The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life

by Sheldon Solomon

“Life,” wrote biologist Stephen Jay Gould, “is a copiously branching bush, continually pruned by the grim reaper of extinction, not a ladder of predictable progress.” While other creatures have succumbed to abrupt climate changes or competition from other plants or animals, we humans are the only species that can prune our own branch from the proverbial Tree of Life. Although symbolization, self-consciousness, and the capacity to transform figments of our imagination into reality have been of tremendous service to us humans, they have also made us aware of our vulnerability, transience, and mortality. Confidence in a cultural scheme of things and our own self-worth banish the dread. But when someone “different” challenges our core beliefs or sense of significance, we want to derogate, dehumanize, assimilate, demonize, humiliate, and destroy them. Perhaps the only reason humans have survived to date is that until recently, we lacked the technological means to exterminate ourselves.