There’s a Latin phrase ““De mortuis nihil nisi bonum”, which roughly translates to “Of the dead, [say] nothing but good.”
But there’s a problem with this: what if the deceased was a terrible person? Even “bad” people often have family and friends who loved them and are mourning their loss. I can understand in the immediate aftermath of somebody dying a horrible violent death, common courtesy would be to refrain from criticism at least for a little and to give the family some space to grieve. So if my friend John has a beloved but bigoted Uncle Frank who is shot to death, I would personally bite my tongue and refrain from bringing up all the racist crap that Frank had said in the past. At least I’d wait until a few weeks after the funeral to mention it.
I’m in no way trying to dictate that this be a formally codified law. Just a matter of common courtesy. And it doesn’t apply in perpetuity. Maybe for a few weeks or months.
The problem with the debate around Charlie Kirk though is that his supporters are doing more than just grieving his loss. They are elevating him to a special status over and above nearly all other victims of homicide. If someone gets awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, has an official holiday named in their honor, and have government building fly the flag at half staff, I think this opens up the door to examine Kirk’s character and whether he was actually worthy of the veneration he is receiving.
Traditionally, the Catholic Church waits until five years after somebody dies before they can get nominated for sainthood. The idea was to allow emotions and immediate popularity to cool off, ensuring the candidate’s holiness was judged more soberly and not just because of recent enthusiasm. I’m a Secular Humanist, but I think a similar principle should apply if we’re bestowing rare honors on somebody who died and not get carried away by passions in the heat of the moment. If we’re going to talk about Charlie Kirk like he was a martyr or a saint, we need to examine what his actual legacy was, which requires us to have uncomfortable conversations about how he behaved during his life.
But one can decry someone’s ideas and behaviour without actually tying it to them as a person. Assuming, that is, that the devotees will let you make that distinction.
I’m not sure why folk would say you oughtn’t speak ill of the dead. As an obvious example, I speak ill of Trump quite often. And won’t change my opinion of him or refrain from speaking the truth when he dies.
There may be differences from public vs private individuals, or folk one is personally familiar with. And there is a difference between saying x was a bad person vs x deserved to die. Does the saying change with the passage of time?
I think you have to distinguish between the person, and ongoing consequences of what he did.
In the OP‘s scenario, I‘d be perfectly willing to permanently avoid saying anything against Uncle Frank as a person, but I‘d oppose any attempt to use respect for the dead as a tool for validating the campaign to nuke the local whales that Uncle Frank vas vocal for.
There is an Irish phrase: “Some people serve this world best by leaving it.”
You should of course be respectful at the wake to the family of the deceased and not say anything about what an absolutely feckin’ clunge the recently departed was until the first round whiskey has been consumed.
I’ve never understood the notion that it’s wrong. Seems tied to religious beliefs that I don’t have. Bad people were bad; end of story and the truth should be told about them. The OP used Kirk as an example. For me, Kirk was a giant asshole, and that shouldn’t be sugar-coated.
My FIL was a complete and utter bastard. He has been dead for 2-3 years now. I doubt I mention him often at all. And if people mention him, I don’t repeat what I said many times before. I have to kinda walk a fine line when my wife says something that strikes me as a posthumous rehabilitation of the guy. Yeah, there is a benefit to her getting her head to the best place. But there also is a benefit to not denying reality.
I will note directly what is being sort of implied in the background of the discussion: the rules are different for public figures than they are for private figures.
For private figures, it’s up to the family to decide how well or poorly they want to remember the deceased.
But for public figures, this “don’t speak ill of the dead” rule is usually exploited as an opportunity to rewrite history and whitewash the deeds of their favored shithead.
When a public figure dies, and they’re a thoroughgoing cockwrench, it is not just permissible to speak poorly of them, it is urgently incumbent upon all of us to do so, lest their legacy be sanitized.
Should it ,really ? In all circumstances? I don’t think it has to do with religious beliefs at all. It has to do with people. Should I really tell my former supervisor’s wife and children what a horrible, abusive asshole he was at his funeral? Is there any point in telling people who didn’t know her that was grandmother was mean? Sometimes, there might be a benefit to me in talking about it ( for example, explaining to someone why I am estranged from my family) but in the OP, what would be the purpose of bringing up his bigotry? Is there a reason, like the town is preparing to put up a monument to him or name a school after him? Or am I just telling my friend his beloved uncle was a racist, something he either already knows or won’t believe?
Not every truth needs to be told. Sometimes the narrative needs to be corrected such as when people are acting as though a terrible person is a saint or a martyr or is a histrically significant person but that doesn’t apply to most people.
The saying is not " Speak well of the dead". The literal transaltion is “Of the dead, [say] nothing but good.” and the most common free transaltions are “Speak no ill of the dead,” “Of the dead, speak no evil,” and “Do not speak ill of the dead.” One can certainly avoid speaking ill of the dead wthout speaking well of them - silence is an option.
Basically, anywhere outside the actual funeral or to the face of a grieving parent, spouse or whatever. Both because it’s very obnoxious and has a danger of escalating to violence.
But in the general public sphere? You don’t owe the dead anything. And as said, with public figures the “don’t speak ill of the dead” rule is regularly used to whitewash evil. And the nasty people of the world don’t reciprocate; they’ll happily speak ill of the dead, so there’s no point in showing them a courtesy they won’t return.
If we’re talking about someone who only mattered to their immediate social circle, sure — though sometimes there’s someone in that circle who badly needs to hear otherwise.
If we’re talking about a public figure whose death is being used for political purposes, though, silence may be a really bad idea.
This goes far beyond speaking ill of the dead, when it comes to Kirk. This is openly saying that, because he is dead, any ill that Kirk spoke or did is actually good.
Maybe I worded it poorly, but that’s what more or less what I meant about the narrative needing to be corrected when it’s a historically significant person or people are acting as if the person was a saint/martyr. Both of which I think apply to Kirk.
I don’t want to just say “public figure” because that includes too many people who are differing levels of famous but not particularly significant.
At my mom’s funeral, I was chatting with some relatives and reminisced how she wouldn’t kill a bug that was crawling next to her because she thought it had a right to live like everybody else.
Her sister commented “I remember when she and her date were going to go to the movies and our parents wanted her to bring me along. She said ‘I don’t want that ugly thing following us around.’” Sometimes it’s hard to remember the dead fondly.
I toasted a man’s death almost exactly a year ago today. Went to a bar, bought a glass of bourbon, said that I hoped he’ll rot in hell, and drank. So yes, it can be OK to speak badly of the dead.
In the United States, defamation laws only cover the living. So from a purely legal standpoint, you’re on safer grounds badmouthing the departed than the living.