Why do We Care for the Dead?

The first part of the article looks at the broad historical anthropology of the dead body and makes the universal claim that all of us create different kinds of communities through our relationship with the dead. The author also argues that our personal views on the dead and their place in the world have little effect on how we de facto act on them. In the middle, focus shifts to the West, and the transition from cemeteries of pagan antiquity to the Christian church completely usurping the care of the dead and controlling burials, which had huge implications. It was a huge shift, but then shifting back to secularization was equally important. The author analyzes several cases of XIX century burial disputes to illustrate just how and why the Church has lost its exclusive rights to the churchyard, which it had for more than a thousand years. In the middle of this turmoil the dead continued doing their work of cementing our civilization through some sort of primordial "magic". No matter what you believe in, you will have a hard time resisting it.