WTF is 'closure' supposed to be?!

[Rum]

Now here is a term that pisses me off big time. The media love this word. It is supposed to mean that after something really bad happens if you deal with it properly and follow a procedure where the bad thing is neatly tied up, loose ends, such as bodies found, bad guys arrested or locked up for life, mysteries solved you can get on with your life and 'move on' and gain fucking 'closure'

Life is messy and you die at the end of it. That's the only fucking 'closure' I can see!

[Clinton Huxley]

Seems you need closure with regards to closure.

[Posse Comitatus]

It's generally taken as the cue for someone to shut up about something and move on with their life because everyone else has collectively decided that they're bored of hearing about it. Callous but probably true.

[Feck]

Stitches ,staples ,super glue ?

[Animavore]

Your daughter goes missing. You don't know if she's dead or in a cellar being used as a sex slave. Until she's found dead or alive you have no closure.
Simple.

[Rum]

Your daughter goes missing. You don't know if she's dead or in a cellar being used as a sex slave. Until she's found dead or alive you have no closure.
Simple.

Nah - that's just something called an 'answer'.

[Animavore]

Your daughter goes missing. You don't know if she's dead or in a cellar being used as a sex slave. Until she's found dead or alive you have no closure.
Simple.

Nah - that's just something called an 'answer'.

I don't know how you're using that word. An answer can be closure.

[Pappa]

Isn't closure to do with "emotional closure" once you've got all the answers and tied up the loose ends?

[PsychoSerenity]

Your daughter goes missing. You don't know if she's dead or in a cellar being used as a sex slave. Until she's found dead or alive you have no closure.
Simple.

Nah - that's just something called an 'answer'.

I don't know how you're using that word. An answer can be closure.

The way I see it, you wouldn't necessarily have to get and answer to get closure (although in that example you probably would), you'd just need to get emotional acceptance of the situation, some level of peace so that you could move on.

Perhaps it is overused in the media, but I've never noticed it much. I think it only really applies to someone who has a long lasting emotional hang-up that's stopping them getting on with their lives. Closure is whatever it takes to get over it - It could be forgiveness, or acceptance that you'll never be forgiven, it could be an answer, or something completely unrelated that makes you see the world differently, and be able to live without the answer.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Found it:

Definitions of cloture on the Web:

closure: terminate debate by calling for a vote; "debate was closured"; "cloture the discussion"
closure: a rule for limiting or ending debate in a deliberative body
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

[Robert_S]

Found it:

Definitions of cloture on the Web:

closure: terminate debate by calling for a vote; "debate was closured"; "cloture the discussion"
closure: a rule for limiting or ending debate in a deliberative body
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Sometimes it's when this stops, sometimes it's knwoing what the hell you are actually dealing with so you can deal with it or adjust to it.

When I feel I am ill treated by a person I know, it helps a great deal to know what they were thinking or feeling that led to the incident.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Found it:

Definitions of cloture on the Web:

closure: terminate debate by calling for a vote; "debate was closured"; "cloture the discussion"
closure: a rule for limiting or ending debate in a deliberative body
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Sometimes it's when this stops, sometimes it's knwoing what the hell you are actually dealing with so you can deal with it or adjust to it.

When I feel I am ill treated by a person I know, it helps a great deal to know what they were thinking or feeling that led to the incident.

Very. "Tidying up the matter." "The war had ended, but the peace was yet to be made."

[tattuchu]

I'd like to put that word "closure" in an enclosure, and then abandon it to its own devices. Perhaps put it on a short leash and let it choke itself.
Another word in a similar vein that I find annoying is "coping."

[Trolldor]

Now here is a term that pisses me off big time. The media love this word. It is supposed to mean that after something really bad happens if you deal with it properly and follow a procedure where the bad thing is neatly tied up, loose ends, such as bodies found, bad guys arrested or locked up for life, mysteries solved you can get on with your life and 'move on' and gain fucking 'closure'

Life is messy and you die at the end of it. That's the only fucking 'closure' I can see!

Closure is the absence of mystery, of the unknown.

[floppit]

Now here is a term that pisses me off big time. The media love this word. It is supposed to mean that after something really bad happens if you deal with it properly and follow a procedure where the bad thing is neatly tied up, loose ends, such as bodies found, bad guys arrested or locked up for life, mysteries solved you can get on with your life and 'move on' and gain fucking 'closure'

Life is messy and you die at the end of it. That's the only fucking 'closure' I can see!

I don't know, the term is pretty naff and the sense that there's some magic formula seems batshit but that said I think there is something about how a thing is remembered/made sense of that can alter how it continues to effect someone. How people remember things, whether they felt powerless or able to have some element of control, whether they see something as 'fair' (our great inane obsession), whether it changes how they view themselves - all that stuff, I think for some of us it's about what takes place in our head where as for others it's about the right events and the right endings being in place.