Death in the Future: Prospects and Prognosis

Death in the Future: Prospects and Prognosis

The chapters included in this two-volumeHandbook of Death and Dying represent some of the most unique aspects of the human imagination. At the very least, these chapters illustrate how human perceptions and social meanings, as these refer to the phenomenon of death, are highly variable and almost limitless. Yet as noted throughout these essays, the meanings and perceptions of death and dying are embedded in and influenced by cultural beliefs, moral codification, social processes, and structural realities. Thus they are subject to controversy and change.

In addressing the content of this final chapter, the editors acknowledge that as public perceptions of death change and cultural practices increasingly serve the needs of the body politic, the more one can observe that a return to past orientations may be taking place. The fact that professionals and laypeople alike have become more sensitive to the issues discussed in thisHandbook suggests a curious contradiction. Despite numerous scientific and technological advances, enhanced record-keeping practices, an increase in the amount of research on death-related issues, the professionalism of service providers, heightened ethical awareness, and the creation of critical care facilities for the aged, we may be witnessing a return to at least some past social practices. Examples include the decisions people make regarding euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, end-of-life care, dying at home, cremation, and memorial services.

Advances in scientific knowledge are also cause for us to recognize that the inevitable end of the life cycle, death, can be postponed almost indefinitely. And medical science, with its vast knowledge of disease, an almost unlimited array of medicine and machines, and the willingness among medical practitioners to prolong life, particularly in a litigious environment, presents a unique set of issues related to the human condition. These issues include the notions of longevity and quality of life, especially among those who experience chronic illness; the aches, pains, and infirmity attendant to old(er) age; and the increasingly impersonal and legalistic nature of human relationships in the workplace and public spaces. Although fulfillment of personal needs is apparently the normative aspect of contemporary life, such an orientation places at risk a previous normality; that is, it creates an imbalance that causes people to reevaluate age-old philosophical questions pertaining to time, place, the collective order, and the individual in an overall scheme of nature.

Advances in thanatological understanding are predicated on the enhancement of both the humanistic and the scientific approaches to death, dying, and bereavement. Thanatology is, as Kutscher, Carr, and Kutscher (1987:316) note, an art and a science, and it is within this general context that the future of death must be evaluated. We submit that this future holds unlimited opportunities to capture the unbridled spirit and imagination of entrepreneurial [Page 1030]activities. Already we witness the public and scientific debate over cryonics, the cloning of animals, and the sale of human organs. Advances in genetic research have led to the creation of human stem cells; ultimately, the cloning of human embryos will occur, leading, in turn, to an array of new ideas and even more innovative alternatives to those that presently dominate. Each of these is intended in some way to extend the limits of nature and to socially construct a new reality for those privileged few who possess the requisite resources to challenge the normative structure of a present reality.

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