Why Shouldn't We Speak Ill of the Dead?

In a court of law, the final summing up is usually the most important aspect of a grand trial.  The jury will have sat through reams of evidence and testimonies. Now it's the turn of the prosecution and defense to help those present to make sense of it all.

It's a quirk of psychology that the last words spoken are those most keenly recalled. They can sway an opinion far better than the opening lines.

Thus it is with a life and posthumous reputation.  At the final reckoning, it's the words spoken in the eulogy which count more than a whole life-time lived. Those are what onlookers will remember.

It's a time for judgement, which comes when there's no more life left to redeem or tarnish a reputation. It was the actions while living which counted, not the death. We all die. It's the nature of our existence that we eventually end. Our legacy is then in the hands of those we left behind.

Of course, there's a mad scramble then to secure the memories.  Those deemed beyond the pale of society - serial killers and war criminals - will have their crimes picked over publicly, with gleeful abandon. Those who achieved great good are elevated to the level of gods or saints.

But most people aren't like that.  We tend to live ordinary lives, in a narrow world, with both good and bad meaning not much at the end of the day. The families that love us have that old fall back to safeguard our reputations, 'You shouldn't speak ill of the dead.'  They are in mourning, therefore they have the tendency to forgive and forget all little blips on our character. Thus we pass into the next life almost universally blameless.

Then you get the public figures, those who represented something much bigger than themselves. Their agencies may still be large and strong, demanding that a reputation be glowing, not for the love of the deceased, but for the brand or institution left behind. 

See here the polarizing effect on British society, current at the time of writing, caused by the death of Margaret Thatcher.  The Conservative Party goes on. It does not wish to have a succession of past policies and actions picked over now in anger and bitterness. It has its current reputation to polish into perfection. It wants us to recall a former leader as someone who saved Britain, changed Britain for the better, strode like a colossus on the world stage.

It's not about Thatcher necessarily.  It's about a public being reminded and the impact that could have on the party's present aspirations.  Therefore the most often heard phrase leveled at all detractors is that old fall back, 'You shouldn't speak ill of the dead'.  But why not?

Respect in death should be earned in life. By not speaking ill of the dead, if such sentiments were deserved, then we collude in a whitewash.

We all want to be understood.  We want everyone to remember us fondly, particularly once we're dead and buried.  We want our lives to have meant something, and that thing to be quite wonderful.

Which is all a bit of a shame, if people are allowed to say what they will, once we've gone. We can't stand up and defend ourselves.  If it's their word against ours, and their word is the only one heard, then our reputation is irrevocably slandered.

Take Richard III.  His legacy was in the hands of the Tudor dynasty, which had an active interest in ensuring he was thought about badly.  It's been proven that a portrait of him was altered to make him look evil. The Tudors were aided and abetted by Shakespeare, who dramatized Richard as a villain.

Add into the mix a carefully fostered rumor that Richard III killed the Princes in the Tower and it was all over for him.  Forget what Richard was really like, in the public memory, he was the darkest monarch ever to have taken the English crown. Aren't we glad that the Tudors saved us?

The example of Richard is one of the biggest reasons why we cling to the belief that no-one should speak ill of the dead.  Yes, there's an element of wishing our loved ones to be remembered fondly.  But mostly, we know that our time will come too.

The dead aren't here to defend themselves.  It's up to their supporters to do it for them. But doubt can always be cast and who can speak of truths without the evidence? 

But then again, is that any reason to say nothing bad at all?  Sometimes there are victims, who are having to live with the damage wrought.  They could really do with the dialogue right around now.

Many years ago, I was speaking with two elderly relatives about family history. As they gave me facts and recounted stories, I took notes.

They could see names being recorded in our genealogy, all given equal weight of importance, as they took their places according to blood-lines. Innocuous, and somewhat bland, unless a tidbit about them enriched their entry in the family tree.

Suddenly my great-auntie burst out an accusation, "He was a right 'un!" She looked shaken by having said it, so full of bitter emotion. 

Her cousin looked shocked and spoke with a hint of reproval, "Now come on, it was a long time ago."

It certainly was. According to my newly scribbled notes, the individual had been dead for nearly seventy years. But my great-auntie could see his name nestling alongside her mother, her grandmother, his siblings and his wife. The proximity was more than she could bear, when they were all being treated the same, in a document which was being carried forward. She and her cousin were the last people alive who'd known him.  They were the last ones to know what he was really like.

"He beat his wife, you know.  And his mother! My Nan used to hear him coming home from the pub. He had to pass her house to get to his own. She used to blow out the candle and hide behind the settee, until he was gone. Then his wife would get it instead!"

Her cousin tutted, "She doesn't want to know all this."

I did and I should. My great-auntie had grasped the situation perfectly.  I was the family historian and whatever I wrote down now became the truth.  It would potentially be read by all generations to come. Why should a man like that be rendered blameless, by sheer dint of having decayed?

"But your grandad laid him out." My great-auntie concluded triumphantly. "He walked in and caught him belting his wife one day.  So your grandad punched him out stone cold."  There was a sweet satisfaction in that smile. There was the knowledge that this was also being added to the record. Her brother, my grandfather, had the courage to stand up to such a man.

Everyone in this story was deceased, but there were truths aching to be told. My great-auntie had waited seven decades biting her tongue, not wishing to speak ill of the dead. But now she'd gained retribution on behalf of her own auntie and grandmother. She'd had the final word, and every generation hereon would know it.