Further Anatomical Musings

[muninnhuginn]

The Japanese having had the Bodyworlds exhibition before we did, have another anatomical exhibit doing the rounds as reported in The Japan Times (incidentally, isn't it interesting how such exhibitions tour so much of Japan, mainly due to its size we guess, but maybe we really are stuck in our collective London-centric rut: Bodyworlds in Edinburgh would have been a fascinating happening). What's most interesting about this article is the comments made on potential donation of one's corpse. Early in the article we get the comment:

"While few Japanese seem to harbor any ethical concerns over the exhibit, European religious groups and individuals have both criticized and questioned similar shows organized by plastination pioneer von Hagens that have been touring the world since 1997, according to media reports. [...] Many European skeptics say that exhibiting actual bodies damages their sanctity, while some question whether the donors really gave their approval to have their bodies displayed in this manner."

So we Westerners sometimes, for religious reasons, apparently believe that the human body is sacred. Can't argue with that, tho' it's not something we feel ourselves. We'd happily donate. Later comes this statement:

"But amid the controversy during von Hagens' Berlin exhibit in 2001, as many as five people a day offered to donate their bodies, according to media reports. In Japan, only one person -- a veterinarian -- said on the event's Web site that the exhibition made her consider doing this."

So, if we don't object to the entire concept on religious grounds, we Westerners are happy to contemplate posthumous (tho' of course it wouldn't be so literally speaking) participation; the Japanese are not.

Why? we wonder. Another quote:

"Kiroku Echizen, a professor of religion at Tokyo's Sophia University, said he believes Japanese feel attachment to their bodies because of the religious and cultural background that shapes their concept of life after death.
He maintained that while many Westerners may have no qualms about donating their bodies, as they see them as mere containers of the soul, Japanese view the afterlife as "an ideal version of current life" and feel that their bodies accompany them into the world beyond death."

To the eyes of a Japanese professor of religion our belief in the soul is what makes us readier to contemplate body donation. Yet, those folk most likely to believe in the soul are presumably the same religious folk who would object to the practice. (We're perhaps being a little unfair here, since the argument's muddied by the controversy about the "art" element in the Bodyworlds exhibition, as opposed the educational science.) The ravens do not believe they have a soul, certainly not as something separable from our body but that makes us neither less not more keen on the notion of having our body parts used by someone else or dissected or displayed after death.

It's interesting to note how the notion that their "bodies accompany them [the Japanese] into the world beyond death" mirrors the idea of a physical resurrection at the Last Trump that was a stronger part of Christian belief in the past than it is now: contributing to the burning of offenders; and the need to bury amputated limbs so as to allow complete reassembly on the day of judgment. Evidently, when one looks at something like the Alder Hay cases, it's a belief we somehow haven't quite grown away from. Maybe what all this points up is that, despite the attempt to indicate a difference in Western and Eastern beliefs, what the article actually shows is that we all seem to suffer from the same confusion about body and "soul" and about the appropriate treatment of cadavers. We're not so different, after all.

We're left, however, with an uneasy feeling about these comments:

"Go Matsuo, 31, said he could never consider donating a body, be it his or a relative's, for such a purpose.
"When my mother mentioned something like that, I couldn't accept it," he said. "Although I feel guilt, I am actually relieved to hear the bodies (here) are not Japanese." "

The implication is that it's OK if it's some other nationality or culture (the two being closely linked here). Back to Prof Echizen:

"We know it's a good thing (to donate one's body for medicine), but culture works unconsciously. [...] Without knowing why, many Japanese find it difficult to accept that the body of another Japanese, sharing the same culture, may be among those displayed in the exhibit."

I'm not certain that would be such a important factor in Western objections, would it? The ravens weren't bothered by the evident white European-ness of the exhibits at Bodyworlds.

Hmm. Cultural difference.

As an aside, we find--oddly--that we now remember the Bodyworlds exhibition with the same faint recollection of the smell of preserving fluids that we have when recalling dissections in school Biology lessons. This is in spite of the fact that we found one of the most startling aspects to the exhibition to be the lack of smell. Strange thing, memory.

Comments

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

My friend Catmunk, who lives in London, went to see the exhibition with his partner, and he says he remembers a faint scent as of decomposing flesh... which he agreed afterwards must have been hallucination, though it didn't strike him as such at the time.

(I don't know whether I would have gone or not. Probably not, unless it had occurred to me to "challenge" my ability to do so...)

[muninnhuginn]

I'm sure any smell was imagined. The lack of smell, and of course anything ressembling bodily fluids (since they've all been replaced by plastic), was quite strange.

I would so loved to have seen the exhibition in the town associated with Burke and Hare.