Per Slate.

The other thing for which #Jezebel will be remembered, as the multiple think pieces  blaming/crediting us for “#cancelculture culture” will attest, was our all-consuming desire to piss all over the #conventions of the #era that created it. In #Jezebel’s defense, this was decidedly more of an “era thing” than an “us thing.” #America during the #Bush administration was a cultural #deathscape.

https://slate.com/business/2023/11/jezebel-moe-tkacik-gawker-cancel-culture.html

#AcaWriMo accountability post 7, for Nov. 9. Kaitlyn Kinnney's article "Engaging with Discomfort: #Thanatological Social Movements and Public Death Education" in the 2022.9 special issue of the *Journal of #Folklore in #Education* on #Death, Loss, & Remembrance Across Cultures is packed with information and new-to-me vocabulary!

Widowhood confirmed for me the impression that people in the US are generally really bad at dealing with death. Kinney lays this at the feet of the #funeral industry, in partnership with #hospitals, and cites several sources who delve more deeply into this history since the early C20th (80).

The result, Kinney asserts, is a #deathscape that is full of "silences and displacements" (80). In response to this unsatisfying deathscape, recent years have seen the rise of #thanatological social movements that seek to bring death more openly into everyday, mainstream culture in the US.

Kinney differentiates her use of #thantological from #thanatocultural, noting that the latter term encompasses a descriptive reflection of the "cultures of death and dying shaped by [their] deathscape" whereas the former is both more scientific (or study-related) and activist (in terms of working for thanatocultural change) (80).

The four major orgs Kinney identifies in the thanatological social movement are: Death with Dignity (end-of-life decisions), Death Café (frank and open conversations), #DeathPositivity (calls for industry reform), and Collective for Radical Death Studies (scholars, professionals, and activists) (81-82).

Kinney also notes the particular importance of digital spaces to changing attitudes toward death and grief in the C21st through the work of the organizations she names and others (81). This is a point that made me think of the Facebook groups/pages (One Fit Widow, An Inch of Grey, Widows Wear Stilettos etc.) and self-help websites (Modern Loss) that position themselves as speaking boldly and publicly about a taboo subject.

Ultimately, all of these entities are pushing back against the taboos that have developed in the last 150 years in the US. This pushback is incredibly important as we live through a #pandemic and the escalating #climate crisis that both continue to kill indiscriminately, especially as we figure out how to #grieve collectively but safely.

Kinney's article should be widely read and shared.

https://jfepublications.org/article/engaging-with-discomfort/