Tradition, Modernity, and Postmodernity in Symbolism of Death

Abstract

Serving as replicas of the social structures of communities, cemeteries can be analyzed for the cultural patterns they reflect as an historical record. Currently, American culture, referred to as a postmodern society, is said to be undergoing a disregard for the past, even in death, including the guidance and meanings provided by its social institutions. A case analysis of burial patterns in a 150-year-old public cemetery reveals a decrease in identifications with social institutions and an increase in personal, recreational symbols on gravestones among those buried since 1960. Findings lend evidence supportive of theoretical descriptions of larger trends that place greater emphasis on the self in the present for recent generations, but not supportive of a radical postmodern break with the past. Tradition is continuing in most aspects of burial and most of all in the continuation of the use of burial for the disposition of the dead. Still, the treatment of the dead in America reflects individualizing cultural processes, similarly witnessed in changes in burial practices in other industrialized nations.