Autumn Johnson

Honors 231b On Dying and Death?

17 March 2014
Final Dying (death) Accumulation Paper
With respect to the ideas of Abrahamic religions, humans were made with the
intention and obligation to engender more humans. The bible begins with God creating
the heavens and the earth and finishing his work by populating the world with creatures
including Adam and Eve. God says to them, I have made you and commands that they
be fruitful and multiply (Scarry 192). Even from a biological perspective our most
primal urgeseating, fighting, and sexall lend towards the same idea. We must act to
insure personal survival in order to have the ability to procreate. Humans proclivity for
giving life is also seen in other ways: poets, painters, old mythologies, and religions
animate insentient objects like mountains and statues. As Elaine Scarry writes in The
Body in Pain, our basic work is bring about [the] projection of aliveness (286). In
other words, creation is the emphasis of human existence.
Although the birth of our existence coincided with birth of the first human life,
the two concepts are not equivalent. Rather, existence came into being as soon as the first
human interacted with the external world. The relationship can be understood through the
philosophical thought experiment, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear
it, does it make a sound?" Metaphorically, a human life can be viewed as the sound that
the fallen tree did (or did not) make. Only if the sound is heard can we be sure of its
existence. In the same way, we can only be sure of human existence through the
observable interaction between a being and the outside world or the consequential
alteration of the external space in which said being resides. Human lives do not form the
totality of existence; rather, our existence consists of all past and present human
interactions.
In essence, humans exist for creation and by interaction. It would seem then that
all actions lend in someway to the process of making. Death is a part of every life but is
also associated with lossa sort of unmaking. How then does death contribute to the
creation process? I will begin by examining the paradoxical ability of death to create.
Specifically, I will focus on one human-initiated event responsible for extreme loss of
life: war. In The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry declares the main purpose and outcome of
war is injuring and that the conflict arises from the impulse to obliterate a rival
population and its civilization (Scarry 63, 65). In wars past, innumerable numbers of
lives have been ended, cities razed to the ground, and social, political, and economic
institutions lost. As a result, the emphasis seems to be on destructionthe antithesis of
creation.
However, the goal of war can be understood differently if analyzed through
another model. As mentioned, human existence encompasses all that is human or was

affected by humans. Applying this idea to the Self via Other theory1, existence is the
external sphere where all internal spheres (consisting of a Self sphere and all of the Other
spheres) reside and which is altered when internal spheres complete actions. The Self is
built through the observation and internalization of changes in the external world as per
its senses (sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing). In this model, creation must be viewed
from inside the Self2. Such a perspective introduces a new lens through which we can
look at creation: intention.
When a country at war attacks another country, the explicit aim seems to be that
of destruction, as evidenced by the alterations observed in the external sphere: dead
bodies, burned buildings, wrecked cities. However, the intention within the Self-sphere is
different. A political official may want to expand the power of his/her country or stop
another country from committing atrocities against its people; a soldier may be serving
for his/her countrys freedom or because of a career choice to join the army; a
revolutionary may be fighting to change the political order or obtain more rights. The real
intent of the Self-sphere is to maintain or make a better life for itself3.
The reasons for causing destruction in the external warring world are not
destructive themselves. Behind the aim to make a better life is a drive to create. The
aforementioned desires of the political official, soldier, and revolutionary all ultimately
lend towards the act of survival. Even though they are putting themselves in lifethreatening situations as participants in war, they do not intend on dying but on winning.
If they are waging war against an aggressor who initiated the fight, then their success
means safety; if they are hoping to extend their political control, then their countrys
people will have more power to spread; if they are fighting to maintain a career, then their
fight means food and support for themselves and their family. All of these outcomes put
the Self-sphere in a position to pro(create)4, just as God or our biological instincts
command.
Suicide5 is a form of death that is not accompanied by the intention to make a
better life6. The Self-sphere dies completely without the desire to continue external
1 See my Concept Paper 2, where I explain more in depth about the relationship between
a Self and the Others.
2 The relationship between the Self and the Other is biconditionalone implies the
existence of the other; therefore, a Self is really any given internal sphere is the entirety
of the external world.
3 Or what one think is a better life. Humans are fallible beings and sometimes (if not
most times) do not understand that certain actions will not accomplish their aims.
4 See Word Work
5 I understand suicide is a very sensitive subject. I do not intend to pass any sort of
personal judgment or make any sort of general conclusions about the matter as a whole. I
only wish to discuss the topic within the scope of my paper and with respect to the ideas I
have already laid down.
6This discussion of suicide does not include those like like self-immolation that intend to
help a collective cause. These would fall under the category of deaths that intend to create
a better lifein this case for those that continue to live afterwards.

interactions, ceasing all of its potential for creation. The act thereby breaks a Selfs
aforementioned tacit promise with God. There is the common notion that the bible
contains scripture condemning suicide. It advocates for life so that one might enable
his/her decedents to liveagain the emphasis being on pro(creation). Biologically, the
conclusion is similar: suicide breaks our instinctual contract. Moreover, many humans
follow a social contract that not only disallows them from killing themselves, but also
compels them to prevent the suicides of others. There exists a medical imperative,
professionally and technologicallyto extend life if possible (Greene 67). This is one of
the reasons for the opposition to issues like physician-assisted-suicide, where a patient
who is suffering from a severe and incurable illness is allowed to die.
Unlike in war, the sentiment behind the force causing the death is not creation.
When death approaches, a terminally ill patient will often experience extreme despair
and hopelessness (Greene 10). These feelings generally characterize the emotional state
of any suicidal person and can result from chemical imbalances in the brain, as is the case
with depression, or even extreme environmental and situational stress. In Unclaimed
Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History, Cathy Caruth describes such conditions as
trauma. They impose [violence] on the human psyche and often cast the individual into
an endless repetition of [this] previous violence, a cycle which can be lifethreatening (Caruth 63). For instance, there is a high suicide rate among Vietnam
veterans with PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder). Similarly, Caruth writes about how
in the film Hiroshima Mon Amour, the female protagonist experiences trauma when her
lover dies. In order to maintain a sort of faithfulness to [his] death she begins to
scrape and rub [her] skin offagainst the walls of the cellar (Caruth 31). The
destructive forces of a violent or sad memory replace creational ones and can thereby
cause one to engage in acts like self-mutilation (Caruth 63). Ultimately, if confronted
with the idea of the possibility of death, a traumatized Self will be more inclined to
choose the destructive path (Caruth 63).
We often say that a suicidal person has decided that life is not worth living
anymore. The idea of the worth of life or ones self-worth is not a concept known to
the external world. Just as creation must be viewed from the perspective of the Self, so
must value. How then does the Self assign itself worth? Such a question necessitates
knowledge of what exactly constitutes a Self. Scarry writes, the images of objects from
the external world have themselves been carried into the interior of the bodyand seem
to reside there, displacing the dense matter of the body itself (Scarry 165). When a Self
observes an alteration in the exterior, it internalizes it as memory and adds it to the
constitution of its being. However, memory extends far back beyond the opening of [a
Selfs] individual lived experiences (Scarry 283). A Self also contains its own version of
all of history as experienced through the printing press, the institutionalized convention
of written history, photographs, libraries, films, tape recordings, and Xerox machines
(Scarry 283). So, the question now becomes: what is the value of all these experiences? A
Self internalizes experiences by perceiving them with its five senses, a process which
causes the Self to pass judgment on an interaction and feel a certain way. For people who
decides to commit suicide, their feelings of despair surpass the sum total of the value of
their experiences as per the assignment of the Selfs senses.

The despair a suicidal person feels manifests itself in a desire to end his/her life.
Scarry writes, almost all of [Freuds work] can be summarized in terms of the projection
of sentient desire, which we can recognize in dreams, in externalized patters of family
and civic behavior, in the art works of Sophocles and da Vinci, [and] in the materialized
and verbalized products of civilization (Scarry 284). These are all alterations a Selfsphere has caused in the external environment and thereby interactions that constitute
human existence. However, it is interesting to node that the desire to kill oneself is not an
act that is projected on the external world. Instead, it is an internal projection that ends in
loss7.
There exists an odd societal phenomenon in which some people become more
famous after they die. In other words, their projections of sentient desire interact with
the external environment more after their death (Scarry 284). Famous examples are
people like Henry David Thoreau, Franz Kafka, Emily Dickinson, and Silvia Plath. One
common denominator between these people is their art, which is left behind and remains
capable of interacting with the external world. The living spheres, still fulfilling their
promise to create, deprive [this art] of the privilege of being inanimate and thereby
compensate for the loss of life incurred by the dead artist (Scarry 285).
Inanimate objects are given life through the ascription of meaninga quality that
expresses the human spirit (Scarry 283). It follows that the reason more people are
inclined to animate art is that these objects were often originally created with the
intention of embodying, explaining, or commenting on an aspect of human existence. The
popularity of the art almost always insures the popularity of the artist. When the artist
dies, his/her work takes on the life the artist left behind and his/her work becomes an
embodiment of the artists Self.
Moreover, on a more minor scale, the same sort of object animation occurs with
any death. In his book Beyond the Good Death, James W. Greene describes the tendency
of mourners to ritualistically take part in collecting, choosing, and organizing physical
objects like caskets, flowers, tombstones, and memorial displays. Interestingly enough,
such acts are actually some of the best and most common grieving techniques. The
objects are given memories that can be thought about and talked about, embedding the
deceased within an unfolding set of material relations and exchanges and thereby
sustain[ing] him/her as a socially living person (Greene 78 - 79). In other words,
observing and interacting with objects relating to the deceased helps maintain his/her
aliveness in the external world by preserving it in a history, which ultimately a living
conversational narrative. Even when blatantly faced with death, humans try and create
life.
Nonetheless, death is unavoidable. In the end, humans will break the
religious/biological contract they signed at birth binding them to maintain a creational
7 That being said, the person who commits suicide sometimes still intentionally projects
acts upon death. For instance, a Self may leave a suicide note as a final interaction with
the Other.

drive throughout life. When death comes, we have no choice but to accept it. During this
moment of letting go, we allow ourselves to be destroyed and thereby become part of the
worlds destructive forces. The psychiatrist Elisabeth Kbler-Ross described such
acceptance as the grand finale of the dying process (Green 10). However, she also saw
this stage from a revolutionary perspective and assigned it new creational sentiments,
saying death is the last great opportunity for growth, a time of personal transformation,
even triumph (Greene 3). The power of intention grants the Self the ability to finalize
rather than destroy its own being. If we so choose, death can indeed be a doorway to a
new life or at least the final touch to the human creation (Greene 38).

Word Work
1. Creation
Webster: the act of producing or causing to exist
Me: the aim of life, as per a Selfs biology and/or promise to God; a general
version of pro(creation) (see #3)
2. Destruction
Webster: the condition of being put to an end, demolished
Me: the act of ending all potential for further creation; to remove from the
external sphere a being (animate or inanimate) with which Others can interact
3. Pro(create)
Webster: to beget or generate
Me: refers to the human act of spreading, particularly in relation to babies but also
influence, ideology, power, etc.
4. Suicide
Webster: the intentional taking of one's own life
Me: when a Self removes him/herself from the external world; occurs when a
Selfs despair surpasses what he/she perceives to be the worth of life
5. War
Webster: a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between
parties within a nation
Me: a conflict between two nations in which they destroy each other with the
intent of furthering their own creation (see #1, 2, and 5)
6. Intention
Webster: an act or instance of determining mentally upon some action or result
Me: the aim or reason for acting that exists inside of the Self-sphere
7. Worth
Webster: the sense of one's own value or worth as a person
Me: the sum total of the meaning that a Self places on his/her experiences
8. Aliveness
Webster: having life; living; existing; not dead or lifeless
Me: the projection of life on an object (a body or otherwise)
9. Trauma
Webster: a body wound or shock produced by sudden physical injury, as from
violence or accident
Me: an violent or sad experience like loss or depression that has the ability to
change a Selfs creational tendencies into destructive ones (see #1 and 2)