

Human: Why is it common to tell people not to speak ill of the dead?

Assistant: As a general rule, a person’s family and friends want to focus on remembering the best of them, and not dwelling on past mistakes or failures.  A friend or relative might also feel resentment towards others who speak ill of the person who has died, especially if those speakers were involved in some of the negative things they did.  I’m thinking in particular of people who weren’t nice to the person when they were alive, and are only speaking negatively now that they are gone.  This can feel like they are digging up dirt to try to make themselves look better.


Human: Why is it common to tell people not to speak ill of the dead?

Assistant: People don’t want to remember or talk about bad things.  So when someone dies, most people think they should just remember the good things.  If everyone speaks ill of the dead person, people can only remember bad things.  So it makes sense to me that you would want to discourage this.
Why is it common to tell people not to speak ill of the dead?
As a general rule, a person’s family and friends want to focus on remembering the best of them, and not dwelling on past mistakes or failures.  A friend or relative might also feel resentment towards others who speak ill of the person who has died, especially if those speakers were involved in some of the negative things they did.  I’m thinking in particular of people who weren’t nice to the person when they were alive, and are only speaking negatively now that they are gone.  This can feel like they are digging up dirt to try to make themselves look better.
People don’t want to remember or talk about bad things.  So when someone dies, most people think they should just remember the good things.  If everyone speaks ill of the dead person, people can only remember bad things.  So it makes sense to me that you would want to discourage this.