The Denial of Death (Paperback)

by Ernest Becker (Author) "The first thing we have to do with heroism is to lay bare its underside, show what gives human heroics its specific nature and impetus..." (more)
Key Phrases: inner sustainment, cosmic heroism, ontological motives, Erich Fromm, New York, William James (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
The Chicago Sun-Times It is hard to overestimate the importance of this book; Becker succeeds brilliantly in what he sets out to do, and the effort was necessary. -- Review

Review
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D.Author of On Death And DyingIt puts together what others have torn to pieces and rendered useless. It is one of those rare masterpieces that will stimulate your thoughts, your intellectual curiosity, and last but not least, your soul...

New York Times Book Review...a brave work of electrifying intelligence and passion, optimistic and revolutionary, destined to endure...

Albuquerque Journal Book Review...to read it is to know the delight inherent in the unfolding of a mind grasping at new possibilities and forming a new synthesis. The Denial of Death is a great book -- one of the few great books of the 20th or any other century.

The Chicago Sun-TimesIt is hard to overestimate the importance of this book; Becker succeeds brilliantly in what he sets out to do, and the effort was necessary.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (May 8, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684832402
• ISBN-13: 978-0684832401
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #51,604 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

128 of 132 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A deep and brutally honest treatment, July 25, 1997

By A Customer

All lovers of existentialism will enjoy Becker's treatment of life and death. Becker won the Pulitzer Prize for this work when it was first published in 1974. Ironically and tragically, Becker himself died of cancer that very same year. He was 50 years old. I have been unsuccessful in my efforts to find out whether or not Becker knew of his sickness when he wrote the work. He certainly writes as one who understands the darkness of human life. Becker's thesis is that human personality and behavior has its deepest roots in our denying our death (thus the title). By this he means not only our death itself, but all of the horrors associated with our mortality as human beings. Becker makes frequent reference to Otto Rank, and reiterates Rank's point that all human cultural creation is inevitably religious in nature. There is also a wonderful treatment of Freud which will be especially refreshing to all those nauseauted by modern attempts to dress up Freud's theories and make them appear more optomistic than they are, as well as a discussion of Freud's breaks with Jung and others. There is even a chapter on Kierkegaard. Becker also attempts to show that neurosis is at least in part a result of not being able to erect the 'denial of death' defense mechanisms so many do, and that those who traverse the depths of human existence cannot but go mad to some degree. He says at one point, "No wonder the road of the artist so often detous through the madhouse." Finally, Becker bashes modern psychology, which makes this book an absolute must for any deep thinker who is considering entering this field. The Denial of Death is brutally honest, scholastic, and beautiful. Best of all, Becker doesn't make the all too common mistake of attempting to provide a solution (something all lovers of Camus will appreciate). The last 10 pages alone make this book worth reading. Read it thoughtfully and you will never be quite the same

161 of 168 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece of synthesis and insight, March 1, 2001

By	S. A. Felton (southern OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There are some books that are brilliant because they delve deeply into one subject. There are other books that are brilliant because they synthesize a panorama of other great books. Finally, there are perhaps the rarest of works that in one book combine the insights of many other brilliant tomes and make the synthesis seem like one subject. "The Denial of Death" belongs to this rarest of books. The excellence of the insights on so many pages is breathtaking, and it's only fitting that Becker, certainly a great writer previously, made his last book, published shortly and ironically before his death, his best.

Becker states at the outset the problem in our day is not that there isn't enough knowledge, the problem is that there isn't enough integration of this knowledge into a kind of wisdom that would properly summarize the accumulated knowledge. At the outset he acknowledges the difficulty in claiming that there is one direct insight into what causes (almost) all of the neuroses of life, which is the inability of people to see and overcome what I feel is the ultimate paradox of life, that we live and die at the same time. Yet in one book Becker succeeds so well it is astounding!

To summarize a summarizing book is difficult indeed! Basically what Becker claims is that man has twin but conflicting ontological needs/motives - to individuate and yet at the same time to feel a part of something greater. Man is a paradox in many other ways. Unlike other animals inside he (I will omit she to keep it simple) is largely symbolic - in his mind he can imagine the farthest mysteries of the universe, he can philosophize about the deepest meanings of life and its purpose. Yet like other animals man is anal (discussed extensively!) and possesses a body that is only too mortal.

Countless times Becker makes the point that the way most people live with these paradoxes is a "lie in the face of reality." That is, starting from childhood most people use all kinds of repressions to pretend that they aren't going to die. Much of society is based on symbolic systems for people to feel heroic, because when we achieve heroism we feel that we have transcended our mortality. Much of this heroism is in fact false, even disempowering, because for example most pointedly with entertainers and athletes we often in fact project our need for heroism onto them. In psychology this is called transference, which manifests itself in group psychology and other ways that Becker thoroughly covers.

Modern man has lost its way because science has removed the need for God, something transcendent beyond the physical life. Transcending Freud, citing Otto Rank most by far, as well many other fine psychologists, and even including Kirkegaard who predated them, Becker claims that it has been "scientifically" proven that the only way for man to deal with his fate, to achieve his innate heroic need, is to give his life up to something greater than the physical, call it God or whatever you wish. Thus he merges psychology with religion, in my opinion, quite correctly.

In bare form these are some of the main themes of "The Denial of Death." The book is a must read if a person has the courage to tackle this most "urgent" issue. I don't think you'll find a better analysis than Becker's. It could dramatically change the way you look at the world and the people who live in it.

In the end I did feel that Becker got somewhat carried away with his insight that the denial of death is the key to understanding people's deepest neuroses - he took it to what I felt was the extreme that it is simply impossible to transcend the denial of death. People who have had near death experiences in many cases seem to have overcome the fear of death, people who have mastered Eastern disciplines like meditation have done the same, and finally self-actualized people who simply live knowing that they are souls having a physical experience can also overcome the angst of physical mortality.

62 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Broad-Based and Meaningful Theory of Human Motivation, December 14, 1999

By	mike Ogden (Sayville, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Denial of Death (Paperback)

About the Book: All animal species are pre-wired with a survival instinct. Unlike other species, man is cursed with self-awareness which makes known to him his ultimate destiny with death. This realization engenders abject terror. Yet, man has to repress this terror (narrow consciousness) so that he can move through life with equanimity and precision. To do so, culture provides immortality scripts that if lived up to, help attenuate death-related terror through cognitive and emotional means. Emotionally, cultural prescriptions toward immortality elevates self-esteem and buffers against death related fear. This is possible because on a cognitive level, cultural scripts allows one to deny their mortality either through literal (heaven or Nirvana) or symbolic means (e.g., literary immortatlity). Because these cultural prescriptions to immortality are important to everyday functioning, they are refered to as man's vital lies. The problem with these immortality scripts is that they create continuous holy wars between people of differing worldviews: The very prescence of an alternative immortality script insinuates that the favored immortality script may be wrong. This motivates attempts at transelytization or the murder of dissentors (clearing the world of evil). This books well explains the basic human condition, why man's narsisistic nature cannot be helped, why man needs others to build a symbolic (or false) self, why human interaction is fraught with the policing of experience (politics), why being closer to God requires a hierarchy of subordinates and superiors, why man cannot handle freedom (he wishes to be enslaved), how man diffuses responsibility across a group, and more generally, why life, for most, cannot be fully lived (present centered) because most live life as a preperation for death (a chronic outcome- or future orientation taking man out of life). This theory of human motivation is broad and thus meaningful and well synthesizes many otherwise disparate theories or schools of thought into one coherent work. In recent years, Terror Management Theory has provided empirical support for some of Beckers central claims. A must to put into your theoretical toolkit. A good contrast to Beckers work which argues that human motivation leans toward a don't die orientation, is the idea of autotelic motives or human motivation as a live well orientation. To this end, you may want to read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Flow is described as timeless absorption into the task at hand. The task inducing flow is said to bring one's consciosness to a present-centered state (where the devinity - life itself - exists). People who are often in flow are said to be happier. Present centeredness is emphasized by the ancients and many present day therapists alike. I recomend comparing and contrasting these two aforementioned theories.