Ernest Becker

Author profile

born

September 27, 1924 in Springfield, Massachusettes, The United States

died

March 06, 1974

gender

male

website

http://www.ernestbecker.org/

genre

Social Sciences, Philosophy, Nonfiction

influences

Søren Kierkegaard, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Norman O. Brown, Eri...more

About this author

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Dr. Ernest Becker was a cultural anthropologist and interdisciplinary scientific thinker and writer.

Becker was born in Springfield, Massachusetts to Jewish immigrant parents. After completing military service, in which he served in the infantry and helped to liberate a Nazi concentration camp, he attended Syracuse University in New York. Upon graduation he joined the US Embassy in Paris as an administrative officer. In his early 30s, he returned to Syracuse University to pursue graduate studies in cultural anthropology. He completed his Ph.D. in 1960. The first of his nine books, Zen, A Rational Critique (1961) was based on his doctoral dissertation. After Syracuse, he became a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC (Canada)....more Dr. Ernest Becker was a cultural anthropologist and interdisciplinary scientific thinker and writer.

Becker was born in Springfield, Massachusetts to Jewish immigrant parents. After completing military service, in which he served in the infantry and helped to liberate a Nazi concentration camp, he attended Syracuse University in New York. Upon graduation he joined the US Embassy in Paris as an administrative officer. In his early 30s, he returned to Syracuse University to pursue graduate studies in cultural anthropology. He completed his Ph.D. in 1960. The first of his nine books, Zen, A Rational Critique (1961) was based on his doctoral dissertation. After Syracuse, he became a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC (Canada).

Becker came to the recognition that psychological inquiry inevitably comes to a dead end beyond which belief systems must be invoked to satisfy the human psyche. The reach of such a perspective consequently encompasses science and religion, even to what Sam Keen suggests is Becker's greatest achievement, the creation of the "science of evil." In formulating his theories Becker drew on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Norman O. Brown, Erich Fromm, and especially Otto Rank. Becker came to believe that a person's character is essentially formed around the process of denying his own mortality, that this denial is necessary for the person to function in the world, and that this character-armor prevents genuine self-knowledge. Much of the evil in the world, he believed, was a consequence of this need to deny death.

Because of his breadth of vision and avoidance of social science specialization, Becker was an academic outcast in the last decade of his life. It was only with the award of the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for his 1973 book, The Denial of Death (two months after his own death from cancer at the age of 49) that he gained wider recognition. Escape From Evil (1975) was intended as a significant extension of the line of reasoning begun in Denial of Death, developing the social and cultural implications of the concepts explored in the earlier book. Although the manuscript's second half was left unfinished at the time of his death, it was completed from what manuscript existed as well as from notes on the unfinished chapter.

The Ernest Becker Foundation is devoted to multidisciplinary inquiries into human behavior, with a particular focus on contributing to the reduction of violence in human society, using Becker's basic ideas to support research and application at the interfaces of science, the humanities, social action and religion.

Some of the above information is from the EBF website and used by permission.

Becker also wrote The Birth and Death of Meaning which gets its title from the concept of man moving away from the simple minded ape into a world of symbols and illusions, and then deconstructing those illusions through his own evolving intellect.

Flight From Death (2006) is a documentary film directed by Patrick Shen, based on Becker's work, and partially funded by the Ernest Becker Foundation.
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Average rating: 4.27 · 1,270 ratings · 169 reviews · 12 distinct works

	The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, Sam Keen (Foreword by), Daniel Goleman (Foreword by) 4.24 avg rating — 1,011 ratings — published 1973 — 14 editions	My rating:
	Escape from Evil 4.40 avg rating — 119 ratings — published 1975 — 3 editions	My rating:
	The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man 4.40 avg rating — 103 ratings — published 1971 — 6 editions	My rating:
	The Ernest Becker Reader by Ernest Becker, Daniel Liechty (Editor) 4.60 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 2005	My rating:
	Angel in Armor: A Post-Freudian Perspective on the Nature of Man 4.09 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 1969 — 2 editions	My rating:
	The Structure of Evil: An Essay on the Unification of the Science of Man 4.17 avg rating — 6 ratings	My rating:
	Revolution in Psychiatry: The New Understanding of Man 4.25 avg rating — 4 ratings — 2 editions	My rating:
	Transference & Transcendence: Ernest Becker's Contribution to Psychotherapy 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1995	My rating:
	The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 1962	My rating:
	El Barbaro Imaginario 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	My rating:

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Quotes by Ernest Becker

“Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level.”
― Ernest Becker

tags: existentialism

12 people liked it

“When we are young we are often puzzled by the fact that each person we admire seems to have a different version of what life ought to be, what a good man is, how to live, and so on. If we are especially sensitive it seems more than puzzling, it is disheartening. What most people usually do is to follow one person's ideas and then another's depending on who looms largest on one's horizon at the time. The one with the deepest voice, the strongest appearance, the most authority and success, is usually the one who gets our momentary allegiance; and we try to pattern our ideals after him. But as life goes on we get a perspective on this and all these different versions of truth become a little pathetic. Each person thinks that he has the formula for triumphing over life's limitations and knows with authority what it means to be a man, and he usually tries to win a following for his particular patent. Today we know that people try so hard to win converts for their point of view because it is more than merely an outlook on life: it is an immortality formula.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

8 people liked it

“The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

8 people liked it

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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The History Book ...: 7. MY LIFE ~~ July 25th - July 31st ~~ Chapters EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN and TWENTY (202- 259); No Spoilers Please	44	22	Sep 19, 2011 07:26am
The History Book ...: MY LIFE - BOOKS CLINTON READ	27	25	Oct 24, 2011 07:24am

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Ernest Becker

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Quotes by Ernest Becker

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