Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

Re:Harvard University removes human skin binding from book by mjburgess on Thursday March 28, 2024 @08:43AM (#39850548)

I fear we've elevated 'consent' to absurd proportions. Every country in the world was built by those who didn't consent to build it (by serfdom, slavery, ..).

I hope this is preserved; what a pointless waste otherwise. How are we to imagine the deceased here? A person outraged at the insult, or one now doubly outraged at the waste?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Harvard University removes human skin binding from book by ethbr1 on Thursday March 28, 2024 @08:51AM (#39850621)

I don't consider myself much concerned with my body after death.

But I'd feel some kind of way if someone flayed my skin off my cadaver to make a book cover.

Even being a skeleton in an anatomy class seems more purposeful.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Harvard University removes human skin binding from book by mjburgess on Thursday March 28, 2024 @09:03AM (#39850772)

How would you feel if after a century of your skin being on a book, that was then 'disposed of'?

This 'disposing' isnt being consented to either. Why should it be that non-consentual creation is a sin, but not non-consentual destruction?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Harvard University removes human skin binding from book by notnaut on Thursday March 28, 2024 @09:15AM (#39850941)

“Disposed of” is what we do with corpses usually. Society tends to put quite a lot of weight on doing it the right way.

If your home town was invaded tonight, everyone you know and love there killed, and their skin used to upholster the president’s favorite recliner, would that make their remains an artifact now? What more is there to learn in keeping a corpse unburied in this case?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Harvard University removes human skin binding from book by ethbr1 on Thursday March 28, 2024 @10:58AM (#39852432)

Exactly.

I don't bill myself as an expert on early 20th-century burial practices in America, but I'm willing the hazard the default expectation was "ground" rather than "use to make a book cover."

Ergo, it seems in keeping with the deceased's likely wishes to properly bury their remains.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Harvard University removes human skin binding from book by chabes on Thursday March 28, 2024 @09:06AM (#39850825)

But that’s not what happened or is happening with the skin.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Harvard University removes human skin binding from book by bxksnche on Thursday March 28, 2024 @08:55AM (#39850678)

But what about your family? How would they feel about your skin being used as a hazing ritual?

If it hasn’t been donated by the family, what right does the university have over it?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Harvard University removes human skin binding from book by plugin-baby on Thursday March 28, 2024 @08:53AM (#39850664)

You could do both!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Harvard University removes human skin binding from book by ethbr1 on Thursday March 28, 2024 @11:01AM (#39852461)

This made me laugh. Kudos on the quip.

[ Parent | on HN ]