What is a good death?
BMJ 2003; 327 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.327.7422.1047 (Published 30 October 2003) Cite this as: BMJ 2003;327:1047All rapid responses
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"Thoughts of his own death,
Like the distant roll
Of thunder at a picnic." [1; 800]
“And we must pray for
A good death, whatever
World we are destined
To look on last. It could be
A field of battle,
Or a vista of terse lawns
And tantalised yews,
Or a forgotten province
Of sagging fences,
Weeds and pecker-wood saw-mills,
Where an ill-nourished
Sullen people vegetate
In some gloomy schism.” [1; 762-3]
[1] W H Auden, Collected Poems, edited by Edward Mendelson, London:
Faber, 1994
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
I agree with this statement. The problem is its implementation and
how we can help patients to die as a person and avoid unappropiate
interferences from relatives and from the society. In my oppinion we have
to try to identify the will of our patients... and pursuit in this will
till the end. This is an Art and it is not easy because we live in a
complex context with many influences out of our control. It needs
appropiate management of drugs and a lot of continuous care of the patient
and of the family.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Did Derrida die? A good death...a philosopher's view
"Since Plato, it is the old philosophical injunction: to learn to
live is to learn to die. Less and less, I have not learned to accept
death. I remain uneducable about the wisdom of learning to die."
(Jacques Derrida, Le Monde interview, August, 2004).
Derrida delivered before Derrida died - or did Derrida die? How did
Derrida do 'Death'? Or did Derrida undo 'Death'? Deconstruct 'Death'?
Science has a limited, reductionist, 'commonsense' understanding of
'Death' - whereas Philosophy rethinks 'Death'.
How do we know Derrida 'Died'? Because others 'Die' before us? Only
others assume and suppose we 'Die' because we go all stiff and are
stripped of the Psyche and the Sensations of our Being – the Psyche and
Sensation of our Being alive. But where do our Psyche and Sensation of
Being drift? Where does Dasein drift? What oozes out of the 'Dead'?
Sensation! We do not 'Die' but become Other (Sensations) as otherwise to
Being, otherwise to Dasein. In 'Life' we are always already 'Dying' all
the Time so 'Death' does not exist in-itself only out-itself - as out of
oneself: from 'Borning' we are always already 'Dying': we 'Die' many more
times psychically and physically in the sense that we are always already
shape-shifting and meandering-mutating: we are never the same subject for
a split second so hence we 'Die' and are 'Born' every single second as an
attuned afresh sesnation. 'Death' is the exiting and the expelling of
sensationing from the Body.
Physical 'Death' is thus the oozing out of the Psyche and the
Sensations from the Body (Corpse). We do not (usually) experience 'Death'
– others experience the moment, movement, music of our 'Death' - in our
place - on our behalf. Yet we all introject and incorporate - the 'Dead':
we wear the 'Dead'- that is - we all become Crypts of the 'Dead' (keeping
them alive and wearing their Psyche and Sensation) - but most of us do not
know this and carry the dead like one carries a coal sack or as Jacques
Derrida deals the: "dead object remains like a living dead abscessed in a
specific spot in the ego" (Derrida, The Ear of The Other).
"Death" is the dematerialisation and desemenisation of the Body and
the dissemination of the Psyche and Sensation: the deaded-body disperses,
jettisons, our psyche – thinking – sensationing to outer regions sensation
-scapes: therefore 'Absolute Death' is always already an 'Absolute
Impossibility' – just as 'Absolute Life' is also an 'Absolute
Impossibility'. The 'Living' incorporate The 'Deading'.
Some of us have actually experienced Being-Death as being-dead (being
beheaded and decapitated from the mind-body dualism) and floating free –
from the heaviness of being (embodied emheaded): as an out of body
experience and near death experience. 'I' experience being dead: 'Death'
is not a possibility. 'Death' is not a question or an issue for Being:
'Dying' as Living is. Dasein is for 'Dying' as Being is for Deathing as a
Life Sentence is for Doing Time. One could argue that what is important is
not 'Death' itself - but Dying (Living), the manner, music, metre and the
style in which the being Lives and 'Dies' as it aims toward 'Death'
('Life').
For Heidegger 'Death' is our metre, movement, music of our being
toward 'Death' – the way we walk the way we wonder the way we wander
towards 'it': in 'Death' we become 'Death' in-itself as 'being-dead' is an
essential state of 'being- alive' on different levels of our musical
psychic sensation: our measure and measuredness: our 'Death' or
'Deathness' could be said to be the metre of our Music and Time: our being
is constituted and incorporated by our Time of 'Death' as the 'Death' of
our Time: the metre of our Music of Being (psychic-sensation).
Our oozed out Ontological relationship with Being and Time is the
Time of our 'Life' as the Time of our 'Death': that is: the way we all do
Time is the way we all do 'Death' and we all do 'Life': everyone in a
sense in a sensation - is 'doing time' (not just those in prison): the
Style - the way we do Time is the sign and sensation of the way we do
'Death' – both in sickness and in health. We all daily do 'Death' (like
'Life') differently - because we all do 'Death' ('Life') differently
because we all do Time differently.
A Good Death is not 'Dying' on Time but 'Dying' in Time with Style. A
Good Birth can set the moment, movement, music for 'A Good Death': some
beings are never (truly) born so some beings never (truly) 'Die' – they
are disembodied and beheaded from the Psyche and Sensation scapes so sloth
and drift derailed from Dasein as the living-dead: they do not have The
Shine. 'Doing Life' is an orchestral overture for 'Doing Death' via the
Way we all Do Time and it is the Style in which we do 'Death' as Dasein.
'Death' is the only Uncertainty in Life. As an Absolute Impossibility
'Death' is all the time not in Time. Being and Time negate the Possibility
of 'Death'.
Heidegger on dreary Dasein and 'Death': "...Dasein constantly is its
not-yet as long as it is, it also already is its end. The ending we have
in view when we speak of death does not signify a being-at-an-end of
Dasein, but rather a being toward the end of this being. Death is a way to
be that Dasein takes over as soon as it is." (Being & Time).
"...death is the inmost, not-relational, certain, and as such, indefinite
possibility not to be bypassed of Dasein. ...As the end of Dasein death is
in the being of this being toward its end." (Being & Time). Derrida on
the (im)possibility of 'Death': "Is the most distressing, or even the most
deadly infidelity, that of a possible mourning which would interiorise
within us the image, idol, or ideal of the other who is dead and lives
only in us? Or is it that of impossible mourning which…refuses to take the
other within oneself, as in the tomb of some narcissism?" (Jacques
Derrida, Memories of Paul de Man; The Work of Mourning). "Ours To Derrida
Or Die".
References: Heidegger, Martin; Being & Time, 1927.
Abraham, Nicolas and Maria Torok; The Wolf Man¹s Magic Word: A
Cryptonymy. 1976. Trans. Nicholas Rand. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P,
1986.
Derrida, Jacques; The Ear of the Other. Trans. Peggy Kamuf. Ed.
Christie, MacDonald. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1985.
Derrida, Jacques; Memories of Paul de Man; The Work of Mourning,
University of Chicago Press.
http://www.humanities.uci.edu/remembering_jd/butler_judith.htm
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests