Week 3: Death System & 9/11

Question 1

What is spontaneous Memorialization?

Answer 1

The need to do something
- Princess Diana and the river of flowers

Question 2

With public tragedies, what is the role of rituals?

Answer 2

• Allowing for meaningful action at a time of disorganization “doing something”
• Affirming a sense of community
• Solidarity with victims
• Structuring public grief
• Reconstructing the narrative

Question 3

What are 6 things that makes a tragedy public?

Answer 3

1. Scope: number of people impacted (victims, families, friends, rescuers)
2. Identification: our connection to the person or persons
3. Social Value: greater the social value of the person (Kobe Bryant, Princess Diana)
4. Consequences: 9/11 and security systems in airports
5. Duration: hours or day
6. Natural to human-made continuum

Question 4

What are the 3 degrees and 1 perception that makes a tragedy public?

Answer 4

• Degree of intentionality: pulling a trigger vs. making a wrong turn vs. tornado
• Degree of expectedness: hurricanes, storms
• Degree of preventability: did people see the warning signs ???
• Perception of suffering: did they die suddenly?

Question 5

What are the two elements of the Death System?

Answer 5

• Death system (defined): the interpersonal, sociophysical and symbolic network through which an individuals relationship to mortality is medicated by his or her society
• Simply stated: a way of understanding death related practices and how a society interacts with death related experiences

Question 6

What are the 5 components of the death system?

Answer 6

1. People: funeral director, police, firefighters, reporters, world leaders, recovery workers, health care workers
2. Places: funeral homes, hospitals, buildings (sacred ground; death related character)
3. Times: Memorial Day, day of the dead, September 11, Holocaust Remembrance Day
4. Objects: Hearse, death certificate, tombstone, memorial crosses
5. Symbols: funeral music, skull & crossbones, flag

Question 7

What are the functions of the death system?

Answer 7

• Warnings and predictions (disasters, terror alerts)
• Preventing death (public health notices like COVID 19)
• Caring for dying (hospice/palliative care)
• Disposing of the dead
• Social consolidation after death (grief)
• Making sense of death (religion, scientific explanation)
• Killing (war)

Question 8

What is Death Notification?

Answer 8

Informing family of a death that may have occurred violently or unexpectedly
- Notification of next-to-kin

Question 9

For 9/11 What was their leading form of identification and what was the final death count?

Answer 9

• Remains (bones)
• Teeth
• Skin
• Shoes
• 2,996 dead

Question 10

What is Terror Management theory?

Answer 10

Thinking about my death all the time and being in a constant state of terror about it

Question 11

What is the amplification affect?

Answer 11

When terror use media to make a situation appear more threatening

Question 12

What was the timeline of 9/11?

Answer 12

1. 8:48, plane #1 hit north tower (American air flight 11)
2. 9:03 plane #2 hits south tower (united flight 175)
3. 9:41 plane #3 hits pentagon (American flight 77)
4. 10:03 plane #4 hits Pennsylvania (united flight 93)