Bereaved people resent the dead because the dead abandon them

Evidence

Freud’s theory that belief in ghosts stems from the evil thoughts of living people about the dead, and from the memory of old death wishes, is too limited. Hatred of the dead is made up of envy no less than of a feeling of guilt. The living individual feels deserted and attributes his pain to the dead person who caused this state of affairs. At the stages of humanity in which death appeared as the direct continuation of existence, the desertion in death necessarily seems to be a betrayal, and even the enlightened individual has not completely overcome the old belief. It is not possible for the consciousness to conceive of death as absolute nothingness, since absolute nothingness is inconceivable. If the burden of life weighs on the living, the position of the dead may easily seem preferable. The manner in which many people reorganize their lives after the death of someone close to them as an active cult of the dead, or as rationalized oblivion, is the modern counterpart of the belief in ghosts which lives on in unsublimated form as spiritualism. Only the conscious horror of destruction creates the correct relationship with the dead: unity with them because we, like them, are the victims of the same condition and the same disappointed hope. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 183

Categorization

• XREF: Extends the reader’s existing note that hatred of the dead mixes envy with guilt — an original extension of Freud’s death-wish theory. — connects to: There are no practical reasons to show respect for the dead - you don’t get anything and the person is dead, so it makes no sense — What is the biological logic behind the respect of the dead?; A mother’s unconditional care for her abandoner overrides even the threat of death — , A Year of World Stories, 8422; Forgiving perpetrators can feel like betraying the dead to survivors — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 1314
• QUESTION: The claim that the living envy the dead as escapees from a burdensome life is provocative — worth probing against grief research.
• ADDENDUM: Resonates with ‘On Sacrifice: The Real Kind, with Corpses’ — the relationship with the dead as victims of the same condition echoes sacrifice-as-grief/love framing.

Broader Connections

• A mother’s unconditional care for her abandoner overrides even the threat of death #complicates (0.70) — , A Year of World Stories, 8422