Why Jessica Mitford was wrong

Theology Today, Jan 1999 by Long, Thomas G

To attend a tragic drama [in ancient Greece] was not to go to a distraction or a fantasy, in the course of which one suspended one's anxious practical questions. It was, instead, to engage in a communal process of inquiry, reflection, and feeling with respect to important civic and personal ends. The very structure of theatrical performance strongly implied this. When we go to the theater, we usually sit in a darkened auditorium, in the illusion of splendid isolation, while the dramatic action-separated from the spectator by the box of the proscenium arch-is bathed in artificial light as if it were a separate world of fantasy and mystery. The ancient Greek spectator, by contrast, sitting in the common daylight, saw across the staged action the faces of fellow citizens on the other side of the orchestra. And the whole event took place during a solemn civic/religious festival, whose trappings made spectators conscious that the values of the community were being examined and communicated. To respond to these events was to acknowledge and participate in a way of life-and a way of life, we should add, that prominently included reflection and public debate about ethical and civic matters. To respond well to a tragic performance involved both feeling and critical reflection: and these were closely linked with one another.14

Likewise, a Christian funeral is itself "a solemn civic/religious festival," and the texts and symbols of the dramatic rite should make us conscious that "the values of the community [are] being examined and communicated." As for "the values of the community," Christians take their cues about the meaning of death not primarily from psychological theories but from the Gospels, which are, after all, attempts to place the death of Jesus into a narrative context, to set Jesus' death into a framework of meaning.

What Mitford pictured as a suitable memorial, of course, is precisely the kind of sterile, ritually impoverished, symbol-deprived, meaning-starved, anecdotally based service that finally reduces the rich drama of a Christian funeral, with its bold claims about life and death and mystery, to its lowest common denominator, a psychotherapeutic "sharing time." Mitford growls at funeral directors who advertise that their restorative methods produce "Beautiful Memory Pictures," but can a memorial service that consists entirely of "Beautiful Memory Pictures," painted not with cosmetics but with eulogizing words, be all that different?

SISTER DECCA

There are a few fleeting clues that, nearing the end, Mitford may have gained a somewhat broader perspective on the rituals of death. The American Way of Death Revisited, is still a piece of yellow journalism, like its predecessor, but there are some interesting revisions. For example, the account of the spare memorial service for the judge has been omitted, and new material has been added pointing readers to consumer groups who both help people avoid funeral excess while respecting the wide variety of religious and local funeral customs in America. Mitford herself seems not much changed, but there are at least a few places set for others at her table.