Why MUST respect be shown for the dead?

Tehachapi

I am referring of course to the death of Jackass star Ryan Dunn on this thread - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056304477

Which has led to me being banned from the "After Hours" forum, for stating he was driving at 180km/h while drunk, endangering the public and subsequently killing his passenger along with himself. I made the point that if he killed your son/daughter/brother/sister/etc in the process would you still feel the need to show decency and express condolences in RIP threads- is it fair that saying anything but "RIP you were a hero!!" is punishable by a ban from the forum?

Is this "hush hush" attitude partly to blame for people carrying on with such idiotic behaviour? Knowing they or their families/friends/etc have nothing to worry about as nothing bad is allowed to be said against them after death, regardless of their harmful actions during life?

Standman

There's a time and a place for criticism, and an RIP thread obviously isn't the place for it.

Turtwig

I might be wrong but I didn't see much respect for Osama Bin Laden. Obviously it's a culture thing, whether rightly or wrongly.

chalkitdown

It's probably founded in superstition.

Ickle Magoo

I don't think it's a case that respect MUST be shown for the dead, after all there are plenty of sites that give no such respect the living or dead...surely the knack is knowing which sites such humour/comments are appreciated and which aren't?

Denerick

I don't think respect comes into it; its just a little unseemly to be anything other than courteous and respectful of the (recently) dead. They tend to get a few years grace, then people can start laying into them again (Think of Pope John Paul II - there are still those who say he should be a saint but most reasonable people would be horrified by his handling of child sexual abuse)

southsiderosie

Given the recent debates over RIP threads in the Politics forum, I've been asking myself the same question lately.

I can't imagine that this attitude affect the behavior of people while they are living, or encourages them to act boorishly; it seems to be more of a response to protect the bereaved from what they probably already know.

My impression is this is a very Irish phenomenon, particularly when it comes to public figures. I feel like in the US, there is a much more frank assessment of the life and death of public figures at their time of death than there is in Ireland - the 'cooling off' period on Boards (as a reflection of Irish culture) seems to be a lot longer than major US media outlets. Even heavily moderated websites like the NY Times allow for negative commentary on the passing of a public figure. Maybe it is because Ireland is such a small country and there seems to be two degrees of separation between people, but from an outside perspective it at times seems to veer towards the hypocritical.

Rubik.

southsiderosie wrote: »

My impression is this is a very Irish phenomenon, particularly when it comes to public figures.

I would think it's a fairly universal custom.

De mortuis nihil nisi bonum - Of the dead speak kindly or not at all.

Permabear

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