarkably complex and potent technology.
Our bodies have the capacity to consciously design themselves and their environment.
I think all of us can marvel at our body’s ability to learn, grow, adapt, and create.
As a personal trainer, I have watched up close as my clients work to turn themselves into healthier, more sustainable individuals.
I have watched their bodies get stronger, more efficient, more useful and alive.
So while our bodies do anchor us to this imperfect world, they are very much equipped with all the tools required to change it…
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This is narrative backdrop against which the Resurrection introduces a new possibility for humanity.
In the book of John, Jesus foreshadows the Resurrection by telling the crowd: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
In this statement, Jesus collapses the sacred and symbolic connotations of a holy site – a temple – onto his physical being.
He turns his body into a signifier for Divine Reality.
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Earlier in the book of John there is a beautiful passage about the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among humanity.
In some sense the Resurrection reverses this Word-to-Flesh metaphor that describes Jesus.
Instead of divine Word becoming flesh, the Resurrection is an expression of flesh becoming divine word.
In the story of the Resurrection, Jesus embodies both a top-down and bottom-up dimension to creation.
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I believe the Resurrection is an example of what theologian Paul Tillich calls the New Being. Tillich says:
Later in the same essay, Tillich goes on to say:
I believe the Resurrection points to this New paradoxical reality which Tillich speaks of.
And I believe it is the New Being which could shift humanity towards this New Reality.
It is through the Resurrection that New Being writes a new script for humanity, a new plot line in the ancient story of human body.
New Being renders the divine and the human as two aspects of the same paradox – two sides of the same mobius strip.
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One of my favorite thinkers, Joseph Campbell once said “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”
This has always resonated with me and I think it resonates with the Resurrection.
In my mind, what we understand as the meaning of life will always be based in the world of thought and epistemology, but the experience of being alive is based in the world of the body, the most integral and universal of human artifacts.
I don’t believe Jesus came to teach us the meaning of life, I believe he came to show us how to be more alive: how to hack finite existence and orient our existence towards transcendence.
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So, summing up, this is what the resurrection means to me…
It’s an example of how our limited being can take on the structures of Ultimate Being, how flesh can become Word.
It’s an open call to humanity – not to think our way into the meaning of life – but to participate in the experience of being more alive.
It’s an open challenge to inch our way around the paradoxical mobius strip of existence, always open to redesign as we cl
ose in on the experience of being ultimately alive.
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Most importantly, I believe the Resurrection means moving Christianity beyond Christianity and into the mystery and wonder of the New Reality…the New Heaven, the New Earth, and the New Jerusalem.
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I recommend Kevin Kelley’s Technium post ‘Upcreation’ as related reading.
Superheros 'R' Us
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Wondering if any cultural studies folks are writing about this trend…or if anybody is making a movie – I’d love to see this as a documentary feature.
It’s interesting to think about these folks’ assumed superhero identities as a kind of offline avatar which functions to bridge perceived disparate realities…or as a kind of symbolic attempt to impose a reality beyond conventional human capacity…
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If you’re looking to connect with a superhero near you, here’s their web site: World Super Hero Registry
And if you’re interested in joining their ranks, be warned:
They have stiff criteria:
A Real-Life Superhero must meet the following minimum criteria to be considered for the registry:Costume: The purpose of a costume is not simply to protect the identity of the Real-Life Superhero from criminals that might seek revenge, but to make a statement both to the evil-doers that you fight against and to the world at large: you are not simply someone who happened upon crime or injustice and made an impulsive decision to intervene. You have vowed to actively fight for the betterment of humankind and to serve as an example for others. The costume of a Real-Life Superhero must be of sufficient quality to show some care went into it’s creation.
Heroic Deeds: The purpose behind becoming a Real-Life Superhero must be for the benefit of mankind, and the Heroic Deeds must be of sufficient degree as to exceed normal everyday behavior. If proof of Heroic Deeds is not present, a listing may still be added to the Registry, however, it may be marked as “inactive” or “unconfirmed” in the description.
Personal Motivation: A Real-Life Superhero cannot be a paid representative of an organization, not even a benevolent one. The motivation to become a Real-Life Superhero must come from the individual: not an advertising gimmick or a public relations campaign.
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After having witnessed a mugging in my neighborhood a few months back, I remember specifically wishing I had superpowers to combat the ills of society the mugging represented (a young guy roughed up a girl for her backpack).
It would seem that for some people, superpowers aren’t necessary to be a superhero.
The disembodied black guy
From ABC:
Can you tell the difference between the picture on the left and the picture on the right? In the photo on the left, look at the middle, far-left side. A smiling black face was inserted into the crowd to create the appearance of diversity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Ostensibly this was a quick solve via quick manipulation of a digital image.
But it’s interesting to dig a little deeper and contextualize the the disembodied head of the black guy.
Bell Hooks runs interference:
…Hal Foster contends, “Difference is thus used productively; indeed, in a social order which seems to know no outside (and which must contrive its own transgressions to redefine its limits), difference is often fabricated in the interests of social control as well as of commodity innovation.”…
When the dominant culture demands that the Other be offered as sign that progressive political change is taking place, that the American Dream can indeed be inclusive of difference, it invites a resurgence of essentialist cultural nationalism. The acknowledged Other must assume recognizable forms.
While it takes no critical thought to manipulate the images of minorities for a color spread to promote an institution, it takes a lot of critical thought to examine the underlying semiology of racial politics in America.
I am hoping the transhuman logic of the digital age doesn’t represent an escape from the latter.
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I do think the logic of digital culture is already claiming the human body as a victim.
Reinventing the Warehouse
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IEEE Spectrum on Kiva’s warehouse transforming technology:
Two dozen squat machines, like orange suitcases on wheels, scurry on the floor. They park underneath the man-high racks and start pirouetting; the spinning is part of the mechanism that jacks the racks off the ground. One robot hauls shelves with 12-packs of Mountain Dew; another carries bottles of Redken shampoo. They move along straight lines and make 90-degree turns, maneuvering just 15 centimeters from each other. It’s a bit like Pac-Man.
This is the demonstration facility of Kiva Systems, a start-up in Woburn, Mass., just north of Boston, that wants to reinvent the centuries-old warehouse business. Kiva’s idea is simple: by making inventory items come to the warehouse workers rather than vice versa, you can fulfill orders faster. A computer cluster keeps track of all robots and racks on the floor, and resource-allocation algorithms efficiently orchestrate their movement.
I am still trying to get my head around exactly how this will make warehouses more efficient other than minimizing labor costs, but I thought the technology was pretty striking besides.
Snowball goes primetime
NPR’s Science Friday interviewed the scientists who worked with Snowball, the ’spontaneous motor entraining’ sulphur-crested cockatoo.
Urban living and Schizophrenia
This article on urban living and schizophrenia is pretty interesting. It sounds like there is a correlation between urban living and a higher occurrence rate of schizophrenia:
There are two competing hypotheses as to why this should be so. The ‘drift’ hypothesis suggests that urban environments attract selective migration of preschizophrenia individuals.On the other hand the ‘breeder’ hypothesis suggests that cities precipitate psychosis in genetically vulnerable people by the stress of social isolation and complex cognitive demands that characterise inner city life.
Ultimately both are likely to contribute, and mental illness may be a cause or consequence of social isolation. A 2004 survey of all Swedes between ages 25 and 64 revealed that people living in the most densely populated had almost twice the rate of psychosis of those in the least populated areas.
It seems possible that the advantages of urban living cited in the article – “improved opportunities for jobs, education, housing, and transportation” – may not be exempt from hidden costs…like a downgrade in one’s mental health.
Yet the inertia of urbanization as a social process is gaining steam…
In the future, I am curious if it’s possible for urbanization as a social process to evolve so that it will better complement the ancient inertia of the human process…and cause less collateral damage.
What would a city designed to promote mental health look like?
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This is making me think of a piece Jonah Lehrer did a while back about how cities affect our brains.
Our problem with big numbers
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NPR’s Planet Money did a great podcast “Godzillions On Parade” which addresses this same topic – our struggle to contextualize large numbers.
About half way in, they transition to an interview with a neuroscientist about the mind’s inability to handle large numbers and ponder our current plight…
Adam Davidson: So basically, the entire United States, maybe the entire world, has for the last six months been in a crash course of learning how to think about millions and billions and trillions and we’re still new at it right?Chana Joffe-Walt: Right
I’d highly recommend checking it out. Planetmoney has been kicking ass lately. Their “Pirates have Timesheets” podcast was also really good.
I’d love to hear Radiolab touch on some of these themes…
