Dark Tourism in the Context of Weighing the Ethics of Dark Tourism from a Philosophical Perspective - Essay Example

Dark Tourism Table of Contents I. Introduction 3 II. Discussion 4 References 8 I. Introduction This paper explores dark tourism in the context of t weighing the ethics of dark tourism from a philosophical perspective, The question is is dark tourism ethical or not, and what are the philosophical underpinnings of any judgment on its ethics or lack of ethics? Dark tourism, as the name suggests, concerns itself with tourism tied to death or to sites of historical and social importance because of their association with aspects of death and dying. The literature suggests that from an academic point of view, dark tourism has attracted considerable attention not only from academics in tourism but in a wide swathe of various disciplines tied to the humanities, including sociology, cultural studies, and even management and anthropology. Tourism studies treat dark tourism as a valid academic area of interest, whereas the humanities also take off from dark tourism research from the point of view of ethics, in the case of the philosophers, and education pertaining to death, among other areas (Stone n.d.; Niemela 2010; Coldwell 2013). It is worthwhile to stress that while there may be a popular demand for dark tourism as reflected in the large interest in the topic among academics and as reflected in the presence of many organizations that cater to the study and monitoring of dark tourism in different parts of the world, including in England and in other parts of Europe, this popularity does not translate to a judgment on its ethics. In other words, that it it exists and that it seems to have a fairly sticky following is not an indication of its ethics. If this were so, then there would be no debate relating to the practice of states executing people too. But obviously the latter is a hot topic of debate on the ethics of the death penalty. The same goes for dark tourism, where the discussion centers on whether the practices surrounding dark tourism are ethical, and in what ways they may be unethical (Katz 2006; Mulin 2013;Stone and Sharpley 2008; Roberts 2013). On the other hand, the prevalence of the practice seems to indicate that there is wide appeal among people from all walks of life for dark tourism, and that there seems to be no common agreement as to whether the practice appeals to those who are seemingly inclined to dark tourism to satisfy some inner dark craving, or whether dark tourism as a practice is one that is essentially spiritual, or that serve some higher spiritual purpose. At any rate it is apparent from the large body of literature on the subject matter that dark tourism is prevalent, is institutionalized, and does not seem to incite people to commit crimes, or to trample on the rights of other people, and in some cases have some spiritual merit for those who pursue dark tourism, in terms of being able to precisely confront death and the darker side of human nature. This paper posits that depending on the motive and depending on whether the practice transgresses the fundamental rights and liberties of people, then from a philosophical perspective dark tourism can be philosophically ethical or not. This paper further posits that some forms of dark tourism are ethical and some are not ethical, and it is the duty of the authorities to make sure that places that become popular dark tourist destinations are configured, and the travels and trips so structured, so that they do not cause harm to others both living and dead, and conform to common standards of decency and ethics. (Katz 2006; Mulin 2013;Stone and Sharpley 2008; Roberts 2013). II. Discussion One ethical standard used for this paper from the point of view of philosophy is the categorical imperative of Kant, which says in essence that an act is ethical that considers other people as ends in themselves rather than as means to an end, and that an act is ethical also where the action can be applied to all situations at all times, or that it can be made a universal law in other words. Looking at the practice of dark tourism in many places such as the concentration camps of Germany, or of dark tourism in areas that are ravaged by war, the intent and motivation of those who market these sites can be suspect, if those marketers cater to a demand that at the same time puts people at risk. The ethics of such practices may be questionable, even if the tourism itself is legal and conforms to all regulations. The ethics from the marketers point of view is to be discussed within the lens of whether the actions can be justified if they are made into universal laws. Is the catering to any human desire, dark or not, for commercial gain ethical? The answer seems to be that where there is no coercion on the part of the tourists, or if the tourists go to the sites on their own volition, and if the travel arrangements are legal, then one can say that the marketer may have grounds to have his motivations and actions judged as ethical. In the same manner, where the tourists themselves go to the travel sites with intentions that are spiritual in nature, and where the intent is not to harm others or to use the sites and the visits as opportunities for titillation and for the satisfaction of baser desires, but to achieve some spiritual solace or to realize some spiritual truths, then dark tourism can be construed as being ethical and philosophically justifiable (Katz 2006; Mulin 2013;Stone and Sharpley 2008; Roberts 2013). Moreover, looking at the practice of dark tourism from an ethical perspective, one can further argue that the ethics of memorial sites to horror and to human evil. Do they exist to glorify evil and to make a mockery of modern human societies? Obviously those special sites and places are not maintained for such glorification of evil, but rather to serve as reminders for the rest of humanity of what can happen if certain conditions are in place and some members of the human race are allowed to kill and to take charge of the destiny of millions of people for their own purposes. For instance, one can frame the question of the ethics of dark tourism in the concrete, in terms of judging the ethics of the Holocaust Memorial visits and to visits to the concentration camps. In modern societies there are always sections that seem to want to deny that the holocaust happened, and that atrocities were committed against millions of Jews at the heart of World War II and after, and that the Nazis did it headed by Hitler. Some segments of world society have decidedly evil motivations for doing a revision of history to deny the Jews for instance of justice, and to perpetuate further horrors in the present time. In this context one can see dark tourism serves a vital purpose to nullify the effects of revisionism, and in this light one can see even that making sure people are able to visit the war memorials and the concentration camps is something of a just and ethical cause. Of course there will always be parts of the population, fractions that have always been sociopathic and against the grain of common humanity, who will ride on dark tourism to satisfy their dark impulses. But to say that dark tourism in and of itself is unethical and evil because some evil people use dark tourism to satisfy dark urges is to say that knives are evil because evil people use them to kill other people. If anything this latter line of reasoning cannot be distilled into a standard that can be made into a universal law. Making an ethical judgment against dark tourism along this line of reasoning is therefore false because it fails the philosophical standard as outlined above (Katz 2006; Mulin 2013;Stone and Sharpley 2008; Roberts 2013). Moreover, one can see too that the contemplation of death is an accepted spiritual practice in many spiritual traditions, and in this sense one can make a case for dark tourism being ethically valid, where the intent is clear, and where the practice in general does not incite people to do harm on others. In other words, in a sense dark tourism is an activity that is pursued by people both for ethical and unethical means, but that the authorities and people of goodwill must make sure that the intent and the actual practices tied to crafting special tourist procedures and preparing sites for tourism purposes must be ethically pure, and done in the spirit of spiritual enlightenment as well as to make sure that the truth is preserved for future generations. The alternative is revision of history, which the really misguided and the sociopathic sections of society are prone to undertake for their own purposes, and for the purposes of undermining and doing harm to other people, as in the case of the Jews. In other words tourists themselves and the authorities themselves must open themselves up to scrutiny with regard to whether any aspect of their actions are ethical or not (Katz 2006; Mulin 2013;Stone and Sharpley 2008; Roberts 2013). . References Coldwell, W. 2013. “Dark tourism: why murder sites and disaster zones are proving popular”. The Guardian. Accessed 30 March 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2013/oct/31/dark-tourism-murder-sites-disaster-zones Johanson, M. 2012. “Dark Tourism: Understanding The Attraction of Death and Disaster”. International Business Times. Accessed 30 March 2014. http://www.ibtimes.com/dark-tourism-understanding-attraction-death-and-disaster-696604 Mulin, M. 2013. “Dark tourism: What drives us to seek out horror?” TourismLink. Accessed 30 March 2014. http://www.tourismlink.eu/2013/10/dark-tourism-what-drives-us-to-seek-out-horror/ Niemela, T. 2010. “Motivation Factors in Dark Tourism”. Lahti University of Applied Sciences. Accessed 30 March 2014. http://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/14984/Niemela_Titta.pdf?sequence=3 Roberts, P. 2013. “Thanatourism: Entertainment for the Dark Side of Human Nature or Spiritual Contemplation of Death?”. TSVC 2013. Accessed 30 March 2013. http://www.tsvc.lincoln.ac.uk/papers/submission.php?paper=72 Stone, P. n.d.. “Institute for Dark Tourism Research”. University of Central Lancashire. Accessed 30 March 2014. http://dark-tourism.org.uk/ Stone, P. and Sharpley, R. 2008. “Consuming Dark Tourism: A Thanatological Perspective”. Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2). Accessed 30 March 2014. http://tuutor.ttu.ee/public/k/Kuressaare-kolledz/Kolledz/Summer_school/Stone_Sharpley_2008_Consuming_dark_tourism-_A_thanatological_perspective.pdf Read More