A reader asked the following question:
Is closure an American phenomenon? Do other cultures just say “piss off” and go on their merry ways?
I think it is, indeed, very American. There is no equivalent to the word in Russian and Ukrainian. I also have never come across either the term or the reality it is supposed to denote in the Spanish-speaking cultures I’m familiar with.
As I see it, the English-speaking culture sees any kinds of relationships between people as hugely problematic. English-speakers find it a lot harder than people from many other cultures to establish any sort of contact with each other. This is probably why I’m considered to be super-sociable here in North America. A foreign autistic finds it much easier to connect to people than a North American neurotypical – this has got to tell you something.
English-speakers try to obviate the difficulties they experience in interpersonal communication by creating a series of rules that are supposed to regulate any human contact. The concept of closure is one of those rules. I can see how it might be useful in a culture that views any form of human communication as inherently dangerous. For me, however, it has no use. When I left my ex-husband, for instance, I just packed and moved out. Then I sent him the divorce papers. We met a couple of times after that but there were no closure-related conversations. I had decided it was over, so it was.
So to answer the reader’s question, I do just say “piss off” and move on.
Clarissa's Blog 
//As I see it, the English-speaking culture sees any kinds of relationships between people as hugely problematic.
Why do you think it is so?
I once heard from a young woman I used to know that she wanted to meet for the last time with her ex-boyfriend. They didn’t live together, the meeting was only for “the last talk” after breaking up over the phone, iirc. I was very surprised – why waste time to meet? What good can come from such a talk? Btw, she was Russian speaking immigrant to Israel, so it can happen not only in the English world.
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“As I see it, the English-speaking culture sees any kinds of relationships between people as hugely problematic. English-speakers find it a lot harder than people from many other cultures to establish any sort of contact with each other.”
I love this statement. 🙂
In my experience native English speakers are especially prone to preferring extremely superficial relationships over anything real. They are forever joking with each other and never say anything honest that could make them vulnerable. I find this totally tiring.
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Thanks for answering my question. I guess that’s why my German ex-friend won’t return my emails that say “I’m sorry and I wish we could part ways without hating each other.” Apparently, that’s not part of the plan. Sigh. I thought we’d been very close, but maybe that was just my imagination.
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I don’t think it’s German or American or whatever. Don’t know the situation, but this German ex-friend could simply be a jerk OR not ready to “part ways without hating each other” and so decided to ignore.
I’ve also heard some people saying that parting without hating is psychologically harder, that hating ex- is The Easy Way to cope, to move on. They talked about romantic relationships, but the same could be at work here. Kind of makes one afraid of relationships – imagine your husband suddenly showing his ugly side during divorce. To divorce normally may seem harder to some, though I believe it to be better for everybody in the long run.
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“Don’t know the situation, but this German ex-friend could simply be a jerk ”
– ???? I always just end a relationship and never look back. If it´s over, it´s over. I don´t like to clutter my life with people I´m no longer interested in. I think this should be appreciated for its honesty because this attitude is much better than dragging a dead relationship out under the guise of a fake friendship.
“Kind of makes one afraid of relationships – imagine your husband suddenly showing his ugly side during divorce.”
– ¨Suddenly¨” in such cases only means that one has been trying hard not to notce certain things.
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I didn’t mean “dragging a dead relationship out under the guise of a fake friendship”. Dragging is horrible, I fully agree, but FUTQL didn’t say anything resembling *that*. Asking to forgive & forgiving each other before parting forever shouldn’t take more than one last, very short e-mail.
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“sking to forgive & forgiving each other before parting forever shouldn’t take more than one last, very short e-mail.”
– This kind of sounds like people are robots who can press a button and forgive on cue.
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Wanted to add that I don’t like the idea of closure-related conversations because of being something very hard with no discernible benefits. And I am no masochist.
However, I would’ve (in many cases) answered the mail. Something like: “I don’t hate you. We had … but now better to part. Wish both of us the best. Good luck” Unless I *was* hating.
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Oh great. Now I’m convinced that the German hates me. 😦 Whatever. It’s probably better this way.
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“Oh great. Now I’m convinced that the German hates me.”
– There might be all kinds of reasons why they are not getting in touch. I´m sure nobody has any reason to hate you.
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You know… I think that I have never completely understood what `closure` means.
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It is a mistake to lump all native English speakers in the same category, there can be a world of difference between how Australians, Americans, Singaporeans, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English and Africans behave in a given circumstance.
I can assure you that in the North of England saying words to the effect of “on your bike” are considered adequate “closure” for any relationship.
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Quite. In fact, I had to google ‘closure’ to get the definitive defination, as it were. So perhaps more of a US thing?
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Interesting.
In South African culture, it seems, “closure” is a media phenomenon.
If someone dies unexpectedly in a newsworthy manner, journalists ask members of their families how they feel, and the usual answer seems to be “We’re just looking for closure.”
At least that is what is reported.
Which makes me wonder whether whether Ukrainian funerals are seen mainly as an opportunity to tell the “dear departed” to piss off.
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“Which makes me wonder whether whether Ukrainian funerals are seen mainly as an opportunity to tell the “dear departed” to piss off.”
– I only visited one, so I can´t say. But we do have this weird tradition of bringing huge meals to the graves at the cemetery and eating them there. That´s one tradition I abhor.
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Also, I don’t quite believe one has to either hate someone or broker diplomatic peace with them to move on. When I think I’ve had enough of a person — and I’m exceptionally patient with tiresome people, even if I say so myself — I simply put them aside. Unless they live in close physical proximity, I tend to socially ‘forget’ them. In my world, they no longer exist. This comes to me quite naturally. Closure sounds to me like a potentially dramatic, self-indulgent social ritual.
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Funny, I always thought “closure” referred to a family wanting to know whether a relative was dead or alive, and if dead, how s/he died. If someone just disappears and one has no idea why or how, the idea of closure would seem important. Is this person still alive? Was he kidnapped? Did she accidentally drive off a cliff into a humdred feet of water? Et cetera.
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I´ve seen this brought up a lot on Law & Order: SVU and I could never even begin to understand what it was about. I just chalked it up to cultural differences.
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Oddly there was even an episode of Law and Order SVU titled “Closure”. It centered around a woman seeing her rapist brought to justice after several years of him running free. The episode ended with the rapist dead and the killer being the woman herself or her friend as the evidence could not show which one did it.
She got the satisfaction of her rapist being dealt with while not having to worry about being punished for taking the law into her own hands.
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// while not having to worry about being punished for taking the law into her own hands.
How is that? If or she or her friend did it, wasn’t at least 1 of them punished?
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Yes, I thought it was that, wanting to know if the disappeared person has died or whether you should keep up your search.
I often also hear it used as an excuse for wanting to execute someone. Only if the alleged perpetrator dies can the crime victims or their family feel peace, they allege; the execution will give them “closure” and that is why it should be done.
On ends of relationships, the people who have requested the kind of conversation alluded to here, a sort of post mortem, of me on this have been English, Hungarian, and Czech. The first two wanted to get me back into some sort of relationship via this encounter. The Czech wanted to clear his conscience, be told he had not behaved poorly, be absolved. I once asked a Brazilian for such a conversation — he broke up with me by phone and vanished. I wanted to see him in person a last time because of this evaporation — I wanted to reconfirm he had been real!
I think breaking up by email or discussing it by email sounds utterly perverse, weird.
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It’s not so perverse and weird to communicate via email when you live several time zones apart and it’s never convenient to talk.
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I don’t think it’s perverse or weird to discuss these things via email if you live several time zones apart and it’s never convenient for either of you to talk on the phone without staying up until all hours of the night. Sometimes face-to-face is impossible.
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I love breaking up through email. This spares one boring useless arguments. If I know I’m done, what’s the point of subjecting myself to another meeting I have no need of?
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I totally agree. Beware the myth of closure. With closure someone thinks of an endpoint , someone says something, does something, and there will be no impact. There is no such animal. A chemist will tell you we are a carbon based life-form. A biologist will tell you we are made of amino acids. E=MC squared tells us we are made of frozen energy. Knowledge is strength. Matter can neither be created or destroyed. The same is true of energy.
This is not idle navel gazing. My little sister died a sudden and violent death (she was killed in her own driveway). I was the only family member who had the wherewithal to carry out the meticulously laid out funeral wishes in her will. My ¨Christian¨ siblings were the most unhelpful. Although I disagreed, I knew her nine-year-old daughter was watching.
Six years after my little sister´s death, I am the sibling who visits her grave site the most. My niece and I enjoy making her mother a bowl of tea.
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” With closure someone thinks of an endpoint , someone says something, does something, and there will be no impact. There is no such animal.”
– Exactly.
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Some friends in a Spanish speaking culture had “closure” on their relationships, other didn’t. I don’t recall a word for it. I think it was just something that happened sometimes.
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People who bore me most and cause me to say “Piss off,” are the ones who are always going on and on about what it means to be an American. I’ve been an American all my life and it really doesn’t bother me.
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There is also an additional level of explanation. I was surprised to see on wiki:
Closure or need for closure are psychological terms that describe the desire or “need” some individuals have for information that will allow them to conclude an issue that had previously (for them at least) been clouded in ambiguity and uncertainty. Upon reaching this conclusion, they are now able to attain a state of epistemic “closure”.
The term cognitive closure has been defined as “a desire for definite knowledge on some issue and the eschewal of confusion and ambiguity.” Need for closure is a phrase used by psychologists to describe an individual’s desire for a firm solution as opposed to enduring ambiguity.
…
The need for closure varies across individuals, situations, and cultures. A person with a high need for closure prefers order and predictability, is decisive and closed-minded, and is uncomfortable with ambiguity. Someone rating low on need for closure will express more ideational fluidity and creative acts.
Hate ambiguity? Want to plan out everything in your life? –> Desire for Closure.
Previously you described people in US being afraid of not controlling sexual (but not only, I suppose) side of life.
One also hears the term in discussions about capital punishment. That victims’ relatives want the murderer to be executed to get closure. And opponents claim it isn’t so and that being present at the execution could tramatize the relatives even further.
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el, Thank you for looking this definition up. I really agree with a good majority of this sentiment. Ambiguity is often solved with the concept of closure, at least how I read it. While there is some truth closure is about controlling life, I also think there is another important (and more charitable) explanation.
There is a difference between controlling life and eliminating post-mortem ambiguity. There will always be ambiguity about the future ( I mean hey, it hasn’t happened yet!) but there are definitely ways to reduce the ambiguity about past events. And that can be a very healthy thing. If two people get into a fight (verbal) or for some reason disagree on something important etc., there is a LOT of utility in understanding why it is. For example, if it is a relationship and someone breaks up over email and provides no details… then its hard for the person being broken up with to know: 1. Did they do something wrong (i.e. be an asshole, or bore the person, etc.) 2. was it the something that is the person doing the break-up’s issue (they found someone else, you weren’t the right physical fit for them, they have stuff going on in their life etc.) 3. Should they do something different next time? 4. Is the person who’s doing the break up pushing them away for some reason, and they could really use help?
I could go on and on. .but ultimately caring, sensitive people have a very well thought out reason to want closure. Not to imply that you are a cold-hearted shrew if you don’t want closure, but the overall theme on this thread that only emotionally insecure, control-freak, train-wrecks need closure is HIGHLY misinformed 🙂
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Well, yes. I had a conversation like this today, actually. Me: did you really say X and if so, did you really mean it literally? Because if both are true, I am done, whereas if there is a misunderstanding, then that is a different matter.
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Thing is, if there is a misunderstanding of very huge proportions, when one has made every effort to communicate effectively, this means that there was not supposed to be any sort of a relationship, because communication is fundamental to good friendship and so on. Communication styles are also part of who we are.
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I do not agree with Clarissa at all on this. If Anglo-Saxons have such difficulty in communicating with each other honestly, why did they succeed econonomically by comparison with the trash elsewhere? Decent closure leaves open the possibility of human exchange after the break-up. That is why Britain and the US do so well.
Does Clarissa believe that the Third Reich, the USSR, the Italians, the Hungarians, the Albanians et al brought good closure to their predations? Well sure they did. But not the kind of closure that decent human beings would ever consider. I guess that the kind of closure that Clarissa had with her first husband is the kind of closure that destroyed so much of continental Europe. Goodbye and go to Hell. Not my kind of world to be sure.
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//why did they succeed econonomically by comparison with the trash elsewhere?
I don’t think that “elsewhere” out of Anglo-Saxons culture is trash. F.e. Europe and Israel aren’t Anglo-Saxons, but not less successful on the whole than US. And with better safety net, so Anglo-Saxons can learn something too from the rest of the world.
//Decent closure leaves open the possibility of human exchange after the break-up. That is why Britain and the US do so well.
Can you give examples, please, how US did this decent closure politically? Before and in recent times. I am thinking about the period from throwing atom bomb in WW2 to today’s wars.
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I also wonder how much “human exchange after the break-up” that US got after bringing “good closure to their predations” (haven’t really understood what examples you had in mind) was because of US power, military and otherwise, so that the losing side was forced into accepting “good closure”.
Unlike terrorists, who don’t view US presense as beneficial and don’t accept closures?
Sorry, if it is rambled. I would love to understand.
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I´m talking only about interpersonal relationships here. I´d rather not bring politics into this at all because this kind of analysis where one phenomenon is used to explain the universe does not appeal to me. I´m not into grand narratives.
All I´m talking about is what I perceive as a clumsy relational strategy of managing interpersonal communications.
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I would also love to understand, and I wonder whether there might not be a connection here between the personal and the political. Hypothesis for this hour: it is very important to general people in US to be considered “good” and also to have the country considered “good.” So, in conflicts with individual people, it becomes important for things to be stamped “OK,” and in conflicts with nations it is important to have (or demand, or extort) official approval. Do you think???
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If you’re trying to imitate Clarissa’s provocative style, Charlie, you have a long way to go.
If, on the other hand, you’re attempting to establish yourself as a prejudiced little fool, you’re pushing all the right buttons. Well done. The A-S *must* have been excellent at honest communication, because economic success is obviously predicated on it. On honesty, and the communication thereof. And not, for instance, on slave trade, global robbery, on-demand wars, mechanical inventions, engineering breakthroughs, captured markets of the colonies, and other insignificant little things like that.
You might even want to invest a nice little dunce hat, Charlie. It would look so lovely on you.
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“And not, for instance, on slave trade, global robbery, on-demand wars, mechanical inventions, engineering breakthroughs, captured markets of the colonies, and other insignificant little things like that.”
Or, for that matter, upon Great Britain’s unique geographical position, which allowed it to partake of the benefits of interaction with the European state system while at the same time being somewhat insulated from its wars.
Nope; all economics is reducible to rituals of closure.
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Of course, the concept of closure in this analysis is useless. However, reducing everything to colonialism is also not very insightful. Look at Russia. It’s a huge imperial power, has every natural resource in the world, a huge territory, impossible to defeat in any war, there was slavery until 1864, etc. Yet economically it is a ridiculous failure. And it was so before 1917, too.
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//Look at Russia. It’s a huge imperial power, has every natural resource in the world, a huge territory, impossible to defeat in any war, there was slavery until 1864, etc. Yet economically it is a ridiculous failure.
Why?
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//I´d rather not bring politics into this at all because this kind of analysis where one phenomenon is used to explain the universe does not appeal to me. I´m not into grand narratives.
So you wouldn’t be interested in this new post topic I thought of: “The influence of (Soviet) regime/s on interpersonal relationships / communications of subjects” ? 🙂 F.e. weren’t people afraid to be honest or to use a psychologist because of spies?
And whether / how democratic regimes influence interpersonal relationships.
I am talking of the direction from a regime to an individual person on the street.
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“The influence of (Soviet) regime/s on interpersonal relationships / communications of subjects””
– Given that the Soviet leadership made consistent efforts to transform the interpersonal communication styles between the Soviet citizens, I think this is a great topic.
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Then, please, put it on the Requested List too. 🙂
With the Soviet or any other totalitarian regime, the influence may be quite easy to see, but I suspect it happens in other cases too, even if it’s much more subtle. F.e. US, where new citizens must renounce all their titles of nobility, vs monarchy in Britain. Class system’s role. Or the changes in Egypt nowadays. If many super important aspects of life change, does it change how people view their private lives? I guess, Egypt is far away, but England vs US are near, if you had an opportunity to observe English culture too.
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“Then, please, put it on the Requested List too. ”
– I´m already finishing the post, actually. 🙂
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I think there is something to be said of closure. While others have said that it’s not a absolute ending to an ordeal I think it can be the door that leads to a new beginning. A point where you say, “This is no longer going to run my life.”
Like when you say you left your ex I would call your act of packing and leaving your moment of closure as that is the point where you decided that you weren’t going to have anything to do with that man anymore, done with him.
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Yes, I agree with this.
I’ve never had an online relationship, with a person who lived many time zones away and that I couldn’t see or talk to. I guess if it is sort of a virtual relationship then it can have a virtual breakup.
But to refuse to speak to them, it’s terribly cold if you have spent a long time together. I can see being at wits end, moving out and sending divorce papers, but the surprise announcement by e-mail to a person who lives in your city strikes me as wimpy – odd – disoriented. I’ve done it because I was afraid to face them for silly reasons.
On the other hand, this major breakup I had, I came up with the idea of quitting while he was out of town and wanted to announce it then; thought it better not to do that, by e-mail, while he was at major conference. Perhaps I should have, perhaps it would have saved me some histrionics from him, but actually I think that had I done, he would have refused to believe it and I would have had to fight him anyway.
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This situation developed after I moved last year. We had been friends for more than five years, but after I moved, things fell apart. Now, the person won’t speak to me. And yes, the person is known to be “terribly cold” — just never to me. So it’s a shock, and a very depressing situation.
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I’m very sorry this is happening! I had the same thing happen between me and a person who used to be a very close friend. We shared sso much but then I moved and I haven’t been able to get back in touch no matter what I did. This makes me very sad because this was a friendship that had lasted for 10 years. And then it just ended. 😦
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Yes, I agree too. I never had an online relationship either and my thoughts are virtually the same.
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I really didn’t know that “closure” was such a big deal in interpersonal relationships but I do think it reasonable to say good-by. That is why people rush to each others’ deathbeds, and so on, after all.
Normally, though, I consider that to be part of the break-up conversation or announcement, I guess. And I suppose if a spouse moved out while I were absent, it would be a pretty clear announcement that they were gone for real and did not want to discuss it, and that is how I would take it.
But I am guessing that the reason people want to have the conversation is actually to ease the oddness of the transition: someone was much to you a month ago, and will henceforth be nothing current, it is not an insignificant passage.
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Aha – here is what Priyanka figured out from this post that closure was.
She thinks that “the English-speaking culture sees any kinds of relationships between people as hugely problematic… [and] try to obviate the difficulties they experience in interpersonal communication by creating a series of rules that are supposed to regulate any human contact. The concept of closure is one of those rules.”
OK. But this is the first time I have heard of the requirement of such a conversation, to say such things … apparently what one says in a closure conversation is that the breakup was nobody’s fault, etc. It really sounds to me like this is something that happens on tv and in self help scripts, but not in real life. Although I do know there is a lot of discussion of the important of saying things like, “We were both at fault,” as opposed to anything franker like “I lost interest.”
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I see a difference between personal closure and epistemic closure. Sometimes having a conversation with somebody can not lead to epistemic closure, because the person concerned doesn’t understand their motivations any more than you do. So distance is necessary to gain epistemic closure.
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I so love this concept of epistemic closure. You always contribute something useful to a discussion.
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ta.
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Well, yes. Distance, is important. And it sounds to me like a lot of these closure conversations are really reinvolvement conversations, or enmeshment conversations.
A couple of times I have actually had good breakup conversations though, along the lines of “how was it that things went so wrong? why did we end up so mad at each other?” and actually gotten some clarity from them. But to do that, you have to both really know it is over and you both want it, and you have to still have some respect for and interest in their p.o.v.
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I’ve never found the question of why somebody is enraged to be an intelligible question with any sort of answer. Any answer doesn’t lie in the individual, but in some structure outside of him or her. They’re enraged because of something structural. It’s an engineering disaster. If the situation is unworkable, I cut my parachute and open up a new one. So long as the structural fault isn’t within myself — and it never has been until now since I am happy alone and can make good relationships — this is the correct solution.
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I never heard this term until the 90s, when it was the title of one of the worst episodes of The X-Files ever (the one where Mulder finds out his missing sister was lifted into the sky by aliens to save her from being killed, only somehow she’s a ghost only not dead but not alive? I don’t f**king know). Anyway, suddenly I started hearing the word all over the place and it made me want to kill people, it was so annoying. At last those persons who would never leave you alone thought they had an official psychiatric term to make you put up with them longer!
Not me. I’m like you. When I’m over a relationship, I’m over it. No final meetings to mutually reassure each other we’re the greatest, how uncomfortable and unnecessary.
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What a brilliant comment. 🙂
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musteryou: “Thing is, if there is a misunderstanding of very huge proportions, when one has made every effort to communicate effectively, this means that there was not supposed to be any sort of a relationship, because communication is fundamental to good friendship and so on. Communication styles are also part of who we are.”
Sure but, in the current case, I and others are attempting to discover: is what we have now seen, which surprised us, some sort of error or mood, or is it the said individual’s considered opinion? Because it is question of hiring or not hiring. One would not want to get this far and then judge them negatively on the basis of what may be false rumor.
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All rumors are false. You need to ask the person their actual views.
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I agree completely.
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So I am still thinking about this. I think I don’t understand because I was not aware that in US culture it was a requirement of sorts to have a post romantic breakup conversation, where you shake hands as it were, and agree not to hold grudges and move on. At first the idea sounded odd to me but now having thought about it and having thought about how many people act in my region — they are still mad so they slash each others’ tires, and things like that — I think this peacemaking conversation could be a good idea for some. But mostly it sounds to me like an effort to avoid the period of sadness or confusion that can come after a romantic breakup. I suspect that people (vainly) hope that if they can have a nice conversation they will feel whole again more quickly, get over the feeling that someone is missing more easily, etc.
*
I broke up once by paper mail since I had already moved to a different city and an actual letter seemed more human/more respectful of the other person than the phone (this was before e-mail): less casual, and also means you don’t have to deal with their immediate reaction nor do they have to share it with you. I still think it is incredibly cold to just disappear without saying anything at all, if it has been a relationship of any depth or duration.
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I think this is true and a good point: “if there is a misunderstanding of very huge proportions, when one has made every effort to communicate effectively, this means that there was not supposed to be any sort of a relationship” … and this is yet more interesting:
“I’ve never found the question of why somebody is enraged to be an intelligible question with any sort of answer. Any answer doesn’t lie in the individual, but in some structure outside of him or her. They’re enraged because of something structural. It’s an engineering disaster.”
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BTW, I’m not trying to be metaphysical in my views you quote in the last paragraph. The metaphysical perspective is that we all have some kind of inner self-determination or free will that others are free to engage with or reason with, in such a way that if you are really sincere, or really logical, of you have merit, others are bound to get into synch with you, and thus you become very dominant, or very beloved, and you reap lots of rewards.
Actually, there is nothing in the universe to indicate that it is internally structured in this way. Not even is it structured to assure good communication if we use the same words or have good intentions. There are deeper structural factors in each individual that can prevent good communication between two people, even when there is a certain amount of good will. Also, people can get upset because you step on some aspect of who they are that isn’t fully formed yet (hence vulnerable) or whatever.
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Right.
If you have stepped on some aspect of who they are that isn’t formed yet, precisely. This situation and the others you indicate, although they point to issues the individuals involved, may not see, are still *practical* problems. Metaphysical is the hope that by talking it out, things will get resolved or clarified if you are all honest and skilled enough.
This idea (ideal?) is marketed a lot in current US popular culture, I do notice — it is a kind of received wisdom, and isn’t very well examined.
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Well, it’s metaphysical because it’s based on the idea of inner purity having some efficacy. Honesty and skill are always useful to have, but they only loosely correlate with success in all ventures.
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“…based on the idea of inner purity having some efficacy.”
Yes, and this is another idea that has been well marketed in US … if I were an Americanist (i.e. had a better notion of US cultural history than I do), I might dare to say that this isn’t a new thing but has been an important strand in the national culture and ideology for a long time.
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Z: I’m not an americanist either but I think you are onto something here.
We are having some great discussions here on the blog these days that always give me food for thought. I’m happy about this.
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It has just occurred to me that the idea of “closure” and the need for it may have been invented by the mass market psychotherapy industry. If you are told it is not healthy to just leave someone, but must talk about it with them, and then talk about that conversation with others, etc., that can create a lot more of a to-do, and therapy sessions, and so on.
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This makes a lot of sense. I totally see it as a marketing strategy.
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Here is a fantastic, extravagant, beautiful Mexican song on closure by the recently departed Chavela Vargas: http://letras.terra.com/chavela-vargas/399737/
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