Homework 51- Second Third Of COTD Book

The American Way of Death, Revisited - Jessica Mitford


Precis:
As the American death business grows due to the population growth, and, well the fact that people never stop dying, more people are getting involved. More people getting involved translates to more people attempting to maximize profit. Before it was with embalming, now with cremation. The process of cremation is cheaper but it still isn't cheap. With new types of selling points, those same people who tried to sell you that expensive casket, will try just as hard to sell you that new, expensive urn. Oh, and a place to keep your new urn too. But don't worry, if you want to be buried there are still people after you.  People buying up large pieces of land and clearing everything. Once they have one big empty lot, they can selling little bits of it at a time, and then in those bits, they can dig little holes, and in those little holes goes the dead bodies.   Good thing this new branch of the real estate market is all tax free!
Notable Quotes:
-"Several siblings each bought individual urns to hold a portion of mom's ashes: "There was something of a power struggle to see who would purchase the nicest urn." (Mitford, 116)
-"A major reason for the existence of most professional organizations is the maintenance of standards of ethical practice among its members, and the discipline of members who deviate from these standards. Here the NFDA [national funeral directors association] is in some difficulty, because the practices that have led to the severest public criticism-tricky selling methods and overcharging-are nowhere condemned in the official policy pronouncements."
(Mitford, 160)
-"Minimum services of the funeral director and staff. This fee for put basic services and overhead will be added to the total cost of the funeral arrangements you have decided upon. (Mitford, 198)
Analysis:
While what cemetery owners and funeral directors are wrong, it is becoming to make more and more sense to me. Everybody had to eat. They see this growing market with easy profits, they get involved. Now I'm not saying morally what they're doing is right, but it is a good business decision. You see the opportunity to achieve, you take that opportunity. That's why people say America is so special, because there are "opportunities". So when one is presented in front of you, why not take it? It seems like a horrible thing to do, but then again these people in the business of death have no personal connection with the person that died, or the family paying them. The only personal connection they make is with the money.
I think from what I've learned from this book so far is that this unit is more like the food unit. It reminds me of the food unit because it talks about individual gain for profit. The funeral homes are like the farms where it was just cows packed into a pen. The funeral directors and cemetery owners don't really care how the body is treated as long they're making maximum profit at minimal cost to themselves. In this part of the book it really goes in depth on this idea, as the cremation rate rises, so does the prices and designs of urns.