Why do people suddenly respect the dead, but never did in life?

I think it's because people are scared to be judged by others. My opinions don't change about someone just because they die, but People will think I'm an asshole If I say bad things about corpses.

I guess no one wants to add pain to a mourning family either.

If I didn't like someone when they were alive, I don't all of a sudden respect them because they died. I may feel bad for the family or something, but that's about it. I'm not a fan of phoney bologna.

My view is that we have a responsibility to children and animals because they're less able to defend themselves than us. The dead have absolutely no way of defending themselves and so we should be more careful with them (or their memory) than anything.

I know that - technically - someone spray-painting graves with swastikas and kicking them over doesn't harm the dead at all, but it still really offends me.

Lots of reasons. They could have figured out what a great person the dead guy was all along, fear ridicule from others for being disrespectful to the dead, not want to disrespect someone that can't hear or defend his/herself, want to look back on the dead person in a positive way, have some kind of superstition that involves disrespecting dead people, or/and they actually do still disrespect them, but they don't speak it out loud to certain people for reasons already typed.

It seems harsh to be mean about the dead... :/

I think that when a person dies we say nice things about them in order to expel any guilt we have. Also it's done to make sure that we preserve their memory in a positive way. I agree that it's completely absurd to only acknowledge a person when they're dead but it's a cooping mechanism. Nobody wants to be called a murderer or an accomplice to murder, thus an individual thinks up of positive aspects about the deceased person in order to convince himself that he was a friend of the dead person. On top of all that, in society, we've sort of conditioned people to mean to one another, at least when they're young. Being nice won't get you far in this world, unless you're a girl. But I'm not in the mood to discuss gender inequality in behaviors. I'll just leave it as this, talking kindly of the dead is a cooping mechanism to escape the guilt of how we treated the person while he was alive.

Remember this: When you die, you might be in a duplicate Universe, where all the people behave as they did when you were alive in this Universe. They will not know that you died. It is important how we treat eachother in life, because after death, if you are an Enlightened creature, they will treat you the same way.

Thats an old question, maybe cuz everyone does that, or maybe because they fear them or they think they end up in hell or maybe because they realized they should have been nicer to them

because it reminds them of their mortality.

also, guilt

It is because they're not appreciate life or tend to ignore it. I mean is that they realize it that they got plenty of good things after somebody died.

It could be different reasons too, like they miss the person or what did that person do is something worth for his surrounding.

I feel like when I talk about the dead they are watching me. Duh XD

There are people who I do not like now and I'm certainly not about to start liking them when they die. There is a saying however "Love in death shows us how love in life should really be. xx

I think there are several reasons; one being that there's no point in trashing someone who can't defend him/herself, another being that we set an example among the living of how we hope to be talked about after we are gone.
Then of course, there are religous reasons among the religious, or like suckonthis9 said, there's a possibility that they've progressed into an alternate universe spanning other dimensions that are similar...or identical to ours.

I know exactly what you mean, and Michael Jackson is a perfect example. I guess it maybe comes down to us looking at the person as they are in the current when they are alive, but with death you view them based on their lifetime instead.

I'm the type of person that don't wish death on anyone, not even my worse enemies. My thing is if the person have a terminal illness, and you couldn't stand that person, its better to make peace with them before they die.

It is because people want other's to see how much they respected the deceased

I think it says in the Bible not to speak ill of the dead but personally I always tell the truth so if they were rotten people I will not say otherwise when others are fake about them.

Guilt

Subconscious fear of the unknown. No one knows what happens when you die. Or what happens to that person. or their "soul" or spirit. If they now exist in a different realm, it would be more so respect for that unknown realm, that they have "crossed over" and the memory of that person:(

Other: It is stupid bullshit.

Superstition.

I think it's out of respect. I don't really know why, though, they're probably having a much better time than we are.

Because they respect death.

most likely it's regret.

people are allowed to regret their decisions