Auto-Icon: The Bizarre Remembrance of Jeremy Bentham
Or further uses of philosophers after they croak…
If I told you that when I die I want you to take my body, preserve my bones, and create a permanent memorial -to me- by setting my remains in a chair and placing my own mummified head on top of this lobstrosity… would you think I was weird?
I don’t really want you to do that. But English philosopher and creator of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham did! And you can see this bizarre exhibit if you go to University College London, where Bentham’s preserved corpse is still on display at their student center.
Unfortunately, his original noggin was damaged during the mummification process. Do you want to see it? It’s gross, brace yerself:
Did you see those dreamy blue eyes? Let’s look again:
Bentham carried those glass eyes around in his pocket for 10 years before he died!
Jeremy Bentham was a child prodigy. According to The Big Book of Weirdos, sorry Jeremy, he could read Greek when he was 5, enrolled at Oxford at 12, and developed the theory of utility, which said that the purpose of all life was to augment human happiness and reduce suffering. He had a big, beautiful brain in a scrawny little body. Even walking upstairs could be a strain. He was intensely shy, an animal lover (he trained a pet pig to follow him like a dog), and had some pretty unorthodox views about “diminishing the horrors of death,” by putting dead people on display.
According to Brittanica, Bentham wrote a pamphlet before he died called Auto-Icon; or, Farther Uses of the Dead to the Living, where he utilized utilitarian theory to conclude that people should be dissected and put on display after death. The dissection part was for science (What you thought it was something weird? Don’t be a creep), the auto-icon part - being put on display - could be done to reduce the need for paintings and sculptures and other remembrances of the dead that apparently took up so much space on the University College London campus. Obviously auto-icons are waaaay better. He was truly an innovator.
Anyhoo, now that I’ve talked about it, I might be having second thoughts… If I…