The Denial of Death in Existentialism

Jun 23, 2019 Vaibhav Solanki rated it it was amazing

I don't think I've ever felt so ambivalent about a book. This book was part OMG, part WTF. If this book was a person, I am not sure if I want to marry her, have kids with her and live happily ever after OR marry her, have kids with her, kill them all, hide in Mexico impersonating a famous journalist ( Hi, Christian Longo).

I picked up this book for I wanted to read about how the problem of death (the existential dilemma/crisis) has been tackled by psychologists. The book gave me much more than t I don't think I've ever felt so ambivalent about a book. This book was part OMG, part WTF. If this book was a person, I am not sure if I want to marry her, have kids with her and live happily ever after OR marry her, have kids with her, kill them all, hide in Mexico impersonating a famous journalist ( Hi, Christian Longo).

I picked up this book for I wanted to read about how the problem of death (the existential dilemma/crisis) has been tackled by psychologists. The book gave me much more than that. It touches upon religion, fetishism, heroism, and death, of course. This is a book reviewing and commenting on the various psychological insights starting with Freud and his successors. Pretty heavy going, and I find it hard to relate to a lot of some of the ‘complexes’ described in psychology (Oedipus, castration, primal scene, etc.). But the fundamental duality, the borderless world (at least in theory) of the mind, and the bordered reality of the body is powerful.

The way Becker asserts completely unscientific claims as scientific--rigorously scientific--is maddening. Particularly his handling of schizophrenia and depression, which he says are the consequences of being too unmoored from reality and too tied to it, respectively.

At the same time, the core concepts of The Denial of Death have been revolutionary for me. The book holds that human beings are the only creatures on Earth capable of contemplating the certainty of our own deaths, and because we are animals with drives for survival it is nearly impossible to function with this knowledge at the forefront of our conscious minds. We develop elaborate defense mechanisms against it, ways of feeling powerful and immortal. Some of these defenses are necessary in order to live; some of them, deeply held, can cause us to wreak unnecessary death, destruction and misery on one another. Quoting from the book : "How Darwinians thoughts of early men who were most afraid about their existence and survival, and how they passed on to their offspring a realism disguised as anxiety eventually leading to high survival probability and how man turned out to be a hyper anxious animal who constantly invents reasons for anxiety even when there are none."

All this sounds good but let me tell you about the incomprehensible part of this book. Author believes that narcissism is increased when one's childhood experiences have been securely life supporting and warmly enhancing to the sense of self, to the feeling of being really special.
Also that one can't cope easily with the emptiness, the gap that would be left by one's disappearance. As per the author, one can cope with someone else's grief over one's disappearance. In an attempt to paint death in such intriguing color, author was trying to over shadow grief and I think C.S. Lewis would join me in disagreeing with him.

The author seems to imply a Kierkegaard-esque view of the world may be most workable, yet later on criticizes the philosopher for not living up to his own ideals. He finally seems to suggest an almost anti-Zen like approach to life, where "man" should stand up to all the horrors and difficulties of life and still try and move humanity forward. It's a bit of an unsatisfying conclusion to an otherwise mesmerizing tour de force of the subject.
The insights are both penetrating and daring if sometimes off-base.

Leave it to a Psychologist to explain something in the darkest but a spot on manner. They explain organisms as : " tearing other apart with teeth of all types -biting, grinding flesh, plant stalks, bones between molar, pushing the pulp greedily down the gullet with delight, incorporating its essence into one's own organization, and then excreting with foul stench and gasses that residue. " . As per Freud, we are born between urine and faeces but I am pretty sure you must have heard/read something more messed up than this by him. The statement by William James calling death "the worm at the core" of man's pretensions to happiness don’t dissolve in the conscious and gets sedimented in dark corners of your mind.

This book has explained problems with children and men, how they think and how they craft their world around them. How child is ashamed of what he needs and wants. How his existence screams his natural narcissism. How children are extremely confused about cause-and-effect relationships and how unreal awareness they have of the limits of their own power.
And the explanation of why guilt and helplessness really thought provoking. When the child experiences inevitable and real frustrations from his parents, he directs hate and destructive feelings towards them, and he has no way of knowing that malevolent feelings cannot be fulfilled by the same magic as were his other wishes. How men define their bravery. Heroism is first and foremost a reflex of the terror of death. We admire most the courage to face death; we give such valor and highest and most constant adoration; it moves us deeply in our hearts because we have doubt above how brave we ourselves would be. How men are necessarily mad that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness. Helplessly attempting to deny and overcome his grotesque fate, but I think being unaware of that fact or the ability to look the other way from reality is the first line of defense that protects us from the painful awareness of our helplessness.

To a degree, we live in a world of denial and self-deception out of necessity. To even partially see the randomness and horrible possibilities of the world in all its truth would be overwhelming(actually I want to use the F work here). We must give our lives meaning and the ways we do so are innumerable and so few are legitimate. In a way, we're all neurotic to a degree for trying to gain control over the chaos of life.

I would be lying if I said that I understood every single line of this book. This one is brutally honest, and it will upset you if you aren't yet ready to accept the true nature of the human condition in all its absurdity. So I will read this again when I am 40 years old. And maybe this is one of the issue here which leads to someone being in denial of his death. We all are too blindly and unrealistically ambitious about our own existence and I was shocked when this was not addressed in the book. Who knows whether you will go to office tomorrow or would be able to pick up the phone when your mom is on the other end panicking after 5 missed call. May be the psychologist thought people already knew that. Would I recommend this book to someone? I don’t know. This book can leave people cold, disoriented and thinking that if you are still breathing, are you really the lucky one? ...more

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