The Denial of Death

The Denial of Death

By: Ernest Becker  

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Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie -- man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.

Publisher: Free Press Paperbacks

Customer Review: 1 out of 5
Ernest Becker: time to debunk - Becker did not live to get an appointment at U. Of Chicago - but he had his sights set judging from his 1974 Pulitzer (General Nonfiction) prize-winner, "The Denial of Death".

I happened to find an article in the German wikipedia that seemed so incomplete that I looked to the English wikipedia and found a piece in praise of Becker. Oh vey.

I have posted a note to the discussion at that page and linked the page to the Norman O. Brown page and vice-versa.

If you have met someone enlightened by reading Becker and you have ever met someone enlightened by reading Ayn Rand then you will know what I mean: for one, the death anxiety and the hero-denied; for the other, selfishness denied and again, the hero-denied. Set aside history, science, philosophy, economics cuz we have hit Insight.

What follows is an edit to my post at the site for Paul Chen's film on the "great man" and the "great book":


I think that most people praising this film may not have read the book with as much care as they might - especially what he in fact says in the lengthy treatment of fetish.

Few viewers will then take the time to visit a university library and then read the referenced articles of Phyllis Greenacre.

Even fewer will then investigate the science, first, as cultural anthropology and it lack of actual field work, its inaccurate demographics let alone the problems with this "just so" story from an evolutionary standpoint.

The index to The Denial Of Death as originally published was hopelessly inaccurate. The "facts" presented about various aspects of normal and abnormal child development were wholly anecdotal.

For all the books reliance on Tillich, the book had not so much as a footnote on Jaspers. For all the references to Medard Boss, not a single reference to Ludwig Binswanger.

More references to Rousseau than to Sartre.

The chapter on Kierkegaard is perhaps the weakest in the book (Dostoievsky is notable for his absence.)

Not a single dissenting view on female psychology (1973 ! ) was presented - not even in his account of sexual frigidity. Not de Beauvoir. Not even Betty Frieden.

What is a science documentary when the science is human science? What could this book mean with nothing from Max Weber (good friend to Jaspers - they all knew Tillich.)

Unlike most Viennese gents of Freud's day, one suspects that Becker was never in a brothel and did no field work with homosexuals and certainly none with lesbians, transexuals or bisexuals. His account of depression ( 1973 ) is appalling. While he mentions Searles, his account of schizophrenia is completely sophomoric - devoid of any reference to ongoing work in VA hospitals across the US - pitiful.

His bold claim to offer a general theory of mental illness, today, in light of current knowledge of genetics and brain imaging and realization of the total inadequacy of the existing diagnostic nomenclature - well it is a sad anti-science joke reminiscent of Tom Szasz.

Had Becker done any field work with those with a known short life expectancy - and done it cross-culturally - he might have been able to make a small contribution to human science.

But Becker felt that science had become overwhelming - in his own words - "clinical closure" was now possible. Wrong.

His own heroic gesture was a refusal to recognize his own limits as a social scientist. He had to proclaim what we are - what we essentially are.

Oddity: I recall no reference to Hans Jonas, who had recently delivered the Arendt eulogy, if memory serves.

Back to this blog: what is so surprising is that the internet has no sign of what Becker actually wrote in "The Denial of Death" - it is as if most readers skipped page after page on homosexuality, fetish, the relation of religion to psychiatry. What I suspect is that this book is still on the reading lists at liberal colleges (it could be used in Iran or Saudi Arabia, no problem.)

Oh, yes - I must be in denial. Not.

PS If you so much as a gay or lesbian friend, and you think you know the book, forget the index - take the time to read the later chapters word for word, line by line. If you are a woman, the index does not link "rape" or "foot-binding" but his "analysis" is there. If you know nothing about cultures very different from Protestant, Jewish and Roman Catholic western culture, learn a bit about Korea, Vietnam and Japan as they were before the missionaries - that includes the Buddhist missionaries to Japan. Do not confuse "respect for ancestor bones" with our western translation "ancestor worship". Do not confuse "respect" and "care" with the western notion of "love" as philos/eros/agape. Work will be required. This is no easier than physics, no easier than math - there are no shortcuts. Not in philosophy of religion, not in psychology of religion and not in philosophical anthropology. Make no mistake: this is "cultural anthropology" only in the sense that it reflects the "culture" of Vienna, New York, Chicago and of a very distinct milieu - the psychoanalytic milieu of anthropology from the armchair - this is half-baked neo-Freudian philosophical anthropology and gives that limited domain a bad name. But: the chair of phil at College de France is now held by a medical doctor - change is afoot. Slow, but change - it takes generations - you have to wait for the analysts to die off and their disciples to die off. It's that simple. But then there are the "Foundations" left behind. Oh vey. Where is the "Phlogiston Foundation", "The Ether Foundation" and "The Otto Weininger Fdoundation"

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Stunning - A very interesting view on how the world of psychoanalysis changed our views on life and death. Becker has done a wonderful job of painting a portrait of the human condition, and has engaged the subject in a deep, meaningful manner.

Customer Review: 3 out of 5
Could have been really good - I picked this book up because I'm interested in the ways people deal with (or avoid) the thorniest issues associated with beng human- how do we understand what we are as psycholigical and spiritual beings?

Unfortunately, Becker's arguments are kind of flabby. First of all, he only vaguely defines his terms. For example, he introduces the idea of the "heroic" as a key characteristic of human psycholgical behavior. He turns to the idea througout the book. Unfortunately, he doesn't define the term, anywhere, in a concrete way. Does the hero save babies from buning houses? Does he mean that each person is the main character, the hero, of his or her own life story? After some puzzling, I was able to cipher out that for Becker, each person developes a self image by telling himself that he does, or does not live up to a culturally or indiviudally derived set of values. By focusing on these values, by living out this hero role, a person is distracted from disturbing inward questions. That's an interesting idea, and a more rigorous treatment might have taught me a lot more.

Likewise, Becker makes vague, sweeping statements throughout the book. For example, the schizophrenic is burdened with an "alien" animal body. He did not develop a secure "seating" in his body. The healthy "animal faith" is denied him. What does that mean? (BTW-The quotation marks are themselves an indicator that Becker himself lacked a clear idea of the terms he was tossing about.) He says, " The schizophrenic cannot make available to himself the natural organismc expression that others use to buffer and absorb the fear of life and death. He does not feel this natural animal plenitude." Bwa'h?!? That doesn't mean anything at all. It's like he smoked some weed, and got some fleeting glimpse of a deep idea, but couldn't quite put it into exact words.

And another thing, he's addicted to the verities of the psycho-analytic movement. He assumes the truth of such chestnuts as the Oedipus complex, anality, etc (albeit in re-defined, and you guessed it, hazy, terms). The most annoying assumption he makes is that his is a "scientific" approach to human psychology. This allows him to make claims about the objective reality of his findings. He criticizes Freud for exchanging one orthodoxy for another in order to feel secure in the face of the existential dilemma. He's making the same mistake here. (Oh yeah, for him, religious dogma provides a ready-made set of ideas that explain away the existential dilemma we all face.)

So what's the upshot? It's that Becker's making all sorts of claims that can't be sustained by his argumentation. I personally disagree with a lot of the positions he takes, and I'd like to pull him down, but I'm getting tired, so I'll just take ona biggie, briefly. He say that there's just no way that human beings can face up to the true reality of our lives, which is that we all decline and die. That there is no more to existence than the what we are, here and now. He doesn't demonstrate any of that- who knows if this is all there is? Not me, and not Becker. And who says I can't honestly face up to and know that possibility? He takes a position of authority to say that only he can know the one unkowable truth, which is that no ne can face reality. Hmmmm.

I would reccomend this book if you want to sharpen your own ideas, but not for Becker's analysis. That is, he does make a whole lot of generalizations, and I found myself intrigued by many, and disagreeing with a lot more. Fun times thinking through what I meant when I disagreed, and what he meant when I agreed. Plus, a good primer on the ideas and big big big weaknesses of the late psychoanalytic movement.

Customer Review: 3 out of 5
Some great insights, but... - A thoughtful and very important book. Many of the insights are compatible with a Christian worldview. The stories of sexual perversion are gratuitous and the author is too favorable with Freudian thought. If read with discernment, there is much to learn.

Customer Review: 1 out of 5
Rating for the physical book, not the subject matter. - This book is incredibly cheaply assembled. It looks like they cut out a paperback version, glued it into a hardback, then stuck a $32 price on it and called it a hardback book. In fact, when you open the book, the publisher label is Free Press PAPERBACKS!!!! The price for the book quality is a rip-off. The paper is cheap. The cover is a cheap, unclear xerox that is stuck on the cover. Do NOT spend the money on buying a new copy.

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