The day once devoted to remembering the dead has increasingly been shaped by the imagery of North American films and television, with witches, zombies, makeup and masks turning death into a stylized fantasy. Older people still visit cemeteries, clean family niches and bring flowers, while much of society has distanced itself from both traditional places of remembrance and death itself.
Death has largely been transferred to hospitals and funeral homes, where relatives and visitors follow increasingly social and self-focused rituals. Funerals, the article argues, often become occasions for relatives and friends to speak about themselves rather than to place the deceased at the centre of the ceremony.
The author also questions the decline of burial in favour of cremation and the scattering of ashes without a visible trace. Ancient cultures are known in part through the burial sites they left behind, but future archaeologists may find fewer such remains through which to understand the present era.
This distance from death is linked to a culture increasingly focused on appearance, health, clothing, physical fitness and personal display. Social networks have intensified what the author describes as a narcissistic culture in which identity is expressed through the body and outward image. From this perspective, the dead, whose bodies can no longer be presented as aesthetic objects, are quickly removed from view.
This year, however, death has been harder to avoid. The Day of the Dead coincides with confusion, anger and grief over the AVE tragedy in Urda, which has left profound pain and increased distrust in politics. The accident has also placed pressure on the PSOE to respond according to the standards it demanded from political opponents during the Valencia floods.
Yet the article argues that, with the victims’ bodies still being recovered after the accident, politicians, supporters and commentators have already moved away from mourning. Fear of blame and the desire to exploit a rival’s weakness have displaced the silent respect that the dead and the tragedy should inspire. In the author’s view, society has become unable to find meaning in death or to maintain a shared, fraternal silence, allowing the impulses and urgencies of the living to prevail.
Sources: La Vanguardia.