Law-Forums.org

[darce]

Im a big fan of Michael Jackson.I watched his memorial and i just wanted to say that was soooo upseting 4 everone they all cried even i cried. The Issue:
Michael Jackson’s funeral is scheduled to take place today, Tuesday, at Forest Lawn cemetery in the Hollywood Hills. (On a clear day, should there ever be one, you can see the Disney Studios.) By some accounts, his wish to be buried at Neverland Ranch was thwarted by problems with permits and the preferences of some family members. In disposing of their mortal remains, should we defer to what those who are now dead wanted when they were alive?

The Argument:
We should consider but not be bound by the desires of the dead. They are beyond caring what befalls them. Our greater duty is to the living for whom these remains have profound meaning. It is they who must grapple with the ineffable finality of separation, and this physical stuff, this residue of life, can help.

Even acknowledging death can be daunting, a task that can be eased by the presence of the dead. Lincoln’s body was taken by train through 180 cities, from Washington to Springfield, Ill., and removed at each stop so mourners could see it for themselves. Soldiers seek the remains of comrades fallen long ago. (Such efforts are still underway in Vietnam.) Life can seem suspended, death unreal, if a body is not recovered. Homer dramatizes that heart-rending reality in the final book of the “Iliad” when the Trojan king, Priam, risks his life by entering the Greeks’ camp to retrieve the corpse of his son Hector, an act that moves Achilles to tears.

And overpowered by memory
both men gave way to grief. Priam wept freely
for man-killing Hector, throbbing, crouching
before Achilles’ feet as Achilles wept himself

If the demands of the dead conflict with offering solace to those who loved them, we should honor the latter. It is not just life that is for the living; death is for the living.

The law sees it differently. In most states, survivors must abide by the wishes of the dead. When those wishes cannot be established — for example, if there is no will — authority usually passes to the next of kin, often to a spouse (making this a matter of some concern to proponents of gay marriage). Just as you may bequeath your car or your cash, the law allows you to decide what is to be done with your carcass, treating the question as one of property rights, with you as your own property. This is impressive metaphysical sleight of hand but not much good as ethical guidance for the Jackson family.

Religion too speaks, prescribing how to dispose of the dead. Jews, Christians and Muslims often bury; Hindus tend to burn; the Parsis, Zoroastrians residing in India, place their dead on “towers of silence” to be consumed by vultures. (The Parsis now face the problem of a dwindling vulture population.) But the strictures of one faith often contradict those of another — Islam bars cremation; some Christians accept it — and none seem based on firm moral principles that can instruct nonbelievers. All major faiths discourage murder, for example, but many quibble over embalming. What are the Jacksons to do?

Apparently they will consign Michael neither to a pyre nor to a tower of silence but to Neverland Ranch or Forest Lawn — that is, to a vast or a tiny graveyard. Cemeteries are not just storage centers for corpses; they are also places of communion for the living. Most of us know someone, by any measure sane, who finds comfort in visiting a cemetery and speaking to a deceased loved one. Would it matter to those who find surcease in such settings (whether or not they chat with the dead) if the body were not actually there? It would. Highgate would not be Highgate without the physical remains of Karl Marx or George Eliot. Brooklyn’s Green-Wood would be wan and unaffecting without the corpses of Margaret Sanger and Boss Tweed.

There’d be no reason to visit Pere Lachaise if it did not provide a physical link to Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. (Just follow the hideous graffiti to locate the latter.) Communing with the dead, aloud or in silence, is abetted by their presence. This is not to regard Jackson’s body as a public amenity but to acknowledge those who love him as worthy of consideration.

There are other means of communion. Many who cherish the works of a particular writer feel a real connection to the author by visiting his home, that of Charles Dickens or Jane Austen or Samuel Johnson, and no carcass is necessary. These giants are vividly evoked by their furniture, a pen and inkwell, the view from a study window. Even when there is a body, it somehow becomes unimportant. Jefferson is buried at Monticello, but it is his telescope, his rotating bookstand, his mastodon skull (a gift from Lewis and Clark) and, alas, his slave quarters that give us the man. One does not linger at the grave. (At least I did not.)

So it may be for Michael Jackson. If he does not have Jefferson’s stature — who does

[koltin]

Hell ya he's king & always will b king of pop no one can replace him

[bothan]

YES he should be known as "The king of pop"....