Accepting Human Mortality: Ecclesiastes vs. Dylan Thomas
From a materialist realist point of view, Ecclesiastes is preferable to Dylan Thomas’ famous poem about death. Let us recap before dissection.
From Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.”
On the other hand, from Dylan Thomas:
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
So, what are we to do? Ecclesiastes holds we should accept the turn, turn, turn, whilst Thomas thinks we should “rage” against all our eventual destructions that are normally caused by Nature herself.
We fully understand where Thomas is coming from. Death is horrendous. It might be a parent, a partner, a friend, someone you don’t know who we also feel for through the news, or at worst, the death of a child. So should we “rage” against death itself?
From a materialist realist point of view, Ecclesiastes is correct. We should not rage. We should see it as natural.
Absolutely everything in the universe has a birth, a life of sorts, a process of decay, and a death. Nothing is fixed. Thomas wants to assume things ought to be fixed, else there are no grounds for his rage.
But if things were fixed, think about it, there would be no passage of time. Time by necessity must involve a relation of cause and effect. Indeed, and much worse, there could be no life in the first place. Nothing at all could happen. If the universe was static, if nothing ever changed, it is obvious there could be no production of new life through reproduction. Dig deeper: there could be no life for anyone at all. In a universe without the passing of time, there could be no events taking place, thus, no experience of life could take place. And without the genesis of your own being brought into life, no-one would be alive. A universe without time is not a universe, it is an absence of universe. It is absolute nothingness. Thomas’ ideal appears to be the obliteration of all reality.
So, we have to accept the message of Ecclesiastes instead. The fact is that death is part of life. Indeed, it probably does mean its terminus. However, in a world that is naturally structured to be without death, nothing could occur. Without death, there is no life. If we are to value life, therefore, we have to accept the coming of death. Mourn for sure, indeed mourn like hell for those who pass, but accept the naturalness of what has happened, and through accepting that naturalness, gain strength. For a universe without death is a universe without life. That is not something we should rage against, and if you do attempt to rage against it, you will develop serious mental health issues. Do not rage, accept. Humanity is part of nature. Nature is part of the universe. The universe involves ongoing processes of birth, life, decay, death of every entity within it. Reality and life require this to be the case. It could not be otherwise. Do not rage against it, but seize every day with joy and love and forgiveness. Because it could have not been otherwise were the things we really value to come into existence at all.
barryessex 