Marketing Death

Well, I’m not surprised. As Joe mentioned last week , the death salesman who created the exhibitions of human bodies is now putting up his specially prepared cadavers up for sale .

Gunther von Hagens came up with techniques for extracting fluids and fatty flesh from dead bodies that are subsequently preserved with a plastic material. He puts these bodies on display. Initially, this violation of respect for the remains of the dead was justified with a pseudo-scientific rationale, but fairly quickly it became what it always was—an entrepreneurial endeavor designed to capitalize on our prurient fascination with death.

As evidence of where this was always heading, consider a recent exhibition in Berlin— dead bodies in sexual positions .

In antiquity, Longinus distinguished between the beautiful and the sublime. The beautiful caresses us with harmony and balance, while the sublime compels and awes us with power and majesty. During the Enlightenment, a great deal was written about this distinction, because philosophers were struck by the power of nature—the raging storms, the cascading waterfalls, the riot of groaning ice the clung to the sides of fearsome mountains.

To a great extent, culture drapes and decorates, not only with clothes, but also with ideals and principles. It seems to me that the body exhibitions reflect the general trend of postmodern societies. We no longer feel the power of beauty, because we don’t believe in the principles that bring harmony to life. As a result, we look to the sublime for transcendence, the most supreme form of which is death, followed at a distance by our urgent sexual instincts. It’s not an accident that von Hagen combines both in his recent exhibition.

The triumph of the sublime is nearly complete in many circles. I’m fairly certain that in this decade we will see “performance artists” killing themselves. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there is a special event in Berlin in the next few years when a terminally ill person who has chosen to die will be killed on stage, and then dissected by von Hagen or someone like him.

Eventually, there will be auction at which people can buy the “right” to kill those who have volunteered, accentuating to a very powerful degree the sublime experience of beholding death. Then von Hagen will preserve the body, and the rich person who bought the opportunity to kill we be able to take home his trophy.

These “performances” and “entrepreneurial opportunities” are not beyond the human imagination. The ancient world specialized in such spectacles. We presently have plenty of sophisticated and highly realistic computer games that simulate exactly these sorts of experiences. And Damion Hirst’s diamond encrusted skull shows us that there is already a very lucrative market for the sublime power of death.

Yes, if you think you detect a gloomy tone in this posting, then your correct. I take small consolation in reminding myself that every society suffers from sicknesses and perversions.