Why do we so often mythologize the dead?

[Dexter Sinister]

June 6th as I start this, the 67th anniversary of D-Day, and once again one of my relatives has posted on Facebook a false claim about another relative--her grandfather, father-in-law to one of my brothers--jumping out of an airplane in the dark over occupied France on this day 67 years ago. He was indeed a member of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, he did indeed see combat, but he wasn't with the unit on D-Day when it was dropped east of the Orne River to defend the left flank of the invasion beaches. His baptism of fire happened on March 23rd 1945, when the unit jumped into a wooded area east of the Rhine to secure a bridgehead against German artillery and reinforcements and protect the Allied crossing. He fought with the battalion across the north German plain and ended up at Wismar on the Baltic in May 1945, two hours ahead of the advancing Soviet army, six days before the war in Europe officially ended. I know all that from his own mouth, my wife and one of her brothers confirm the story, as does his service record, he wasn't there on D-Day.

His service record speaks for itself, it needs no embellishment, and I think getting such details wrong dishonours his memory. She's made this claim and been corrected at least four times that I know of, yet she keeps making it. I haven't corrected her Facebook post, a few years ago I corrected the same claim on her blog and was met with such hostility and abuse from her and her siblings and their father that I deem it not worth trying anymore. How the Hell does such mythology get established, and why does it persist in the face of all the evidence? Don't the facts matter? These people aren't stupid, most have advanced degrees, in fact one of them's an historian, who KNOWS the facts matter. What's going on here?

 

[cranky]

Would you agree that there is no intent to dishonour his memory? maybe you could see the good intentions behind an inacurate story, especially if that would help you find new apreciation for the living.

 

[Retired_Can_Soldier]

We have become a society that wants to be a part of a bigger story. Sadly, embellishment is a part of that. Interactive social network sites are breeding grounds for this sort of behavior.

 

[relic]

So BS is fine as long as you mean well ?? No wonder harper got a majority.

 

[Retired_Can_Soldier]

So BS is fine as long as you mean well ?? No wonder harper got a majority.

Who are you talking to? Better yet, what are you talking about? Is it possible to keep your politics and other discussions separate or do you interject into an entertainment thread to make a Harper comparison as well?

Sheesh.

 

[karrie]

Why do we mythologize the dead? So that people who didn't even know them will mourn along with us. It's a psychological strategy to justify our mourning. If even someone who doesn't know them is saddened at having lost such a great person, then the depths to which we miss and mourn them make sense. We don't really mean to do it when we ignore the flaws, and even the realities sometimes, that surrounded a person. It just naturally happens. And at some point, people start to suspect that correcting the story is implying the deceased lied to someone about it, so it's just hushed up.

 

[YukonJack]

Some dead are mythologized, but just as many are besmirched, it just depends who writes the history.

 

[lone wolf]

We're all gonna end up there. Sorta nice to think somebody will think good thoughts of us when we're gone....

 

[ironsides]

No one is dishonoring his memory, and nothing I read even came close. What others think of as fact, is just that, what they think. Destroying a family relationship over the story is what is wrong, just not worth it.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

I've come to the conclusion that there are two reasons why this particular man has been mythologized this way. First, he had many major failings as a husband and father, to put it gently, but he was pretty good as a grandfather in the final decade of his life, as long as no responsibility was involved. The story of him on D-Day is told by his grandchildren as if it somehow redeems his failings in the following 60+ years of his life. Second, they associate him falsely with D-Day rather than correctly with the crossing of the Rhine because it's the bigger event. Even people who know almost nothing about WW2 will probably have heard of D-Day, even if only from movies, the Rhine crossing not so much, so the story resonates better with others when it's told about D-Day.

Would you agree that there is no intent to dishonour his memory? .

Absolutely, but intentions aren't the point. I think the truth matters, and I think one of the best things we can do to honour the memories of those who served is to take pains to get the details right.

 

[Retired_Can_Soldier]

Absolutely, but intentions aren't the point. I think the truth matters, and I think one of the best things we can do to honour the memories of those who served is to take pains to get the details right.

The Truth does matter Dexter, I agree, especially when it comes to matters of service.

There was a story going around about one of my great Uncle's being killed in the first war where in he threw himself upon a potato masher [grenade] to save his buddies. When I researched this age old story through the war diaries I discovered two things. First he was killed by an artillery round while acting as a stretcher bearer. Secondly, he was marked as an unknown in France. We had that corrected and the true story is told to this day, but as to whether the myth surrounding his death lingers I cannot say.

My guess is that your relative is embellishing more for her own, than the memory of her Grandfather. It sounds to me like he was an honourable soldier who served the Country well.

 

[cranky]

Dexter Sinister;1437507]

Absolutely, but intentions aren't the point. I think the truth matters, and I think one of the best things we can do to honour the memories of those who served is to take pains to get the details right.[/QUOTE]

Your point was not lost on me. I agree that the truth matters and his record is very admireable without embelishing it. Forgive me for jumping to a secondary point without letting you know this first.

I just wanted to address your view of your relatives that obviously dont want to concede to your point. Are you looking for reasons to forgive them? Then i think their intentions might help you do that.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

I just wanted to address your view of your relatives that obviously dont want to concede to your point. Are you looking for reasons to forgive them? Then i think their intentions might help you do that.

Forgiveness doesn't enter into it, it's not like they've committed some offense against me. I admit to a little indignation over their responses when they get corrected, but if they were right their responses would be reasonable. They think they are, despite having ready access to the real facts in the man's service records. But they're wrong, and I'd prefer them to get it right, the true story is a better memorial to the man than the romanticized fiction they're promoting.

And you can call me Dexter, or Dex, no need to use the whole handle every time.

 

[EagleSmack]

It's not just the dead... the living do it as well. A pal of mine kept saying he recieved the Bronze Star in Desert Storm and when he continuously rubbed it in I asked to see the certificate. He was in Desert Storm but I knew he didn't get the Bronze Star. It wasn't till he mocked a lower medal that I did recieve as opposed to his supposed bronze star that I confronted him on it. He asked if I was calling him a liar and I simply said...

"You are talking about this Bronze Star, produce the citation. You weren't wearing a Bronze Star at your wedding when there were a number of Army officers there. If I had a Bronze Star I'd pin it on my forehead. Produce the citation or keep your mouth shut."

He then went on to say that he didn't like wearing it.

"You are obligated to wear it if you rate it." I said "Be proud of what you did do and not what you didn't."

He never brought it up again.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

My guess is that your relative is embellishing more for her own, than the memory of her Grandfather. It sounds to me like he was an honourable soldier who served the Country well.

I believe your guess is correct, and he was indeed a good and honourable soldier, according to the men I've met who served with him. You don't get into a parachute battalion unless you're among the best. Unfortunately that's one of the few things in life he was good at. He was probably the worst husband and father I've ever had the misfortune to encounter, utterly irresponsible, emotionally abusive, and unrepentant to the end, a model of how not to do it. One might plausibly argue it was untreated PTSD that messed him up, but that's just a reason, not an excuse. And if that IS the reason, that should be part of the story too, because that makes him a late casualty of WW2.

It's not just the dead... the living do it as well.

Yep, alas, it's even common enough that there's a name for it: confabulation, a fantasy that gets transformed into reality in memory.

 

[EagleSmack]

Yep, alas, it's even common enough that there's a name for it: confabulation, a fantasy that gets transformed into reality in memory.

And it is SO easy to disprove these days. Half the US Navy claims to be SEALs. Well maybe I am embellishing but quite a few do. A new and former collegue of mine was claiming to be a SEAL until I confronted him.

"Hey... I heard you were a SEAL... I was a Marine... where were you stationed?"

"Umm, ahhh... well I wasn't a SEAL but I went to SEAL training."

"Yeah? People around here were saying that you were claiming to be a SEAL. They must have been mistaken. Welcome to the company."

 

[eanassir]

Why people usually plaud rather than they dispraise the dead relatives

It seems a matter of boasting.

The death makes a fear-bearing veil over the dead (this is wrong of course); it is why the dead saints are usually sacred after they die, not during their life.
Because all people know they will die, they respect and fear death and the dead, becuase they know they will go to the same fate.
And it may be a good wisdom : (Remember in particular the good deeds and conduct of your dead relatives)

Because many people feel that the dead are listening to and seeing them; and it is right. So by plauding them, they think they may please them.

"Know, also, that spirits are with us in our houses, basements, shops and mosques; they crowd in every place: seeing our deeds and hearing our words, but we neither see nor hear their words, nor even do we hear their footsteps on the ground.

God - be exalted - said in the Quran 19: 98​

وكَمْ أهْلَكْنا قَبْلَهُمْ مِنْ قَرْنٍ هَلْ تُحِسُّ مِنْهُمْ مِنْ أحَدٍ أو تَسْمَعُ لَهُمْ رِكْزاً ؟​

The explanation:​

( And how many a generation before them [: before your people, Mohammed] have We destroyed! ​

Can you [man] perceive [any movement of] any one of them, or hear from them any foot-fall sound?)​

It means: their footsteps when they walk on the ground."​

The soul after death

 

[HarryB]

I suppose they might do it in order to give much more meaning to a life that, after the war, was a bit of a failure. By claiming a piece of history (D-Day) too they have exalted themselves and their grandfather to new heights because of their ultimately poor opinion of their upbringing, origin, their grandfather, and themselves. If they didn't get much from the old man in life then they'll damn well take whatever reflected glory they can get after his death. Ultimately it is a story they tell themselves in order to be comforted.

Just let it go. You know the truth so just leave these others to their misery. It's pretty unlikely you are going to change them, right? So relax and let them have their fantasy for whatever it is worth to them. They are obviously wounded souls and you are not. Be grateful.

 

[Ariadne]

People mythologize the dead because they are looking for their own identify in their past.

 

[Nuggler]

Some of my relatives went into WW2 on D Day and served the whole time. Some didn't come home. Some who made it were very definitely FUBAR because of the war; some, in spite of it. We mostly acknowledge their contribution on Nov. 11th, each year, but, beyond that............nada.

Your relative is a sick person, seeking to make a silk purse from a piggy's asshole. Let it go................Or, use her for bayonet practice......whatever.