Excerpt: Death and Social Structure

Blauner, Robert. [1966] 2005. "Death and Social Structure". Pp. 361-363 in Understanding Society, 2nd ed., edited by Margaret L. Andersen, Kim Logio, and Howard Taylor. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, Inc.

In this classic essay, leading sociologist Robert Blauner discusses the ways in which modern society copes with death, and how social rituals and organization are increasingly designed to minimize the disruption caused by human mortality.

He notes that, characteristic of a modern society, we have bureaucratized to alienate individuals from experiencing death. Whereas Americans once worked at or near the home, now there is separation of work and home; whereas ill Americans once stayed at home to live out the remainder of their lives, they are now taken to hospitals or elderly communities; whereas dead Americans were once brought home for the family to prepare funeral arrangements, they are now taken to funeral parlors for these duties.

Within hospitals, death is routinized. Blauner cites an example of a county hospital in which 1000 deaths a year occur, most among people aged 60 or above. Hospital staff follow standardized procedures for covering and disposing of bodies and completing documentation. A chaplain routinely checks the files of the terminally ill, visits them to issue their last rites, and then stamps an index card to note that he's already visited that patient (which depersonalizes the death experience).

Death itself is an interesting and nonstandard topic for sociologists when described as an experience rather than an objective mortality rate. That makes this an intriguing essay in-itself, but it is also a valid application of Weberian social theory to events rather than pure structure.

Relevance: 4/5 (relevant)
Salience: 4/5 (salient)

References:

• Max Weber - cited in agreement. "Max Weber has described how bureaucratization in the West proceeded by removing social functions from the family and the household and implanting them in specialized institutions autonomous of kinship considerations."
• Sudnow; Glaser and Strauss - as an example. "Death in the modern hospital has been the subject of two recent sociological studies: Sudnow has focused on the handling of death and the dead in a county hospital catering to charity patients; and Glaser and Strauss have concentrated on the dying situation in a number of hospitals of varying status."