scispace - formally typeset
Open AccessBook

The Denial of Death

Ernest Becker
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
The Denial of Death as mentioned in this paper is an answer to the "why" of human existence, which 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.
Abstract
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.

read more

Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

On defeating death: Group reification and social identification as immortality strategies

TL;DR: The authors investigated the role of social identification in the management of human beings' existential concerns, and found that social identities are functional in obtaining self-esteem, and that individuals seek transcendence by becoming part of reified entities that are larger and longer lasting than the individual self.
Journal ArticleDOI

Terror threat perception and its consequences in contemporary Britain

TL;DR: Age, gender, location, and the values of openness to change and hedonism, all predicted threat perception, which predicted behavioural change and relationship contact, and point to the important role social psychologists should play in understanding responses to these new terrorist threats.
Journal ArticleDOI

The domains of disgust and their origins: contrasting biological and cultural evolutionary accounts

TL;DR: This work is the first to detail the computational mechanisms involved in detecting and evaluating disgust-related risks and its ability to encompass the wide and culturally variable range of disgust is limited.
Journal ArticleDOI

Mortality salience and morality: Thinking about death makes people less utilitarian

TL;DR: The findings raise the question of whether private judgment and public debate about controversial moral issues might be shaped by mortality salience effects, since these issues often involve matters of life and death.
Journal ArticleDOI

Spirituality in Counselor Training: A Content Analysis of Syllabi from Introductory Spirituality Courses.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the results of a content analysis of 14 syllabi of introductory courses on spirituality in counseling and conclude that there is substantial variance in the extent to which the competencies were covered in the syllabi.
Related Papers (5)