Violence done to those who are less than: social death, dementia, and the role of the family
Friday, October 13, 2023
8:00 AM – 9:15 AM ET
Location: Atlantic (Third Floor)
At the end of his book Negative Dialectics, Theodore Adorno makes the case that society has only bred individuals unconscious to the nature of their own death. Adorno views this through the lens of after-Auschwitz, claiming that the horrific events have bred a mechanistic view of dying today, we as individuals have become unable to come to terms with our death. This view is not far off from where we are today. As a society, we assume that quality of life is determined by able-bodied factors, or a “normal” functioning human being, leaving many individuals like dementia patients at the outskirts of this. In this way, either psychologically, mentally, or physically, someone can be deemed as losing themselves. However, this can be redeemed by familial based care approaches to patients with dementia. In distancing from the either/or apporach to families helps recognize not only the family’s role but also providing support in processing what the best care directives are for the patient. In this paper, I will begin to frame the problem from the societal level, using Adorno’s framework to break down how society is structured. I will then go into the work done to date on societal death, and extract how this does not only cause a “premature” death for patients with dementia, but also for those who are not meeting able bodied functions. Lastly, I will discuss the practical application in the clinical setting of familial-based patient center care approaches.