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Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

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Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#231

Post by cindyllm »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #228
komali2 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yes, I am intentionally not being specific and leaving room for assumption. One thing I've consistently noticed about these kinds of conversations is that people want to be allowed to share racist opinions without suffering the social consequences of sharing racist opinions, but in order to do so they have to hide their true values by masking their language and not actually say anything that has any meaning. I…

Lol, and that's exactly why I worded it the way I did. As far are I'm concerned the "wrong kind of people" are the ones with no real problems and a propensity to make ones by gettin involved in other people's business. The fact that those people are mostly white is just random luck of how history turned out. They show up, they get to screeching in the town hall meetings and before you know it the flock cameras go up,…

[dead]

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#232

Post by BobaFloutist »

3RTB297 wrote: post #176
madradavid wrote: post #142

I am Ugandan. These kind of burials are unheard of in my country. The Author is labeling this an “African” thing which is just the usual daft nonsense. A number of Ghanaian and Nigerian tribes bury their dead like this , it is more a celebration of life. This is like taking something a small town in Louisiana does and declaring it an “American” tradition.

1 million% agree - I've lived in Ghana and a number of other countries in West and Southern Africa. I've sadly attended many funerals in each place. These photos that visually drive the sense of opulence are entirely of Ghanaian fantasy coffins. I've only ever attended Ghanaian funerals with regular square coffins, and makers of fantasy coffins are rare, as is their use. Primarily by Ga people, who because they are f…

To be fair, I can imagine a pretty parallel article "Americans are spending a fortune on weddings" that does not include the case of a courthouse wedding or a backyard wedding and in fact mostly discusses a few idiots with more millions of dollars than IQ points in the Hamptons or equivalent.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#233

Post by watwut »

tim-projects wrote: post #182
jillesvangurp wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social pressure to do stuff like this is enormous in some families. It's not necessarily about the subjects (deceased person or the newly wedded couple) but about re-affirming the status of their relatives. Arguably the dead don't really care. But their nearest relatives definitely do care how they are perceived to be dealing with the death of the deceased. It underlines their importance and status. People come to "p…

> In many cultures it used to be (or still is) quite common to treat brides as property. Property is not the right word for this. Responsibility is the right word. When a bride price is paid, you give money (or goods) to the family. In return the responsibility of the care of the woman is passed down. This is not a traditional monetary style transaction in the way it appears. In practice, a lot of families that accep…

Property is the right word. If it was you taking on responsibility, they would be giving you salary.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#234

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

kennyadam wrote: post #213
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll just mention that when my mom was starting to deteriorate, my dad hired a healthcare advocate and set up legal authorities such that if he was incapacitated when mom needed medical decisions in hospice, or logistical details about funeral arrangements, the advocate could represent what mom and dad had discussed prior as their wishes. Then, a year or so after my mom passed it became clear dad was heading that way…

Are you able to share any details about how you found the healthcare advocate or who I could talk to about it? It's just me and my dad now with some of my cousins between 2 and 4 hours away, so when my dad is on his way out I'm quite anxious about dealing with it all and have basically no money. We ended up using the Co-op to cremate my mum, skipping any funeral services and going with the most basic offerings and it…

Dad found her through his church.

My impression from talking with her is that this is a relatively new and uncommon concept in the industry, but one that is growing.

Another big benefit is having someone who can help with the insurance companies. Thankfully that wasn't an issue with my dad, but I saw how bad it can be with my roommate when his dad went into a care home. Not just Kafka-esque but cravenly maliciously so.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#235

Post by BobaFloutist »

nostrademons wrote: post #115
kenferry wrote: post #46

The factual material about funeral spending costs is very interesting, but when it gets into "Kinship societies are wealth-destroying societies" it seems rather… unsupported? That's a sweeping statement that actually requires understanding the whole picture, and the whole picture is not being presented. Is there reason to think the author truly has all the context to make these claims?

On a factual level the relationship between kinship societies and economic headwinds is fairly well documented [1] [2]. The mechanism is the same reason that communist/socialist societies often fail: when wealth belongs to everyone, nobody has either the incentive or the means to accumulate wealth, which prevents capital formation within the society [3]. The part that the article glosses over is that "Kinship societi…

>And this is why the fertility rate in every major industrialized country has cratered, usually right as it industrializes.

I'm pretty sure it's actually because industrialization is upstream of the education and supply chains to make hormonal birth control widely available, and being pregnant and giving birth is an incredibly challenging, risky, and frequently unpleasant burden that's only shouldered by half our population.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#237

Post by HKH2 »

abenga wrote: post #180
HKH2 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how all the mental overhead of modern multicultural living can make you happier either.

Really? Having other cultures around you makes one unhappy now?

Not being as happy and being unhappy are not the same.

Regardless, you should read Robert Putnam's essay, E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century (2007). He makes it clear that social trust goes down because of it.

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#238

Post by komali2 »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #228
komali2 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yes, I am intentionally not being specific and leaving room for assumption. One thing I've consistently noticed about these kinds of conversations is that people want to be allowed to share racist opinions without suffering the social consequences of sharing racist opinions, but in order to do so they have to hide their true values by masking their language and not actually say anything that has any meaning. I…

Lol, and that's exactly why I worded it the way I did. As far are I'm concerned the "wrong kind of people" are the ones with no real problems and a propensity to make ones by gettin involved in other people's business. The fact that those people are mostly white is just random luck of how history turned out. They show up, they get to screeching in the town hall meetings and before you know it the flock cameras go up,…

This is so bizarre, your initial comment comes off like the typical "crime is because diversity" people, but it sounds like you have some kind of class conscious issue with affordability?

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#239

Post by kingofmen »

card_zero wrote: post #156
kingofmen wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consumer spending is not "wealth destruction" -- who makes the fantasy coffins? Who prints the banners? Local businesses! If the local businesses were instead being hired to dig holes and fill them up again... oh wait, they literally are, except they're also instructed to make very elaborate artworks and put them in the holes before shoveling in the dirt. Anyway: Can you please examine the movement of real resource…

There's no good way to measure wealth creation. If people are getting what they want - if there's no extra government tax them to pay for the digging and re-filling of holes, but it's all done freely, out of desire to have it done - then it might be of some value, because they think it is. We can say "but it plainly isn't purposeful", but the same applies to pets, vacations, every kind of art and craft, fancy cuisine…

> If people are getting what they want

"If".

It appears (from this article, I haven't done any exhaustive research) that when the Ghanaians have the option of hiding money from their families and from the funeral expenses, they exercise that option with flair and alacrity. That suggests that they are not getting what they want out of this whole digging activity. And while we cannot read off what is best in life from the stars or the mountains, we can have a look at what people do when they are free to choose without social pressure. It does rather appear that most humans who are free to choose would rather have washing machines and cars than elaborate funerals. Were it not so, then presumably the funerals of the West, wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, would drastically outshine what the poverty-stricken Ghanaians can manage. Where are our burials IN SPACE? Our cremation rockets fired into the Sun, "from stardust you came, to stardust your return"? Why do we not hold weeks of elaborate mourning, with professional poets (or rappers if you prefer) hired to extol the virtues of the deceased and laws about "funeral leave" allowing us to sit idle?

Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead

#240

Post by selimthegrim »

asadm wrote: post #230
selimthegrim wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Muslims are also obliged to attend funerals - that goes double in Punjab for someone in your biradari.

obliged = attend funeral prayer at local mosque + help in burial. essentially free.

Yes, that's what I meant.
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