The Death System According to Robert Kastenbaum

Abstract

This article focuses on Robert Kastenbaum's seminal concept of the societal death system. Beginning with conflicting claims that America is a death-denying society versus a death-accepting society, the article reports Kastenbaum's definition and description of the death system in American society and sets forth the seven functions and five elements or components of that death system. Next, the article notes Kastenbaum's further claim that “All cultures, past and present, have had death systems.” Finally, two basic lessons are drawn from the foregoing: (1) Kastenbaum's concept of the death system provides a robust framework to explain the networks societies interpose between their members and death, focusing in particular on a more or less integrated and dynamic network within American society whose functions and components are not difficult to recognize in the ways in which they organize many aspects of the lives of individuals who live within that society; and (2) It is preposterous to assert without qualification that America is a death-denying society when there are so many activities and components within that society that are in whole or in part related to death, i.e., although it may be true that many aspects of the contemporary American death system appear to seek to remove death from the mainstream of life, there is ample evidence to indicate that American society as a whole and individuals within that society both accept and deny death simultaneously.