Seats and forms of power- Death as the greatest form of power

Seats and forms of power

Pb: Can we say that death is the strongest form of power?

1-Death, the « great equalizer »

The Dance of Death, is an artistic genre of allegory of the Late Middle Ages on the universality of death:

They show us that no matter one's station in life, the Dance of Death unites all.

The Danse of Death consists of the dead or a personification of death (most of the time skeletons)summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, child or laborer . They were produced as memento mori, to remind people of the fragility of their lives and how no matter how hard they tried, no science or technology could help them escape death.

The famous Totentanz by Bernt Notke in St Mary’s Church, Lübeck, presented the dead dancers as very lively and agile, making the impression that they were actually dancing, whereas their living dancing partners looked clumsy and passive. The apparent class distinction in almost all of these paintings is completely neutralized by Death as the ultimate equalizer, so that a sociocritical element is subtly inherent to the whole genre.

Usually, a short dialogue is attached to each victim, in which Death is summoning him to dance. For example, in the first printed Totentanz textbook

Death addresses, for example:

The emperor:

“Emperor, your sword won't help you out”

This genre shows us that no matter who you are, where you come from or what you did through out your life, death is inevitable. The inevitability of death makes it a strong form of power as it holds control over any living human being.

The Influence of the proximity of death

When any human being starts to feel close to death, they start reacting desperately and this proximity with death holds a huge influence on their behavior.

To illustrate my idea, i chose the example of South Africa in 2001.

In 2001, a myth was spread across South Africa that raping a virgin could « cure » you from Aids.

« An estimated 31 per cent of Nelpruit's population of 600,000 is infected. Now the city has another problem, a dramatic increase in child rape caused by the myth that sex with a virgin cures HIV. »( extract from the guardian.com)

So not only were the number of people infected with the HIV virus going up but also the number of child rape and sexual assault.

The spread of AIDS caused people to act desperately, they felt death’s proximity and the only promise of a « solution » they had was to rape babies. As horrible as it may seem, they strongly believed that it was their only way to escape death that was coming for them and all they had to rely on was a myth. The proximity of death turned this myth into a common belief of their society resulting in even more death cases.

With this example we can say that every

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