Is Seneca's belief wrong?
Seneca says that we should not grieve excessively. While you may wonder why we grieve, it is because death is a natural thing we should all be aware of. When death does happen, grieve as little as possible to cope with losing a loved one. In doing so, our lives will be remarkably better than they are while grieving.
According to Seneca, anything we say or do that involves grief, is not good. He goes on later to say that the death of a child is not worse than the death of an old person. How could someone contradict the societal norm by saying something like that, when we all freak out over the death of a younger child? He also claims that people are foolish and ungrateful for the time we did get to spend with our lost loved one.
I believe Seneca to be wrong in all his claims. This is because we can not put a timer on how long we grieve. Everyone is different in the way and time in which they grieve. To say we should not grieve excessively, is bleak, because all of his claims are difficult to agree with. When Seneca said that the death of a child is no worse than the death of an old person, I strongly disagree with his statement because it doesn't matter who or how old, we will all feel pain and emotional distress form losing this special someone.
Grieving is all part of being human and showing emotion. We cry or show anger as a way to portray how hurt we feel over the death of someone we love. It's a part of an important healing process that we collectively will experience at least once in our lives.
It is normal for there to be criticism and to say that Seneca is right in his belief. An argument for this, would be that grieving less helps us to become better people. By recognizing and understanding how life works and what is to come, we will be mentally and physically prepared for the death of a loved one. Also, by saying yes to grieving less, we think about ourselves more and how much we've been able to achieve in our lives. By doing this, we will then focus on more gains we can accomplish, and therefore, making our lives more meaningful.
According to Seneca, anything we say or do that involves grief, is not good. He goes on later to say that the death of a child is not worse than the death of an old person. How could someone contradict the societal norm by saying something like that, when we all freak out over the death of a younger child? He also claims that people are foolish and ungrateful for the time we did get to spend with our lost loved one.
I believe Seneca to be wrong in all his claims. This is because we can not put a timer on how long we grieve. Everyone is different in the way and time in which they grieve. To say we should not grieve excessively, is bleak, because all of his claims are difficult to agree with. When Seneca said that the death of a child is no worse than the death of an old person, I strongly disagree with his statement because it doesn't matter who or how old, we will all feel pain and emotional distress form losing this special someone.
Grieving is all part of being human and showing emotion. We cry or show anger as a way to portray how hurt we feel over the death of someone we love. It's a part of an important healing process that we collectively will experience at least once in our lives.
It is normal for there to be criticism and to say that Seneca is right in his belief. An argument for this, would be that grieving less helps us to become better people. By recognizing and understanding how life works and what is to come, we will be mentally and physically prepared for the death of a loved one. Also, by saying yes to grieving less, we think about ourselves more and how much we've been able to achieve in our lives. By doing this, we will then focus on more gains we can accomplish, and therefore, making our lives more meaningful.
I agree both with parts of your argument as well as parts of Seneca's argument. I do believe that some grieving of the dead should take place when someone who is close to you passes on. However, I also agree with Seneca's point of view that people are ungrateful for the time they get with the people they love. There is always someone else who's time with someone they love is even shorter than yours, so who is anybody to complain about the time they get with somebody they care about. It is ungrateful to complain about this sort of thing because time above anything else is unbiased and unprejudiced.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your argument against Seneca. It is true that grieving is a grueling process that takes time. Unfortunately, not everyone grieves the same. If everyone were to grieve for a short amount of time, then Seneca would be right about the proper way to grieve. Seneca says that we should not grieve excessively because it seems as if we are just seeking attention. Grieving less would let us become better people since it allows us to focus less on our dead loved one and focus on ourselves.
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