Ask Lemmy

I'm inclined to treat the body with what I would call "professionalism". You are not emotionally attached beyond the desire to do your job well. Though I am not opposed to some people getting a burial at sea. The better for them to be forgotten.

Is desecrating their corpse going to deter them from further bad actions in the future? No? Then let's not.

I personally don't even know how to answer this question myself. Like the funeral isn't even for the dead. Its for the living.

You are exactly on the right track.

It is only for the living. The dead one is not affected in any way anymore, whatever you do.

So to me, the question seems like, should the relatives of a bad person be allowed to see the corpse treated respectfully.

Turn the question around and it becomes easy:

Should the relatives of a bad person get punished along with him? Obviously not. They deserve the full, normal respect. So let them have the burial as they wish it.

Odd thing to fixate on, but yes. We ought to spend our energy on the terrible people still alive. Who cares what they do to the demon husks once they can’t hurt anyone anymore? Bury it with flowers and fireworks for all I care. Let’s focus on the suffering of the living.

Bury them as soon as they are convicted.

Yes. No exception. Period.

Because the burial is not for the dead themselves, but for anyone left behind.

No matter how vile a person is, it's likely that they had at least a person or two who miss them.

Volunteers among both their loved ones and their victims should vote on every aspect of it. /j

I don't have an opinion on that, but I do think they don't deserve us to call them by their names. Having their name go down in history is what they want — referring to them descriptively (eg. 'the tyrant who took over Nazi Germany') takes the focus away from the person and puts it on their horrible actions – which anyone with those traits, not necessarily just A**** ****** could have done.

As long as I get my dumpster burial I think even bad people can have the burial of their dreams.

There was a serial paedophile killer in the UK who killed (after doing other things) someone I know's daughter. When he died, he was cremated and dumped in the ocean in an undisclosed location from a boat. This was only released after the fact.

If you dig up a skeleton, can you tell if that person was evil or charitable in his lifetime? We're all merely copies of each other and are equally capable of all the good and all the bad in the world depending on our individual circumstances and upbringings. Nothing is black and white and everything is gray. You'd be Putin too if you were in his shoes.

nah

there's a huge debate on what "bad" means.

but if we skip that and just single out an opinion, like for my opinion, the dead bad person isn't affecting me anymore so I just let it go.

should the relatives of a bad person be allowed to see the corpse treated respectfully

good question. afaik, i haven't heard of countries or governments trying to own corpses.
... i was wrong