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The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man

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After reading "The Birth and Death of Meaning" along with "The Denial of Death", Ernest Becker quickly became one of my personal heroes. Who else would have had the guts to write something so penetrating, so frightening, so threatening to the mechanisms we use every day to cope with life? Becker makes shockingly clear the fictitious nature of human meaning and the contrived nature of social game: if you've ever wondered why the mentally ill are so neglected as a minority and generally spurned even by so called "activists" for racial acceptance, etc, you won't wonder after reading this book. For all that Becker is gentle, not some arrogant nihilistic jerk. There is no typical existentialist self pity here, no "nausea", simply a tough recognition of the way things actually are and a few relative ideas as to how we should deal with them. This is what differentiates Becker from the postmodernists and others who delight in impotence: he is open to solution, to creative play and even religious answers (of an unconventional kind, of course.) His insight and intellect are so powerful as to be scary, and one wonders how such a man dealt with the trivialities of everyday life knowing that they are part of a gigantic charade of illusory meaning. He makes it clear that man is a social animal, and that we are built from the outside in rather than the other way around. His theory of the "urge toward cosmic heroism" fits perfectly into actual concrete everyday life, where anyone and everyone is eager to stand out in some way as cultural heroes. Like Nietzsche, perhaps even better, Becker illustrates the way in which we deceive ourselves and deliberately confuse the cultural game with underlying material reality. He offers four levels of possible solution, the first of which he warns can lead to narcissism and mandess, the second and third being religious in an abstract and metaphysical way. Becker is not, like so many sociologists, drunk on his own lucidity or on a power trip: he is telling us to relax, because the question of relevance is very much up in the air. Authenticity is his message. I would recommend this book as it is easily one of the most important philosophical awakenings that are on the bookshelf, but I would qualify that statement by also recommending it be taken in small doses.

I read this book when I was in college, nearly 30 years ago. The fact I am writing this review after such a long time should attest to what impact this book had on me. At that age, in my early twenties, I was concerned about the meaning of human existence, and this book provided satisfactory answers.

What impressed me most were; Becker's discussion of ego; our unique awareness of the fact that we will die; and (most interesting) our abilities and inabilities to role play in society. I can't say that reading Becker will necessarily make one a happier person, but after reading this book life will make a lot more sense.

Today, I am an engineer who is used to viewing things mechanically, on face value. Perhaps Becker's philosophy appealled to me because of his explaination of the mechanics of ego and role playing in society. On this basis, as an explaination of the fundamentals of human behavior, it rings profoundly true.

In each of his books, Ernest Becker presents his most current view of what human life (and our experience of it) 'really means'. His intellectual life was a constant quest for some theoretical framework that would explain human experience/behavior in a satisfactory way. Each book seems to say, "We'll, I didn't quite have it right before, but now I really know what it is all about." Reading his books in order is a grand journey of mind and spirit. I never felt that he fully succeeded in his quest, but each book - and this in particular for me because it was the first of his I read - forces the reader to come to terms with aspects of life that we usually avoid thinking about - either because they are too difficult or because we have supressed any awareness of them.

If the unexamined life is not worth living, this book, and all of Becker's output, should become tools to assist in the examination we need to make if life is to be meaninful.

Truly a philosophical and psychological classic with powerful ideas exploding from every page. Highly recommended for hundreds of passages like the following:

"The thing that makes the study of character so fascinating and so difficult is that is largely a matter of sorting out bizarre collages ... That is why self-analyses for anyone who wants to work at it, is a task for more than one lifetime - it can never really be finished." * "The ego finds out what feelings, thoughts, and situations are dangerous and then permits the organism to exist in a world in which there is no danger by steering clear of these feelings, thoughts and situations. ... And this price is the heaviest we have to pay: namely, the restriction of experience ... by skewing perceptions and limiting action." * "One of the things that most people take with them out of their early experience is a dependency on others for their sense of self, a rooting in the powers of someone else; this gives them a certain serenity, an ability to carry on daily without worrying or thinking about their own weakness or lack of self-confidence." * "Genuine heroism for man is still the power to support contradictions, no matter how glaring or hopeless they may seem." * "We think we see power in the people with sure beliefs, unshakable convictions, smug self-confidence. Yet these are psychological weaknesses on a planet which is fluid and full of surprises."

Unique integrity in bearing the intellectual consequences of facing the prospect of death. Must read before DENIAL OF DEATH of the same author. The interdisciplinary erudition and ability to integrate broad spectrum of views and data are exceptional. You must be brave to read and think through...

In hardly more than 200 pages, Ernest Becker has written a book of remarkable and startling insight into human nature, the culture that arises from that nature, and how to see what most people cannot: the way we've been programmed from infancy to cope with the anxieties of the human condition according to the symbol systems imparted to us by our parents and our society.

Culture, religion, political ideals...they are nothing but neurotic defenses against existential terror.

We're born from out of nowhere and dissolved back into nowhere--and the anxiety this produces we must somehow forget if we're to get on with the day-to-day business of living. But as a result, we end up living largely shallow lives, finding "meaning" in material pleasures and possessions, in patriotism, professions, catechisms of one sort or another, even in parenthood because that's what our society rewards us for doing.

But do these pursuits really satisfy--or are they only neurotic responses to feelings of powerlessness and fears of meaninglessness in the face of an inescapable death we'd rather do anything than face?

Becker lucidly traces our development as individuals and as a species from a basic sense of helplessness to a mastery of our environment through the manipulation of symbols, primarily language, self-reflection, and abstract thinking. This mastery is, in fact, a desperate and necessary quest for self-esteem in the face of our cosmic irrelevance that is literally a matter of life and death.

That seemingly stupid and pointless exchange of nods and raised eyebrows that transpires when you pass a workmate in the office--it's loaded with codes and cues. The dumb small-talk you're compelled to make at cocktail parties--it fulfills a social contract whose terms we've agreed to by default, just by being a "human" being. We are all engaging in a drama, each with our parts to play, and if you don't play yours, the rest will turn against you because what you are doing is threatening to expose the whole show as nothing but a charade. The unemployed, the ostracized, the homeless, the lonely, those committed to prisons and mental hospitals--their ranks are filled with people who, for one reason or another, cannot play along successfully.

Most people can't handle the truth--which is largely how the world keeps going round.

Becker is talking to those who can. He urges those strong enough to cast off the fictions we live by, the fetters that bind us, the falsehoods that protect us from fear--but that also keep us from authentic living. Because even if we play along, many of us are unhappy, even if we don't realize why. The world is a violent place filled with neurotic and psychopathic "normal" people...society itself is a neurotic response taken by the majority to an intolerable condition. Instead of merely playing our roles, Becker calls us to a new kind of religious sensibility--one that asks questions rather than repeat traditional answers. A religious sensibility--not a religion--that enables us to hold in balance our paradoxical position somewhere between god and animal.

The goal, Becker seems to say, is to choose a role for ourselves but never forget that it is a role. Like the existentialists, Becker suggests that the "meaning" of life is the meaning we give it--but that's "all" it is, the meaning we've decided to give it. And to be truly free is to never become so wholly lost in the role we've assigned ourselves, nor the drama we've written to star in that we mistake ourselves for our role or the drama for reality.

We are, in fact, what lies behind all that--an actor whose face we never see in full light, who appears on stage and disappears off-stage, who remains unknown even when the final credits roll.

It may well be that most people cannot endure such uncertainty--nor so much freedom. And, sadly, that's why the world is in the sorry condition it's in, has always been, and most likely will always be.

But "I" is a candle that can only be lit one at a time. That's the good news Becker delivers in this bluntly provocative but ultimately inspiring book. If you've often felt like a character in a Twilight Zone episode, the one sane person in a lunatic asylum, Becker is good company. You're almost certain to enjoy his work.

All Becker is worth reading. No, revise that, all Becker is necessary reading. The school curriculum should consist mainly of a gradual, detailed scrutiny of Becker's work. Then we might not all be so immeasurably stupid.

In "Birth & Death of Meaning", Ernest strips away the pretensions & evasions inherent in the Human Project. Once you have grasped how measly, second-rate & gerrybuilt is your 'pseudopod', you will, paradoxically, sleep better at night, smile more politely at strangers & behave generally better with those people who must perform the jobs in life that no one wants.

The concept of 'heroism', as developed by Becker, with his usual mix of vision, honesty & courage, is, in my experience, the single best means of understanding the labouring of the human psyche & the damage inherent in this labour - both to the 'self' & others - as we strive to be "the hero of our own newsreel".

That Becker is a neglected genius is all too readily understandable. His insight lays us bare - renders us naked in a world that is naturally indifferent & culturally largely hostile.

Introduction

When the name Ernest Becker is mentioned, it is time to pull out the superlatives. Like his other books, this one too is panoramic in scope; magisterial in its command of the material it covers, and as always, comprehensive. It is another synthesis that constitutes an odyssey on the meaning of man. And, as with his other analyses, this one begins with anthropology, adds psychology, psychosocial history, and as needed, biology and philosophy. Because it is so comprehensive, yet so readable, this remains one of the most important books in the social sciences. It is near the top of my "Hall of Fame" list of must read good books. It sums up in an elegant, simple, yet profound way, what we know about man's existence on this earth up to the present.

Becker's Ontology of Man

Becker has put forth here nothing less than a full ontology of man. At the center of his theoretical (and theatrical) edifice is man's urge to achieve self-esteem. In Becker's ontology, the pursuit of self-esteem is the supreme motive of man's existence. Self-esteem (a point that Freud missed) is the construction material out of which the "Grand Hotel" that houses all of man's meaning, is built: That Grand Hotel is culture.

Man comes about self-esteem as being his primary motive for existence in a very natural and logical way. The meaning begins with Becker's unraveling of the mystery of how the mind evolved. Mind, is simply an organism's style of reacting to its environment. The world of meaning is built up out of the range and subtlety of its reactivity. Through "fine-tuning," the animal learns overtime to condition his reactions, and from there, on to mental association. Mind then is just a progressive increase in the freedom and sophistication of an organism's ways of reacting. Freud gave us a map of how this process of reactivity is constituted within the brain's architecture. The "id," a remnant of the instinctive and reptilian brain, is uncontrolled "reactivity; the ego seeks to control and delay the reactivity of the "id." This delaying allowed for the ability to see ahead, plan and decide. From this basic understanding, of reactivity, Becker's story of the development of mind is simply this:

That the imperatives of man being a "meat-eating mammal" and the complex social requirements of, being around females in constant estrus, caused the turning of a complex evolutionary wheel that ended in an unfolding of all the characteristics we now recognize as human: the ability to plan and reason; the use of language and the invention of social organization and culture. The ensuing developmental sequence in Becker's mind is clear and straightforward: Meat-eating required hunting; a successful hunt (especially of larger animals) of course required cooperation. Cooperation on the hunt, and the avoidance of conflict -- over the continuous sexual stimulation due to monthly estrus -- mandated, planning, symbolic or abstract thinking, and complex social interactions, which led to social organization. Social organization and symbolic thinking led directly to a culture based on language and then on to its most evolved social expression, with the end-product being a "hero system;" a system where the primary sustenance was no longer based on fighting for sex and meat alone, but also on symbolic rewards such as status and roles based on self-esteem: Pride in ones own ability became a survival tool that replaced the familiar animal need to fight over food and sex.

The Drama of Culture as Meaning

Culture is the treasure chest in which all of man's meanings reside - effectively a conduit to man's historical memory. It is where character, identities and personalities of individuals are constructed, shaped, and sensitively maintained. It is where the rules for "self-esteem maintenance" are transacted and enforced through the process of socialization. In exchange for the safety of one's self-esteem, and being allowed to become "an object of primary value in a world of meaningful action," man is asked to give up most of his freedom "to be." The price for a room in the Grand Hotel of culture thus at first seems negotiable: It is to become a "reality-adjusted" and a "socially-adjusted" being. Sharing the same "worldview" and sharing the same "social customs and meanings" is the price for a key to a room in the Grand Hotel of culture. But there is a paradox: one can "opt out" of the negotiation only at the peril of his own psychological and physical existence. Thus, one is either "socially-adjusted, or abandoned from the Grand Hotel of culture.

Inside the Grand Hotel, the drama of culture is "played out" each night on the stage in the main opera house. It is a comic-tragic self-referential drama of social heroism. Society writes the scripts, assigns the roles, shapes the identities, choreographs all meanings, and orchestrates the plot about itself. It is a drama in which, anyone seeking a room in the hotel, cannot "opt out of." If ones life is to be an object of primary value in a world of meaningful action, then his self-esteem must be hitched to a culture. In short his freedom must be "cashed in" at the theater window. There are no other choices. Opting "not to play a role" is in fact a role in man's cultural drama of heroism. Thus all of the dramas of man's meanings are existential in character. In all the plots about man's heroism, the highest form of existence for him is to be able to act with freedom and independence in a world of meaning. But everything that man does is self-referential, self-objectifying and self-justifying, because the world in which his meanings become operational is primarily symbolic: that is to say, the world of meanings itself is negotiated through language.

The Death of Meaning

In a paradoxical tautology that is inherent in man's linguistically based world of meaning, man posits, as a creative act of mind, theories about what is meaningful within his own world. He then, as a way of confirming the theory he has just concocted, goes about trying to objectify and prove that these meanings are what he said they were in the beginning.

Invariably these theories are about what man must do in order to survive physically and mentally in a disordered, chaotic and always hostile environment (the most hostile of which is man himself). The hero is always the one who "knows, and can lead the way to order, safety, and survival." However there is a limit to what man can do in order to ensure his own survival, and the survival of his meanings: Man's existence on earth is finite. There is a definite endpoint. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, only darkness. The existential drama must always end in tragedy. Inevitably, the drama of heroism always ends in death: the death of man, and the death of his meanings. Man has not yet learned how to overcome death. But even in this case where he learns to deny his lack of mortality: where he must struggle with his own finitude, man must create symbolic ways of overcoming and defying death. These ways are called "immortality projects."

If one looks closely enough at all of the dramas of heroism staged in the Grand Hotel, they all "pretend" to sidestep and ignore death, yet despite this, if you examine them closely, they are always about how to go directly to the act of building "immortality projects," or about how to invoke gods who will rescue man and his meanings from the inevitability of the very death he is "pretending" not to know is there? In this state of collective denial, man's dramas of heroism are always both comic and tragic.

1000 stars

Ernest takes your innocent little hand and walks you through human organismic life from the beginning, and quickly paralyzes you with observations like this: (quote-page 67) "The child learns painfully that he cannot earn parental approval...by continuing to express himself with his body...(his) self-value no longer derives from the mother's milk, but from the mother's mouth. The change is momentous because of what is implicit in it: the child's basic sense of self-value has been largely arificialized." From these brutal observations, Becker lays the solid groundwork for his Pulizer Prize "Denial of Death" and final "Escape from Evil". PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR: If you have always sensed that the world is artificial and want to begin to reset your mind for further thinking, buy and read all of Becker's work. In doing so, his philosophy will never leave your mind. Intelligent people owe it to themselves to give it a glance and apply their own thoughs to it.

A well-written book but really a prelude to DENIAL OF DEATH; better to start there and work backwards if one finds that book of significant interest.