Ernest Becker

October 4, 2005 12:52 PM

“The real world is simply too terrible to admit; it tells man that he is a small, trembling animal who will decay and die." “The defenses that form a person’s character support a grand illusion, and when we grasp this we can understand the full drivenness of man. He is driven away from himself, from self-knowledge, self-reflection. He is driven toward things that support the lie of his character.” Words of Ernest Becker, here summarizing Gestalt therapy and his own existential perspectives in Growing Up Rugged.
posted by semmi (26 comments total)

Interesting, but Foucalt made it all go away.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:22 PM on October 4, 2005

Grand illusions like an afterlife, immortality and a cosmic significance that spurs the causal agent of the universe to intervene in our personal lives. This also helps to explain the absurd accumulation of human economic and military power, to the point where our species' chances for success are reduced. Who wants survival or a caretaker's role over the biosphere, when there is hegemony to be had?
posted by arjuna at 1:28 PM on October 4, 2005

I printed the article out to read later; thanks for that. TJH, care to elaborate? Or at least point me to a relevant Focault title in lieu of elaboration...I hear this sort of thing all the time about how Focault made X redundant, but I guess I missed all that in university, and what Focault I have read been on sex and prisons mostly.
posted by stinkycheese at 1:28 PM on October 4, 2005

If what Becker has said is valid, it did not go away. If he was wrong, then it would go away with or without Foucalt. Question: how did Foucalt make it all go away and what has now made Foucalt go away? Or is he "still here."?
posted by Postroad at 1:29 PM on October 4, 2005

The difference between a child and an adult is that an adult accepts the reality of his own death, his eventual and inevitable non-existence.

There are not many adults among us.
posted by tgyg at 1:31 PM on October 4, 2005

Hmm. I was raised by a gestalt therapist who acknowledged "the dance of mad despair," that takes place on this planet.

I don't know, growing up with few illusions didn't prevent me from being neurotic in some ways, that's for sure. The approach of gestalt certainly makes sense, and I hear what Becker is saying about it, but it makes me wonder what the point is. If therapy is not a 'therapy' in the traditional sense, that it somehow improves or ameliorates whatever problems you suffer, why would you pursue it?
posted by miss tea at 1:39 PM on October 4, 2005

And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:42 PM on October 4, 2005

I would suggest that the Denial of Death ought to be read first. and then appropriate comments might be made. A brief synopsis of the book does not do justice to what the author was trying to do, whether or not finally you accept his view of things or not.
posted by Postroad at 2:27 PM on October 4, 2005

Thank you, wonderful to find parallels to 'big ideas' I tossed around before, with friends. Such as art as way to become immortal, and justify our existance somehow. And the stories of powerful men and myths of Hercules, Ceasar, etc. all point to the fact that we are fragile and in denial. Or in the article, "Immortality Projects". In a different vien, I was always arguing that to justify ourselves was to betray ourselves. With 'iron minds' our decisions can be made with no effort, or there is lies or what we call justification. From the article:
The Pharisee and the tax collector: “The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’
posted by uni verse at 2:54 PM on October 4, 2005

I also think merely existing presupposes most of his arguments. We are alive.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 3:12 PM on October 4, 2005

I quote from a somewhat overwraught master in this field

"He who does not at some time, with definite determination consent to the terribleness of life, or even exalt in it, never takes possession of the inexpressible fullness of the power of our existence."

-Selected Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke
posted by lalochezia at 3:34 PM on October 4, 2005

forgive me.
posted by devetron at 3:48 PM on October 4, 2005

If therapy is not a 'therapy' in the traditional sense, that it somehow improves or ameliorates whatever problems you suffer, why would you pursue it?

It's an "Immortality Project," it helps pass time, it offers a variant reality, it helps dump (transfer) some troubling stuff on the therapist, and what Foucault said, whatever it may have been.

uni verse: In all fairness to Becker (and Kirkegaard) you should give the full quote with its last sentence: “The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’ "I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other” (Luke 18:9-14).
posted by semmi at 5:49 PM on October 4, 2005

Few illusions here, but what I have in place is an almost constant sense of eventual death. I'll take it over self-delusion, though.

"Mad dance of despair". I like that.
posted by dreamsign at 6:11 PM on October 4, 2005

I've gotta admit: The Real World is pretty terrible.


What?
posted by graventy at 7:54 PM on October 4, 2005

stinkycheese: I don't know what 'The Jesse Helms' is referring to in saying, "Interesting, but Foucalt made it all go away", other than Foucault's view that conditions of discourse changes over time, in major and relatively sudden shifts, from one period's episteme to another, creating a network of rules establishing what is meaningful in the context of a given time. In his view Becker's discourse may be typical of its time, without displacing other ways of analyzing discourse or render them as invalid.
Of course, Becker would consider Foucault's own work as his unique 'Immortality Project' to escape the meaninglessness of his death.
posted by semmi at 9:54 PM on October 4, 2005

TJH's comment deserves elaboration -- it's meaningless as it stands.

my first thought was w/r/t late Foucault's retake on the Stoics -- it sort of parallels some of the themes here and serves me personally as a sort of non-fatalist response to egoist existentialism. the notion of subjective reinvention is, i think, a plausible explanation for the motives that someone like Becker would explain as reactions against the inevitable knowledge of death. from a Foucauldian/Stoic perspective, they're all self-contained operations on the self that modify the subject's relationship to its surrounding power structure...

foucault points out that for the ancient Greeks, ethos contained infinite sub-elements -- as seemingly insignificant as one's stance or gait -- that express one's deeper character. from a Foucauldian (and to some degree a Greek) perspective, those are the elements of one's character -- creating great or small works can be interpreted as an aesthetic act of self-creation.

regardless, i think that the salient point is that it doesn't all have to be about death and heroism -- another Foucault-ish comment would no doubt be that these ideas are just another discursive value structure that provides a post ex facto explanation and rationale for human acts that we find fascinating, such as heroism. the example foucault uses is the victorian obsession with sex -- the repressive hypothesis that absorbs, creates, and rearranges facts and knowledge to suit its explanatory structure. in the case of Becker, you could say that both heroism and humility are just individual reactions to the understanding of death, but the fact is that explanation only makes sense if you've already adopted 'fear of death' as the motive -- but that doesn't make it a categorical judgment or explanation. rather than 'fear of death,' insert 'social darwinism,' 'the id,' 'the collective unconscious,' or your theory of the week, and watch the discourse rearrange itself around the collected observation of individual acts.

on preview, semmi, i think you kind of got it right, but i obviously find the Foucauldian perspective a little more persuasive and his solution to the problem much more elegant... but so be it. either way, TJH's comment was silly.
posted by spiderwire at 10:49 PM on October 4, 2005

stinkycheese: the quickest route through Foucault is this: read The Foucault Reader, then Volume 3 of the Essential Foucault, "Power", and then Volume 1 of the Essential Foucault, Ethics". i think those are maybe the only books you ever need read on Foucault -- it's all primary-source stuff but Rabinow and others do a great job of getting the most cogent bits as well as some things you probably wouldn't find otherwise, like course syllabi and interviews and such. highly, highly recommended.
posted by spiderwire at 10:57 PM on October 4, 2005

To counteract the fear of death with insignificance, we engage in immortality projects.

That's why I spend most of my weekends sprawled on the couch watching TV.
posted by PurpleJack at 2:17 AM on October 5, 2005

Thanks for the info semmi & spiderwire. I have read Volume 1 of the Essential Foucault but I think I'll try it again, likely after your other two suggestions.
posted by stinkycheese at 8:39 AM on October 5, 2005

I would suggest that the Denial of Death ought to be read first. and then appropriate comments might be made. A brief synopsis of the book does not do justice to what the author was trying to do, whether or not finally you accept his view of things or not.

So ... got a link?

If therapy is not a 'therapy' in the traditional sense, that it somehow improves or ameliorates whatever problems you suffer, why would you pursue it?

Even if your problems do not go away, you can still be happier or more enlightened. In fact, becoming happier or more enlightened can actually make your problems seem smaller. For me, once the concept of death (my own, of course, not the general conceit) truly become known to me, all other "problems" paled. I wake up every day prepared to die. Some days I'm readier than others.

Btw, "Cornerstone Festival" reminds me of this cheesy church down the street. Uh, yep (it's surprising how little the word "Christian" is used on that site). I got dragged to a Cornerstone meeting in college (might not be the same thing) and had to leave when some folks started disparaging Unitarians.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:22 AM on October 5, 2005

might not be the same thing

It probably isn't, actually. Cornerstone is a fairly common name for church-related stuff, so there are several unrelated organizations with Cornerstone in their name.
posted by unreason at 11:06 AM on October 5, 2005

i obviously find the Foucauldian perspective a little more persuasive and his solution to the problem much more elegant.

spiderwire: I imagine Foucault would agree that as perspectives go one is as "good" as another, and, without trying to be difficult, would you elaborate on your meaning of "elegance" in the expression of ideas? It seems to me that at one end (philosophy) the premium is on succint simplicity and "elegant" expressions of ideas take us, on the other end, to literature.
posted by semmi at 12:00 PM on October 5, 2005

semmi: i think that foucault provides a sort of metaphysics for understanding thought -- that is, we can talk about discourses on sex, psychology, and existentialism and see how they all create their own regimes of truth regarding similar facts or objective circumstances.

this doesn't necessarily mean that we can escape our own discursive regimes while doing this, but i do see foucault's method as having explanatory power about those various value structures, while i just don't find the reverse to be true.

e.g., i halfway took your comment about Foucault's work from Becker's perspective as a demonstration of how a repressive hypothesis is ultimately reductionist.
posted by spiderwire at 12:45 PM on October 5, 2005

actually, here's a simpler way of putting it: i see Foucault's methods as tools for describing how we think about things, rather than starting with the "why" (death, oedipus complex, sex, natural selection, etc). Foucault would say that the way in which we talk is what ultimately determines all the various "why"s we come up with -- and that's a much more elegant argument to me.
posted by spiderwire at 12:49 PM on October 5, 2005

Spiderwire: I see your point. Thanks.
posted by semmi at 8:57 PM on October 5, 2005