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

by Sheldon Solomon

In the classic 1941 horror film The Wolf Man, Sir John Talbot, the Wolf Man’s father, describes two diverging approaches to life: For some people life is very simple. They decide that this is good, that is bad, this is wrong, that’s right. There is no right in wrong, no good in bad, no shadings and grays, all blacks and whites…. Now others of us find that good, bad, right, wrong are many-sided, complex things; we try to see every side, but the more we see, the less sure we are. These perspectives reflect two different kinds of worldviews. We call one the rock and the other the hard place. The rock is a black-and-white scheme of things, with explicit prescriptions for attaining literal and symbolic immortality. Unfortunately, many people who subscribe to rock views fervently proclaim their beliefs to be absolute truth, and they insist that they can unambiguously differentiate between good and evil. “Isms”—fundamentalism, fascism, communism, and some forms of free-market capitalism—are rock views. According to Protestant theologian Paul Tillich, the fundamental problem with all “isms” is confusing their way with The Way: “It makes its myths and doctrines, its rites and laws into ultimates and persecutes those who do not subject themselves to it.” Because rock worldviews provide clear and simple bases of meaning, self-worth, and immortality, they afford seductive psychological security for those who sustain faith in, and feel valued within, them.

The alternative to rock worldviews is the hard place: conceptions of life that accept ambiguity and acknowledge that all beliefs are held with some measure of uncertainty. Hard place worldviews are malleable. Although adherents of the hard place take their beliefs and values seriously, they are open to other ideas and refuse to claim sole ownership of the truth. They recognize that right and wrong, and good and evil, cannot always be disentangled. Consequently, they tend to be more tolerant of those who are different. The hard place means accepting that meaning and values are human creations.