UNSATISFYING FUNERALS

The funeral industry could be the least-loved industry in all America. One must look long and hard for positive comments about traditional American funeral practices.

The criticisms are everywhere: on non-profit sites explaining the funeral industry’s exploitation techniques or promoting alternative funeral options; in newspapers describing the latest misuse of prepaid funeral funds or mistreatment of human remains; in financial columns describing the initially lucrative consolidation and later bankruptcies and dismal performance.  But most commonly, the criticism comes from the person on the street angrily relating his or her ordeal with a funeral home.

Of course death is intrinsically dismal and fear-inspiring, and anyone dealing with it, even with noble intentions, is an easy scapegoat for our own fear and denial. Nevertheless, the level of negativity that has accumulated, especially in America, indicates a need for radical change. This is all the more urgent considering the aging of society.

It is our belief that the required reforms to Western funeral practices can only be accomplished by finding the appropriate sites for a radical reconception of cemeteries. Anyone  finding these can count on broad popularity and social approval, as well as financial success if the ideas are realized as a business.

NECESSARY REFORMS

The traditional American funeral industry - and to differing degrees the European one - need to correct these shortcomings:

• Non-credible guarantee of perpetuity
• Environmentally unacceptable practices
• Lack of added-value
• Lack of consumer faith
  
• No personal expression, meaningless rituals, unappealing aesthetics

Non-credible perpetuity ( ↑ top)

Although we are still promised a perpetual rest in North America, this is not a credible guarantee for the future. Too many pressures and precedents point in the opposite direction.

The “life-cycle” of modern European graves could foreshadow that of American ones. Due to population pressures and space limitations during the 20th century, in most European countries burial plots were no longer given in perpetuity or even for the continued existence of the remaining family. After a maximum of 20 or 30 years, grave markers are now removed and destroyed, and the remains are installed in a nearby niche - if the surviving family can be found to pay for it. If the family cannot be found or is unwilling to pay, the remains are anonymously disposed of and no tangible memory survives of the deceased at all.

At first glance, North Americans would seem to be luckier - the perpetuity of existing graves is still taken for granted. This may not be true for future graves - although North America would have relatively more land available for cemeteries, more pressing forces will restrict the scale of new cemetery development needed if every future grave is to be truly perpetual and reuse of plots is to be avoided. Specifically, conservation of existing wilderness, green-fields and arable land will take precedence over new cemeteries. At that point, the only way out will be European grave plot recycling - or universally imposed cremation.

But the threat to perpetuity can extend beyond individual graves to the whole cemetery’s existence, when it becomes “necessary” to sacrifice it to accommodate more critical needs. San Francisco’s transfer of its 26 inner city cemeteries to the new Colma cemetery town is a classic example. Back then, it was to accommodate golf courses and other “essentials”. Future rationales to move cemeteries may seem equally trivial in retrospect. Or closures may be required by genuine greater needs for the land. Either way, the cemeteries and their graves, with all their accumulated personal and collective history, will be forever lost. New mechanisms to preserve cemeteries and individual graves must be found….

In our view, the only truly credible guarantee of perpetuity of a cemetery and its individual graves must be based on an intrinsic unsuitableness of the land for other uses.

Environmentally unacceptable practices ( ↑ top)

Over the last decade, the environmentally-unfriendly nature of traditional funerals has led to a “green burial” movement. In its sensitivity to contemporary concerns, this fringe movement currently represents the only aspect of our funeral practices already moving towards reform.

Essentially, the green burial movement tries to answer the question of how funeral practices can have environmental benefits, and to a much lesser extent, social ones. Environmentally, it aims to reduce the burden of burial by eliminating the toxic and unessential elements of embalming, concrete vaults and non-biodegradable burial containers. But as far as bringing new social or spiritual benefits however they still lack ideas.

Beyond the environmental appeal, the movement draws strength from the cost advantages of simpler funeral ceremonies and burial containers. It is quickly gaining awareness and may even reverse the trend towards cremation back in the direction of burial - green burial leaves a carbon footprint comparable to or lower than cremation and is competitive in cost. This fringe movement will presumably soon affect the traditional industry, as cremation once did, and green burial methods will become the norm.

For the moment, the green burial movement is working to define the environmental norms. In the US, new cemetery sites offer green burials ranging from a slightly greener, less polluting version of traditional burial to the creation of landscapes with high ecological quality. At the one end, “green” only refers to the burial method – no embalming, no vaults and only biodegradable caskets, sometimes merely in reserved sections of traditional cemeteries where traditional practices continue alongside. In the middle of the spectrum, woodland cemeteries aim to restore native woodland by planting native trees instead of erecting headstones. At the far end, a few sites worldwide are “conservation burial” sites, where the primary objective is the long-term conservation of natural landscapes and burial is a means to that end. And of course there are other cemeteries that do no more than greenwashing. Nevertheless, clear environmental standards will presumably emerge and burials of one or another shade of green will become standard.

The movement’s challenges lie elsewhere:

1. Finding enough suitable land for conversion into green cemeteries.

Land needed for life uses is only becoming more scarce, and life’s needs take precedence over death’s. In conservation cemeteries moreover, ecological factors permit a lower grave density and forbid European-style reusing of existing burial plots. Any flat-land cemetery is also inefficient in its use of space compared to “multi-layered” configurations. So on a mass scale current green cemetery forms would simply use up too much land.

2. Providing the archetypal benefits of memorialization, while remaining “green”.

As presently conceived, green burial forbids or strictly limits enduring grave markers to favor ecological factors. This is a short-sighted aspect of its conception, which forgets that a cemetery is not merely a place to dispose of dead bodies but to memorialize and honor human lives. A majority of society will not accept no memorialization; widespread acceptance will thus be impaired.

3. Guaranteeing true perpetuity.

The attempt of conservation cemeteries to prevent future development of land by burying bodies there could paradoxically even promote that process long term. For if old monumental cemeteries already fall to land speculation or redevelopment for essential Life’s needs, there is little reason to believe that conservation cemeteries - which will look no different from natural forest - will survive long in a future where land scarcity and population pressures will only be more intense.

What is fundamentally missing for the widespread development of green cemeteries is the appropriate land.

Lack of added-value - actual and perceived ( ↑ top)

According to the National Funeral Director’s Association (NFDA), the average cost of a funeral with vault was around $7,300 in 2006. This may even be low - 6 years earlier, a Senate Special Committee on Aging estimated $7,500. And neither estimate includes other funeral-related expenses such as the grave plot, flowers, etc.

Whatever the exact amount, there is a common perception that costs are kept unnecessarily high by price collusion, exploitation of the bereaved’s confusion at the traumatic moment of need, and ignorance of their consumer rights. In such circumstances, consumers first realize afterward what they paid and for what. Their resentment accumulates in society-wide hostility towards the industry.

The fear of exploitation, or at least not getting one’s money’s worth, partly explains the rise of cremation in America. For cremation advocacy groups the cost savings are the main advantage. Their apparent ideal would be to reduce the cost to zero. This points to an important psychological aspect of the value question - it has evolved into a question of how little one can pay for the bare-bones minimum, and not what a genuinely satisfying solution should cost, were it available….

Indeed, if nothing of value to consumers is added by funeral home services, then why should consumers spend more than the minimum?

From a social and a business perspective this is a major failing of the modern funeral industry. In many contemporary non-Western societies and certainly in our own historic European societies, people happily parted with a larger portion of their income for a family funeral, because the rituals and services provided still had psychological value and spiritual meaning to them - much as weddings still do for us. But contemporary providers no longer provide what people want and consequently the relationship has deteriorated to a simple fight between the consumer and the provider over dollars. The fault lies squarely on the supplier’s shoulders.

If funeral service providers could discover and provide what is genuinely of value and meaning to contemporary families, then these families would be happier to pay the current amounts, or perhaps more.

Lack of consumer faith ( ↑ top)

The objective facts behind the industry’s scandals are difficult to gauge - we will not attempt that here. But rumors of misused prepaid funeral funds, manipulative sales techniques, price fixing in funeral corporations, and mistreatment of remains are widely perceived as facts. This points to real faith issues.

In just a few years, lack of faith in the traditional funeral providers has stimulated a wide palette of alternative offerings which, generally speaking, aim at simplifying the funeral process and taking it back into the individual’s or families’ hands as far as possible. The offerings range from do-it-yourself home funerals and self-built caskets, to “bare-bones” cremation services, online urn and casket retail sales, and no-frills “green burials”.

Beyond the trust and cost issues, this diversification presumably also derives from a lack of psychological and spiritual satisfaction in the services offered by traditional funeral service providers. A credible sign of genuine concern from the funeral industry - to find new more meaningful rituals and services, and not just ways to maximize profits - would go far in restoring trust. After all, “in the end”, we cannot avoid their services.

On the contrary, any funeral service provider who could regain the trust of American families would also enjoy a major competitive advantage.

No personal expression, meaningless rituals, unappealing aesthetics ( ↑ top)

For better or for worse, the funeral industry is ultra conservative, and its rituals, symbols and aesthetics change very slowly. Society’s beliefs and tastes on the other hand have undergone quantum transformation in the last century. Rituals and symbols that had positive spiritual meaning or psychological effect have become empty and ineffectual in helping contemporary people deal with the momentous event of death.

Aesthetic styles and materials once perceived as beautiful or sublime now appear depressing or plain ugly. In consequence, a deep cleft exists between what is offered by the funeral industry and that new complex of symbols, rituals and aesthetics that would bring genuine satisfaction, consolation, catharsis. Since the traditional offerings elicit mostly negative associations, the average person tries to minimize contact and psychological involvement with all institutionalized aspects of death and dying. Rather than helping him, they merely depress him more. Moreover, “do-it-yourself options” are mostly precluded by legal constraints or at least incorrect perceptions of them. Therefore funerals and all later interactions with family graves are reduced to merely practical necessities to be taken care of as quickly, as cheaply and as mechanically as possible.

But in this way, an age-old human need to give meaning to and symbolically transcend death remains unfulfilled, even if only in the subconscious. Issues and needs swept under the carpet do not disappear, they merely grow elsewhere, underneath in our subconscious. While exterior life proceeds well, we are more or less able to ignore their calls for satisfaction. When worldly affairs turn for the worse, we are less able to repress them.

Unfortunately, new meaningful complexes of symbols, rituals and aesthetics have not yet emerged to help us deal with our unsatisfied inner needs. The rapidly growing interest in green burials is symptomatic of a latent hunger to find new meaning regarding death; for the moment, it does not go beyond “helping the earth”. To help ourselves, to improve our individual and collective mental health,  new symbolic and artistic means must still be found to integrate death in a healthy manner.

Such radical rethinking will require greater freedom of expression than is possible in traditional cemeteries; it is also unlikely that they will ever change their physical and institutional character enough to provided the desired level of freedom. But radically reconceived new cemeteries - physically, institutionally, and religiously separate from the whole traditional funeral industry - could provide the clean slate necessary for humanity to create genuinely satisfying new rituals, new symbols, new art.

( ↑ top)

• Grave Matters

  • GRAVE MATTERS
  • Overpopulation & Aging
  • Land scarcity
  • Unsatisfying funerals

• New Cemetery Solutions

  • INTRODUCTION
  • PERPETUA'S PRINCIPLE
  • Benefits
  • Solution A
  • Solution B
  • Solution C