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Ernest Becker The Denial Of Death

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Ernest Becker was a cultural anthropologist that sought to synthesize research and findings from many different fields of work to create an all-encompassing explanation as to why human society is the way it is with particular emphasis on the hostility that creates barricades between different social groups. From this research he composed The Denial of Death, his magnum opus which aims to breakdown and tackle the one principle that explains human behavior and culture—our awareness of our vulnerability through our own mortality.

Synopsis: Main Ideas All living organisms are born with a strong and innate drive to live and to make progress through living; however, every organism’s entire life is already built on the fact of their own mortality—a promise that they will die one day. This presents a paradox for the living organism in that everything that that organism will do to …show more content…

This alone is hard to humans to get a grip onto as it’s difficult to see ourselves as similar to beings that do not and can not have the same intelligence as us to think abstractly. Abstract human thoughts such as concepts, emotions, and language alone sets us far apart on the psychological as well as cognitive scale from animals. This is the most obvious and generic way to look at human uniqueness, but it is the easiest to see the split between human and animal. From our abstract thinking, we are conscious or cognitively aware of universal mortality and the paradoxical problem it presents for us. Our whole universe is based on the principle that all living things cannot hold life forever which leaves humans caught in this paradox, feeling an overwhelming sense of entrapment and confusion: how could a being able to ponder the cosmos and capacitate countless theories and laws also be part nature and be doomed a life of

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