Hubbry Logo
Ernest BeckerErnest BeckerMain
Open search
Ernest Becker
Community hub
Ernest Becker
logo
7 pages, 0 posts
0 subscribers
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Ernest Becker
Ernest Becker
Ernest Becker
View on Wikipedia
from Wikipedia

Ernest Becker (September 27, 1924 – March 6, 1974) was an American cultural anthropologist and author of the 1973 Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Denial of Death.

Key Information

Biography

[edit]

Early life

[edit]

Ernest Becker was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Jewish immigrant parents. Serving in the infantry during World War II, he would help liberate a Nazi concentration camp. After he completed his military service, Becker attended Syracuse University in New York. Upon graduation he joined the U.S. Embassy in Paris as an administrative officer.[1][2]

In his early 30s, he returned to Syracuse University to pursue graduate studies in cultural anthropology, and would complete his PhD in 1960.[3] The first of his nine books, Zen: A Rational Critique (1961), was based on his doctoral dissertation.

Professional career

[edit]

After graduating from Syracuse University in 1960, Becker began "the short 14-year period of his professional career" as a professor and writer.[4] Initially, he taught anthropology in the Department of Psychiatry at the Upstate Medical College in Syracuse, New York, but was summarily fired, along with other non-tenured professors, for supporting tenured Professor Thomas Szasz in a dispute with the administration over academic freedom. After a year in Italy, Becker was hired back at Syracuse University, this time in the School of Education.

In 1965, Becker acquired a lecturer position at the University of California, Berkeley in the anthropology program. However, trouble again arose between Becker and the administration, leading to his departure from the university. At the time, thousands of students petitioned to keep Becker at the school and offered to pay his salary,[5] but the petition did not succeed in retaining Becker. In 1967, he taught at San Francisco State's Department of Psychology until January 1969, when he resigned in protest against the administration's stringent policies against student demonstrations.

In 1969, Becker began a professorship at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, where he spent the final years of his academic life. During this time, Becker worked on the second edition of The Birth and Death of Meaning, to which he made extensive revisions. Next he wrote his 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning work The Denial of Death. Finally, he worked on drafts of Escape from Evil, but the latter was not completed at the time of his death.[6]

Becker's insistence on interdisciplinary work, along with the fact that students flocked to his lectures, which were marked by a high level of theatricality, did not endear him to many of his colleagues. Referring to his insistence on the importance symbolism plays in the human animal, he wrote, "I have tried to correct... bias by showing how deep theatrical 'superficialities' really go."[7]

Death

[edit]

In November 1972, Becker was diagnosed with colon cancer. Sixteen months later, on 6 March 1974, he would die from the disease at age 49 in Burnaby, British Columbia. Shortly before his death, he participated in a series of interviews with Sam Keen for Psychology Today.[8]

Ideas and concepts

[edit]

As related above, Becker did not attain tenure when he was fired from his first academic position at Upstate Medical College in Syracuse, NY. This was a result of a dispute the school had with "anti-psychiatrist" Thomas Szasz, with whom Becker sided. This may be the reason Szasz's views are sometimes imputed to Becker. However, Becker's support of Szasz was limited to the issue of academic freedom: that is, whether or not Szasz (who had tenure) had the right to teach his views to psychiatry students.

During the final decade of his life, Becker used the ideas and concepts from many different writers and thinkers to write his books and teach his classes. To list just a few of these thinkers who helped formulate many of his theories, many point to how Becker draws on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Norman O. Brown, Erich Fromm, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and especially Otto Rank.

The Birth and Death of Meaning

[edit]

The Birth and Death of Meaning, published in 1962 and then extensively revised and republished in 1971,[citation needed] was "Becker's first attempt to explain the human condition."[9] It takes its title from the concept of mankind progressing from simple-minded ape to a world of symbols and illusions, and then deconstructing those illusions through our own evolving intellect.[10][11]

Revolution in Psychiatry

[edit]

During this early period, Becker was formulating a "fully transactional" view of mental health that eventually formed the basis of his book, Revolution in Psychiatry (1964). Although Szasz is cited on a few key points in this book, Becker pursues a very distinct path.[12]

The Denial of Death

[edit]

In his 1973 book The Denial of Death, Becker came to believe that an individual's character is essentially formed around the process of denying one's own mortality, that this denial is a necessary component of functioning in the world, and that this character-armor masks and obscures genuine self-knowledge. Much of the evil in the world, he believed, was a consequence of this need to deny death.[6]

Escape From Evil

[edit]

Becker eventually came to the position that psychological inquiry can only bring us to a distinct threshold beyond which belief systems must be invoked to satisfy the human psyche. The reach of such a perspective consequently encompasses science and religion, and led to what Sam Keen[13] suggested was Becker's greatest achievement: the writing of Escape from Evil,[14] left unfinished at the time of Becker's death, but posthumously published in 1975.[6]

Influence and legacy

[edit]

Two months after his death, Becker was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his book, The Denial of Death (1973), posthumously gaining him wider recognition. Escape From Evil (1975) was intended as a significant extension of the line of reasoning begun in The Denial of Death, developing the social and cultural implications of the concepts explored in the earlier book. Although the manuscript's second half was left unfinished at the time of his death, it was completed from the manuscript that existed as well as from notes on the unfinished chapter.

Since his death Becker's work, particularly as expressed in his later books, The Denial of Death and Escape from Evil, has had a significant impact on social psychology and the psychology of religion. Terror management theory, an important research programme in social psychology that has spawned over 200 published studies[15] has turned Becker's views on the cultural influence of death anxiety into a scientific theory that helps to explain such diverse human phenomena as self-esteem, prejudice,[16] and religion.[17]

After his death, the Ernest Becker Foundation was founded, focused on multidisciplinary inquiries into human behavior. The foundation would focus on reducing violence in human society, using Becker's basic ideas to support research and application at the interfaces of science, the humanities, social action, and religion.[18]

Flight From Death (2003) is a documentary film directed by Patrick Shen, based on Becker's work, and partially funded by the Ernest Becker Foundation.[19]

Works

[edit]

Books

[edit]
  • 1961. Zen: A Rational Critique. New York: W. W. Norton.
  • 1962. The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective in Psychiatry and Anthropology. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe.
  • 1964. Revolution in Psychiatry: The New Understanding of Man. New York: Free Press.
  • 1967. Beyond Alienation: A Philosophy of Education for the Crisis of Democracy. New York: George Braziller.
  • 1968. The Structure of Evil: An Essay on the Unification of the Science of Man. New York: George Braziller.
  • 1969. Angel in Armor: A Post-Freudian Perspective on the Nature of Man. New York: George Braziller.
    • This book is a collection of shorter essays, lectures, and reviews written between 1962 and 1968.
  • 1971. The Lost Science of Man. New York: George Braziller.
  • 1971. The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man (2nd ed.). New York: Free Press.
  • 1973. The Denial of Death. New York: Free Press.
  • 1975. Escape from Evil. New York: Free Press.

Essays

[edit]

References

[edit]

Further reading

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Ernest Becker

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia

Ernest Becker (September 27, 1924 – March 6, 1974) was an American cultural anthropologist whose interdisciplinary synthesis of psychoanalysis, philosophy, and anthropology culminated in The Denial of Death (1973), a work posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1974. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Jewish immigrant parents, Becker served in the U.S. Army during World War II, earned a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Syracuse University in 1960, and taught at institutions including the Upstate Medical Center, the University of California at Berkeley, and Simon Fraser University, where he spent his final years. Diagnosed with colon cancer in 1972, he completed his most influential book amid declining health, which explores how awareness of mortality drives human behavior and societal structures. Becker's central thesis posits that humans construct cultural worldviews and pursue symbolic immortality through heroism to buffer existential terror from death's inevitability, integrating insights from thinkers like , , and with anthropological evidence. This framework challenges reductionist views of motivation, emphasizing as a primal force underlying , ideology, and personal ambition rather than mere biological or economic drives. His earlier works, such as The Birth and Death of Meaning (1962) and The Structure of Evil (1968), laid groundwork for this synthesis, critiquing modern secularism's failure to provide vital illusions against meaninglessness. Becker's legacy endures through empirical validation in , a psychological research program that has tested and substantiated his predictions via hundreds of experiments demonstrating how influences , , and cultural adherence. Despite his marginal status in mainstream during his lifetime—due partly to his rejection of disciplinary silos—his ideas have permeated existential , , and even , underscoring the causal primacy of in human affairs. The Ernest Becker Foundation continues to promote his writings, fostering applications in , , and social analysis.

Early Life and Influences

Family Background and Childhood

Ernest Becker was born on September 27, 1924, in , to Jewish immigrant parents. He was raised in a Jewish family milieu amid the cultural landscape of early 20th-century . Limited primary accounts exist regarding specific family dynamics or parental occupations, though his upbringing occurred in a context of Jewish immigrant communities navigating assimilation and economic pressures in industrial America.

World War II Service and Formative Experiences

Becker enlisted in the United States Army and served as an infantryman in during , experiencing combat as a teenager and confronting the realities of industrialized warfare. Toward the war's conclusion in 1945, his unit participated in the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp, where he directly observed the systematic atrocities inflicted on prisoners, including emaciated survivors and evidence of mass executions and dehumanization. These encounters with the Holocaust's horrors provided Becker with unfiltered evidence of human capacity for organized evil, distinct from abstract ideology. The visceral impact of these events instilled in Becker a profound toward unexamined about human , seeding his postwar emphasis on the instinctual drives underlying and . He later described such exposures as shattering illusions of inherent benevolence, prompting an initial turn toward while grounding his thought in empirical confrontation with mortality and malevolence. This formative realism about , forged amid the ruins of Nazi camps, contrasted sharply with prevailing secular humanist narratives of inevitable advancement.

Intellectual Development and Education

Following his discharge from the United States Army in 1946 after service, Ernest Becker enrolled at in , where he completed an undergraduate degree majoring in . This training immersed him in the ethnographic methods and cross-cultural perspectives dominant in mid-20th-century , which often prioritized descriptive relativism in explaining human variation. After a brief period working abroad, including a year in , Becker returned to in his early 30s to pursue advanced studies, earning a Ph.D. in in 1960 under Douglas Haring, an expert in Japanese . Haring's emphasis on integrating philosophical inquiry with empirical fieldwork aligned with Becker's growing interest in universal patterns beneath cultural diversity, though Becker later critiqued the field's tendency toward descriptive neutrality without deeper causal mechanisms. Becker's anthropological education initially exposed him to cultural relativism, but key encounters shifted his focus toward individual agency and invariant human drives. He credited Otto Rank's existential psychoanalysis—particularly concepts of the "will therapy" and the birth trauma as sources of creative striving—with countering relativist determinism by positing the individual's active confrontation with separation anxiety and mortality as a universal causal force. Similarly, Søren Kierkegaard's writings on personal despair, the "knight of faith," and authentic existence amid absurdity provided a philosophical anchor for prioritizing subjective agency over collective cultural scripts. These influences, encountered through independent reading during and after his studies, oriented Becker toward empirical accounts of human motivation rooted in existential pressures rather than variable social constructs alone. Early intellectual engagements also drew from Karl Marx's materialist analysis of alienation and Friedrich Nietzsche's notions of power and self-overcoming, which Becker integrated to examine how economic and vital forces propel human action beyond ideological facades. Norman O. Brown's psychoanalytic reinterpretations of Freud further reinforced this by linking repressed bodily drives to cultural symbols, encouraging Becker's emphasis on observable, biology-grounded universals in his preliminary essays and formulations. This synthesis marked Becker's departure from anthropology's relativist trends, favoring causal explanations of behavior through primal urges and heroic strivings verifiable across contexts.

Academic and Professional Career

Early Academic Positions

Following his Ph.D. in from in spring 1960, Becker secured his initial academic appointment teaching within the Department of Psychiatry at Upstate Medical Center in , an affiliate institution of . In this role, he introduced cultural anthropological perspectives to psychiatric training, emphasizing how societal symbols and structures shape perceptions of mental illness, though the position constrained his broader theoretical explorations due to departmental focus on clinical applications. Becker remained in Syracuse-area teaching capacities through the early 1960s, but his contract at Upstate was not renewed in 1963 amid administrative disputes, despite endorsements from colleagues highlighting his scholarly excellence; this non-reappointment reflected tensions between Becker's independent critiques and institutional expectations for in psychiatric anthropology. After a year of research in , Becker briefly returned to in 1964, teaching in the with a focus on and cultural . These early roles tested the viability of his emerging heroism-oriented framework, which prioritized universal human motivations over prevailing dominant in mid-20th-century departments, leading to friction as he rejected orthodoxy that downplayed innate drives in favor of purely contextual explanations. By 1965, he transitioned to a position in the program at the —initially under for the 1965–1966 academic year—where McCarthy-era residuals and academic hiring scrutiny lingered, though Becker's brief tenure there continued to highlight institutional resistance to his non-relativist stance. These short-lived appointments underscored how Becker's commitment to causal clashed with the era's emphasis on ideological alignment and departmental silos, prompting frequent moves before tenure stability.

Teaching and Research Roles

In 1967, Becker accepted a position teaching at , drawn by its reputation for innovative, interdisciplinary approaches under President . His tenure there, lasting until early 1969, involved engaging students with pragmatic analyses of human motivations, though campus unrest—including student protests met with intervention—prompted his resignation in solidarity with faculty and students opposing the administration's handling of the crisis. This move reflected Becker's commitment to intellectual environments fostering rigorous inquiry over institutional rigidity. Later in 1969, Becker joined in , , where he taught until his death in 1974 within an interdisciplinary department spanning , , and . At SFU, his courses integrated with psychological insights, emphasizing the causal mechanisms of and drawing on empirical data from sociological studies of institutions and power dynamics to ground theoretical claims. This setting enabled productive collaborations with colleagues across disciplines, yielding interdisciplinary outputs that advanced Becker's framework on cultural symbolization and its role in mitigating existential anxieties. Becker's teaching productivity at SFU directly informed his publication trajectory, including the completion of (1973), which synthesized lecture materials on heroism and cultural denial with evidence from historical and ethnographic sources. He resisted prevailing academic emphases on subjective in and culture by insisting on universal patterns in human striving, evidenced by his use of data to critique overly or ideologically driven interpretations of behavior. These efforts attracted dedicated students, fostering seminars that prioritized causal realism over fashionable in analyzing societal pathologies.

Final Projects and Health Decline

In November 1972, Becker was diagnosed with colon cancer while residing in , . The disease progressed rapidly over the subsequent sixteen months, confining him to hospital care in his final weeks, yet he persisted in scholarly output amid physical deterioration. Despite the advancing illness, Becker completed , publishing it in November 1973 as a synthesis of his anthropological and psychological theories on human mortality. He also prepared drafts and outlines for Escape from Evil, a projected sequel examining cultural mechanisms of evil and , though he deemed the manuscript unpolished at his death and set it aside. These efforts occurred under severe constraints, including hospitalization, reflecting his determination to articulate core ideas before mortality intervened. Becker died on March 6, 1974, at age 49 in , , from complications of colon cancer. Two months later, in May 1974, received the , marking a posthumous recognition of his contributions.

Core Ideas and Theoretical Framework

The Human Confrontation with Death and Meaninglessness

Becker posited that the core dilemma of human existence stems from an innate awareness of mortality, which generates a primal terror driving individual and . Unlike other animals, whose instincts operate without reflexive of finitude, humans possess the cognitive capacity to envision their own , creating a psychological tension between biological imperatives and symbolic aspirations. This confrontation, Becker reasoned from , arises because humans are augmented by higher , capable of projecting beyond immediate survival yet inescapably bound by corporeal decay. Central to this view is the human condition as "gods with anuses," a capturing the between transcendent self-concepts—fostered through , , and —and the humiliating realities of bodily functions and . Biologically, this duality manifests in the conflict between reproductive drives and the intellect's quest for enduring significance, evident in historical records of civilizations constructing monumental architectures and mythologies to defy impermanence. Cross-cultural anthropology reveals consistent patterns, such as elaborate funerary practices from ancient Egypt's pyramids to Indigenous Australian Dreamtime narratives, underscoring a universal impulse to symbolize continuity amid physical dissolution. supports this foundation, with studies indicating that children as young as three begin forming rudimentary concepts, escalating to explicit anxiety by ages five to seven as they comprehend irreversibility. This terror causally necessitates "vital lies"—organized fictions of heroism embedded in culture, where individuals invest in roles, ideologies, and projects promising symbolic immortality, such as national loyalty or artistic legacy. Rather than passive social constructs, these serve as causal mechanisms buffering raw existential dread; without them, Becker argued, humans would succumb to paralysis or , as historical upheavals like plagues or wars amplify collective through renewed heroic narratives. Empirical validation emerges from patterns in religious adherence and ideological fervor, which intensify under , reflecting not mere habit but a deep-seated to finitude. Becker rejected characterizations of death anxiety as mere clinical pathology, as in certain psychoanalytic or therapeutic paradigms that pathologize it without addressing its realism. Instead, he framed it as an adaptive recognition of cosmic indifference, compelling authentic transcendence through genuine heroic action over illusory comforts—a stance grounded in causal realism rather than symptom suppression. This perspective critiques overly reductive views that dismiss anxiety as maladaptive, emphasizing its role in spurring and personal integrity when confronted directly.

Heroism, Symbolization, and Cultural Vital Lies

Becker posited that human cultures function as collective "immortality ideologies," providing symbolic frameworks through which individuals pursue heroism to deny the terror of . These systems channel innate oedipal strivings—early drives for power and merger with authoritative figures—into broader objects, such as nations, ideologies, or communal enterprises, transforming personal anxieties into shared quests for enduring significance. By symbolizing the self within a larger, ostensibly eternal cultural narrative, individuals achieve a sense of symbolic , wherein contributions to the group's "hero system" promise transcendence beyond biological decay. This process motivates profound action, as the fear of propels investment in cultural symbols that affirm one's heroic value. The advantages of these cultural mechanisms lie in their capacity to impose order on chaos and foster achievement; they convert raw existential dread into productive endeavors, enabling civilizations to erect monuments, wage defensive struggles, and maintain social cohesion through ritualized heroism. Historical rituals, such as ancient sacrificial ceremonies, exemplified this by ritually affirming participants' place in an immortal cosmic order, while wars often served as collective hero projects, where combatants sacrificed for the ideology's symbolic perpetuity, as seen in conflicts driven by clashes over national or ideological supremacy. However, these vital s carry inherent perils: when immortality projects collide, they engender and violence, projecting one's repressed "creatureliness" onto out-groups perceived as threats to the cultural worldview, resulting in atrocities that affirm the in-group's heroic purity at the expense of human life. Becker critiqued modern secular societies as devolving into a deficient "flatland" of material , where traditional heroic symbols erode without robust replacements, leaving individuals adrift in attenuated transference objects like or that fail to satisfy the causa-sui drive for cosmic heroism. This shortfall in vital illusion, he argued, undermines motivational efficacy, fostering rather than the ordered striving of more symbolically rich cultures, though it mitigates some ideological by diluting absolute commitments. Empirical causation in historical upheavals, such as ideological wars, underscores how these mechanisms propel mass action: threats to a culture's narrative trigger defensive aggression to restore , revealing the dual-edged of denial in human affairs.

Critique of Modern Psychiatry and Freudian Legacy

Becker argued that modern psychiatry errs by treating adaptive denial of death—the foundational human response to existential terror—as , thereby undermining the character-building processes essential for . Rather than facilitating a successful transfer of heroism through cultural symbols that imbue life with transcendent meaning, psychiatric interventions often strip away necessary illusions, exposing patients to unbearable truths without viable replacements and intensifying . This approach, he contended, reflects a causal misunderstanding: mental disorders stem not primarily from repressed drives but from failures in constructing vital fictions that buffer , a dynamic observable in therapeutic outcomes where symptom relief proves fleeting absent renewed heroic engagement. While crediting with illuminating the unconscious and instinctual motivations shaping behavior, Becker faulted for its reductive emphasis on as the core engine of psyche, sidelining as the irreducible primal dread. Freud's framework, though structurally insightful in probing defenses, falters causally by attributing neuroses chiefly to sexual conflicts, a limitation evident in case analyses where patients exhibit persistent distress traceable to finitude rather than oedipal residues or anal fixations alone. Becker maintained that this oversight perpetuates an incomplete , as empirical scrutiny of clinical data reveals terror's precedence in motivating both healthy symbolization and pathological collapse. Drawing on Otto Rank's vitalist tradition, Becker proposed an existential corrective: mental health flourishes through deliberate, authentic immersion in symbolic systems that yield genuine heroism, prioritizing hierarchical purpose over democratized that levels distinctions and dilutes the will to transcend. In this view, effective intervention integrates awareness of human limits with creative denial, fostering robust projects that counter reductionist biologism and affirm the causal primacy of symbolic action in averting despair.

Major Works and Their Contributions

The Birth and Death of Meaning (1962)

In The Birth and Death of Meaning, published in 1962 by the Free Press of Glencoe, Ernest Becker synthesizes insights from , , , and to examine the mechanisms by which human societies construct and dismantle systems of significance. The work frames humanity's core dilemma as the tension between biological imperatives and the symbolic imperatives required to transcend mere animal existence, emphasizing culture's role in forging coherent worldviews from existential flux. Becker argues that meaning is not innate to but actively "birthed" through collective human endeavors, particularly rituals and symbolic performances that impose order on chaos and elevate routine actions to heroic proportions. Central to Becker's thesis is the idea that societies generate vitality through these cultural constructs, which transform the "push" of instinctual drives into participation in larger, transcendent narratives. In tribal contexts, for instance, initiation rites and communal ceremonies integrate individuals into a mythic framework, rendering survival activities—such as hunting or warfare—imbued with cosmic purpose and communal validation. These practices sustain social cohesion by linking personal efforts to enduring symbols of fertility, ancestry, and renewal, as observed in anthropological studies of non-literate peoples where ritual efficacy is empirically tied to group morale and adaptive success. Becker draws on ethnographic evidence to illustrate how such meaning-making counters the "death" of significance that arises when rituals rigidify or dissolve, exposing participants to unfiltered and fostering apathy or deviance. In contrast to vital traditional systems, Becker critiques modern societies for their erosion of integrative symbols amid industrialization and secularization, leading to a pervasive sense of meaninglessness despite material abundance. Urban alienation, he contends, stems from the fragmentation of symbolic authority—exemplified by the decline of religious and structures—resulting in individuals adrift in a world of commodified roles without deeper anchorage. Empirical parallels are drawn from sociological observations of mid-20th-century America, where rising rates of correlated with weakened communal rites, underscoring the causal link between cultural symbol decay and societal malaise. This analysis prioritizes anthropological fieldwork over speculative introspection, positioning meaning's "birth" as a dynamic, evidence-based of cultural rather than passive inheritance.

Revolution in Psychiatry (1964)

Becker argued that conventional , dominated by biological and Freudian paradigms, suffered from a narrow, ahistorical focus that isolated mental disorders from their sociocultural roots, leading to inadequate understandings of conditions like and depression. He critiqued Freudian for reducing human to intrapsychic drives and unconscious conflicts, thereby neglecting the embeddedness of individuals in cultural systems that shape and action. This approach, Becker contended, fostered a mechanistic view of patients as passive organisms, overlooking verifiable shortcomings in how psychiatric diagnoses failed to account for active societal influences on symbolic capacities. To reform , Becker called for its reconstitution through integration with , proposing an interdisciplinary, humanistic framework centered on humans as "symbolic animals" whose hinges on maintaining via cultural participation and effective symbolization. He advocated drawing from thinkers like and to emphasize philosophic , where arises from imbalances in active-passive orientations and breakdowns in communicating private symbols with societal meanings. For instance, was portrayed not solely as a biological deficit but as an exacerbated failure of linguistic and behavioral integration, treatable by fostering expanded symbolic horizons and cultural engagement rather than drugs in isolation, which Becker saw as insufficient for addressing root communicative deficits. Becker's proposals positioned as an agent of , urging clinicians to prioritize and cultural vitalization over custodial care or mere symptom suppression. This contributed to existential psychiatry's holistic turn, valuing conscious phenomena and unitary views of illness as action failures, though critics noted it risked conflating descriptive meanings with causal explanations, potentially sidelining empirical biological mechanisms like neurochemical dysregulation evident in efficacy trials from the era.

The Denial of Death (1973)

, published in 1973 by the Free Press, synthesizes Becker's anthropological and psychological insights into a comprehensive theory of human motivation rooted in the confrontation with mortality. The book's central thesis asserts that the awareness of inevitable death generates profound terror, which drives individuals to construct cultural and personal hero-systems as symbolic defenses against this existential dread. Becker argues that all human neurosis originates from the failure or distortion of these denial mechanisms, where pathological anxiety emerges when death awareness overwhelms the individual's capacity for illusion. Becker supports this claim by integrating historical analyses of heroism across civilizations with psychological evidence from figures like and , positing that even "normal" cultural participation functions as a to buffer . He contends that modern individuals, stripped of traditional religious frameworks, experience amplified vulnerability, leading to compensatory behaviors such as obsessive achievement or ideological fanaticism. These empirical observations, drawn from ethnographic and clinical case studies, frame human vitality as inherently tied to the repression of finitude, rendering unchecked insufficient for psychological health. In critiquing , Becker deems it impotent for providing only rationalist consolations that evade the irrational depth of death terror, failing to deliver genuine symbolic immortality. Instead, he advocates a Kierkegaardian " to be," urging individuals to embrace authentic projects that affirm life's value amid meaninglessness, thereby transcending neurotic entrapment without relying on illusory transcendence. This perspective challenges post-Enlightenment optimism by emphasizing causal primacy of mortality fears over socioeconomic or biological reductions. Published shortly before Becker's death from cancer on March 6, 1974, the book received the for General in 1974, awarded posthumously and highlighting its role in unsettling materialist assumptions about human progress. Reception noted its provocative insistence on death's centrality, prompting reevaluation of psychiatric models that prioritize surface pathologies over foundational existential drives.

Escape from Evil (1985, posthumous)

Escape from Evil, published posthumously in 1975 by The Free Press, extends Becker's analysis from to macrosocial phenomena, positing that human evil emerges from collective efforts to deny mortality through cultural hero systems. The book, drawn from Becker's manuscript completed shortly before his on March 6, 1974, frames societies as expansive immortality projects that symbolize permanence against the void of , but which inevitably produce when they rigidify into dogmatic ideologies demanding total submission. Becker identifies evil not as abstract malevolence but as the byproduct of failed heroism, where the drive for transcendent meaning curdles into and sacrificial rites to reaffirm cultural vitality. Drawing on psychoanalytic traditions, he describes cultures as projecting "anal character" dynamics—compulsions for order, purity, and expulsion of perceived filth—onto the to master existential terror. This projection fuels cycles of domination, as groups elevate their symbolic systems to godlike status, viewing dissenters as embodiments of chaos warranting eradication. The text applies these principles to historical totalitarianism, portraying regimes like and Stalinist as pathological escalations of denial mechanisms. In , the quest for Aryan purity manifested as anal-sadistic expulsion of and others constructed as death-polluting agents, with serving as a ritualistic to secure eternal national heroism. , likewise, pursued a frictionless by classifying class enemies as irredeemable contaminants, rationalizing millions of deaths as necessary sacrifices for historical . Becker underscores the causal irony: these movements arose from genuine horror at evil's pervasiveness, yet amplified it through monopolistic hero narratives that brooked no alternatives. As a remedy, Becker advocates pluralistic frameworks allowing multiple, competing avenues for heroic striving, which dilute the fervor for singular, all-consuming ideologies and curb large-scale violence. Yet, the book's unfinished state—evident in abrupt transitions and unelaborated threads—reflects Becker's terminal illness, constraining its scope to outline rather than exhaustive treatment, while emphasizing the intractable clash between human symbolism and biological finitude.

Criticisms, Controversies, and Empirical Scrutiny

Philosophical and Methodological Critiques

Critics have argued that Becker's theoretical framework in (1973) over-relies on a speculative synthesis of Otto Rank's extensions of Freudian , emphasizing irreducible as the core motivator of without sufficient empirical grounding or independent verification at the time of its publication. This approach privileges Rank's ideas on "birth trauma" and separation anxiety as foundational to cultural symbolism, yet Becker's integration remains largely interpretive rather than experimentally testable, predating systematic efforts like to operationalize such claims. Methodologically, Becker's eclectic borrowing from thinkers including Kierkegaard, Rank, and Freud has been faulted for constructing an arbitrary intellectual structure that resists falsification, as core assertions about repressed death terror can retroactively explain any counterevidence by invoking deeper denial mechanisms. For instance, claims of universal heroism as a buffer against mortality lack disconfirmable predictions, rendering the theory more akin to unfalsifiable metaphysics than rigorous social science. Philosophically, Becker's portrayal of all cultural and symbolic activities as "vital lies" pathologizing existence has drawn charges of excessive , systematically reducing adaptive positives—such as , aesthetic creation, and communal —to mere evasions of creaturely terror while overlooking their intrinsic value in promoting , growth, and resilience. This one-sided emphasis on neglects balanced views of anxiety as a signal for navigable dangers rather than an overwhelming existential fixed point, potentially reflecting a depressive bias that denies affirmative potentials in striving.

Ideological and Cultural Objections

Some progressive critics have objected to Becker's portrayal of cultural heroism and religious "illusions" as necessary buffers against , viewing it as a regressive endorsement of traditional structures that prioritize symbolic transcendence over secular and social reform. This perspective frames Becker's emphasis on "healthy repressions" and immortality projects as conservative, sustaining hierarchies rather than dismantling them for egalitarian progress. Feminist and cultural commentators have further criticized Becker for insufficiently interrogating patriarchal elements in heroism, noting that his framework often defines heroic projects in predominantly male terms without explicit condemnation of gendered power imbalances, reflecting the linguistic and conceptual norms of his era. Similarly, his characterizations of women and homosexuals as exemplifying certain pathological denials have drawn accusations of pathologizing nonconformity to normative cultural ideals. Informal online discussions, such as those on , have labeled Becker's synthesis of and as pseudoscientific, arguing it relies on unsubstantiated structuralist assertions about universal human motives without rigorous empirical . These critiques, however, often emanate from sources prone to relativistic biases that downplay innate psychological universals, overlooking Becker's causal emphasis on terror as a driver of hierarchical cultural formations that have empirically sustained civilizations across history against egalitarian alternatives prone to fragmentation.

Scientific Validations via Terror Management Theory

Terror Management Theory (TMT), developed by psychologists Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, and Sheldon Solomon in the mid-1980s, explicitly builds on Ernest Becker's ideas from The Denial of Death (1973), positing that humans manage existential terror through cultural worldviews that promise symbolic immortality via heroism and self-esteem. Core predictions have been tested via experimental manipulations of mortality salience (MS), where participants contemplate death, leading to heightened defense of their cultural beliefs and derogation of worldview threats. For instance, MS induces more negative evaluations of essay critics and increased liking for worldview-consistent others, effects mediated by self-esteem and cultural validation rather than mere anxiety. These proximal defenses occur consciously shortly after MS, while distal, unconscious processes emerge later, suppressing death thoughts to bolster symbolic heroism. Empirical support for TMT's validation of denial mechanisms spans hundreds of studies across cultures, demonstrating causal links between reminders and behaviors like toward outgroups, amplification, and adherence to heroic ideals. Meta-analyses confirm MS reliably increases defense, with effect sizes robust to controls for negative affect, supporting causal claim that drives cultural symbolization over alternative explanations like general reduction. Key achievements include elucidating self-esteem's buffering role—bolstering it post-MS attenuates defenses—and extensions to behaviors, where MS promotes risky actions aligned with heroic self-concepts. However, critics argue TMT overemphasizes unconscious distal defenses at the expense of conscious, striving heroism, proposing dual-process models where proximal conscious suppression and distal symbolic immersion interact, though experiments validate both without negating the core terror- dynamic. In the 2020s, TMT applications to politics empirically affirm ideologies as terror buffers, with MS experiments showing heightened partisan loyalty and policy support that provide meaning, irrespective of egalitarian ideals. For example, death primes increase endorsement of charismatic leaders promising cultural continuity, challenging assumptions that universal equality alone mitigates anxiety without robust belief systems; instead, data reveal symmetric defenses across ideologies, where both left- and right-leaning worldviews intensify under MS to sustain heroic narratives. Recent scrutiny, including preregistered replications, upholds these patterns amid pandemic-induced terror, underscoring TMT's predictive power for polarization without reliance on biased institutional narratives.

Influence, Legacy, and Contemporary Relevance

Impact on Psychology and Anthropology

Becker's theories on the human confrontation with mortality and the construction of heroic cultural symbols exerted a notable influence on existential psychology, particularly through their integration into therapeutic practices addressing death anxiety. Irvin Yalom, a key figure in existential psychotherapy, explicitly referenced Becker's The Denial of Death (1973) as a foundational extension of Otto Rank's ideas, incorporating its emphasis on denial mechanisms and the pursuit of symbolic immortality into his clinical framework for helping patients grapple with ultimate concerns like finitude. This integration underscored Becker's role in shifting psychological inquiry toward the causal primacy of existential terror in motivating defense mechanisms, rather than solely intrapsychic conflicts. In , Becker's synthesis of psychoanalytic and anthropological insights prompted explorations of how shared cultural worldviews function as buffers against the awareness of , influencing subsequent models that prioritize symbolic vitality over purely behavioral adaptations. His insistence on the universality of the "heroic" drive—rooted in empirical observations of rituals and ideologies—provided a counterpoint to fragmented, context-bound explanations, fostering depth-oriented analyses in subfields concerned with meaning-making. Within anthropology, Becker challenged the prevailing Boasian relativism of his era by arguing from first principles that individual agency emerges from a shared biological imperative to transcend via cultural heroism, thereby reviving interest in universal motivations over deterministic . This lens reframed ethnographic studies of and as mechanisms for managing existential dread, emphasizing causal realism in human symbolism rather than infinite variability. However, his interpretive approach faced marginalization among empirical positivists in mainstream , who favored quantifiable data and cross-cultural comparisons detached from overarching metaphysical anxieties, limiting broader adoption in hypothesis-testing paradigms dominant post-1970s.

Extensions in Terror Management Theory

Terror Management Theory (TMT), formulated in 1986 by social psychologists Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski, operationalizes Becker's conceptualization of death denial through experimental paradigms, positing that reminders of mortality (mortality salience, or MS) activate psychological defenses centered on cultural worldviews and self-esteem to mitigate existential anxiety. The founders explicitly credited Becker's The Denial of Death as the theoretical foundation, arguing that human symbolic capacities enable immortality striving via collective beliefs, a mechanism tested causally via MS manipulations rather than correlational observation. Pioneering experiments in the late established core causal findings: MS inductions, such as essay-writing tasks about one's , prompted heightened endorsement of worldview-consistent attitudes and derogation of threats thereto. A seminal 1989 study with 60 participants showed that MS led to allocating significantly more reward points to value-upholders (mean 8.2 vs. 6.4 in controls) and punishment to violators (mean 7.8 vs. 5.9), demonstrating increased norm enforcement as a proximal defense. Subsequent replications confirmed these effects across behaviors like charitable donations favoring ingroup charities post-MS (e.g., doubled contributions in experimental groups). TMT extensions apply these mechanisms to social phenomena, including and , where MS amplifies outgroup bias as worldview protection; for example, exposure to terrorism news increased anti-Muslim prejudice via implicit death associations, with effect sizes indicating 20-30% rises in negative stereotyping. In extremism contexts, MS bolsters rigid ideological adherence, as seen in heightened support for among primed individuals defending sacred values. Meta-analyses aggregating over 200 MS studies affirm the theory's robustness, yielding a moderate overall (Hedges' g ≈ 0.35) for worldview defense, with consistent patterns across U.S., European, and Asian samples, though stronger in individualistic cultures. Critiques highlight potential cultural biases in WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) participant pools, potentially inflating universality claims, yet cross-national data show adaptive variations, such as religion buffering effects more potently in collectivist settings.

Recent Reassessments and Applications (2000s–2020s)

In 2023, marking the 50th anniversary of , a special edition was published featuring a by , underscoring the book's enduring relevance to mortality and cultural responses. The International Society for the Science of Existential Psychology (ISSEP) established the Ernest Becker Honors program that year, offering up to $15,000 and awards for papers advancing Becker-inspired ideas on existential dynamics, time, aging, and striving, in direct response to the anniversary and the closure of the Ernest Becker Foundation (EBF). A New York Times review by described the work as an "essential, surprisingly upbeat guide" to confronting mortality, countering perceptions of pessimism by emphasizing its realistic affirmation of amid critiques of overly somber interpretations. The EBF, operational from 1993 to 2023, disseminated Becker's ideas through essays and newsletters applying them to contemporary issues, including death denial's role in exacerbating and detachment from , before announcing its closure due to funding challenges following the of key supporter J. Elgee in 2020. During the , empirical studies grounded in (TMT)—an extension of Becker's framework—demonstrated heightened driving defensive behaviors, such as increased adherence to cultural worldviews and bolstering, with experiments showing amplified anxiety levels correlating to stricter compliance with health measures and shifts in . These findings, drawn from longitudinal and experimental data across diverse populations, validated Becker's causal emphasis on as a motivator for both proximal avoidance (e.g., practices) and distal cultural defenses (e.g., ideological polarization), with meta-analyses confirming effect sizes in the moderate range (d ≈ 0.4–0.6) for anxiety-induced responses. Recent applications extend Becker's heroism-oriented realism to societal denials, critiquing normalized evasions in and discourse where mortality reminders prompt resource hoarding or worldview entrenchment rather than adaptive action; for instance, TMT experiments link death priming to greater ecological denial and consumerism, suggesting causal pathways from unacknowledged terror to resistance against systemic reforms. Peer-reviewed work attributes skepticism partly to terror management, with studies showing increases pro-environmental inaction when threatening cultural self-concepts of human dominance, favoring Becker's prescription for "vital lies" channeled into heroic legacies over passive denial. This reassessment positions Becker's ideas as a counter to empirically observable patterns of avoidance in , where data from denial surveys (e.g., Yale Program on Communication, 2022–2023 waves) align with TMT predictions of defense amid existential threats, prioritizing evidence-based heroism over ideologically buffered inaction.

Bibliography

Primary Books

  • Zen: A Rational Critique (W.W. Norton, 1961), Becker's first book, derived from his 1959 doctoral dissertation in cultural anthropology at Syracuse University.
  • The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man (Free Press, 1962; revised edition 1971).
  • The Revolution in Psychiatry: The New Understanding of Man (Free Press, 1964).
  • Beyond Alienation: A Philosophy of Education for the Crisis of Democracy (George Braziller, 1967).
  • The Structure of Evil: An Essay on the Unification of the Science of Man (George Braziller, 1968).
  • Angel in Armor: A Post-Freudian Perspective on the Nature of Man (Free Press, 1969), a collection of essays, lectures, and reviews from 1962 to 1968.
  • The Lost Science of Man (George Braziller, 1971), comprising two essays.
  • The Denial of Death (Free Press, 1973).
  • Escape from Evil (Free Press, 1975), published posthumously and left incomplete at Becker's death in 1974.

Selected Essays and Posthumous Publications

Becker published several essays and articles in academic journals during his career, often engaging with interdisciplinary themes in anthropology, psychology, and social theory. One notable example is "Social Science and Psychiatry: The Coming Challenge," published in The Antioch Review in 1963, where he critiqued the limitations of psychiatric models and advocated for a broader integration of social sciences to address human alienation and institutional failures. In 1964, he contributed "Comments on Spiro's Review of The Birth and Death of Meaning," a rebuttal in American Anthropologist responding to Melford E. Spiro's critique of his book, defending his perspective on meaning-making in human culture against reductionist anthropological interpretations. Posthumous publications of Becker's non-book writings primarily appear in compiled collections drawn from his earlier manuscripts, reviews, and unpublished pieces. The Ernest Becker Reader (2005), edited by Daniel Liechty, anthologizes these selections, including essays such as "Death and Denial," which explores human responses to mortality through cultural and psychological lenses, building on themes from his later books but presented in concise, standalone form. The volume emphasizes Becker's early interdisciplinary work from the and , revealing his empirical breadth in analyzing social structures and individual psyche without the narrative expanse of full monographs. These compilations, assembled after his death, highlight lesser-known contributions like reviews and theoretical sketches that informed his mature synthesis on and heroism. No major standalone posthumous essays from unfinished notes were issued independently, though excerpts from his personal journals (1964–1969) have been referenced in scholarly discussions for their raw insights into his evolving thought on Rankian and human drives. Such materials underscore Becker's commitment to first-hand empirical observation of cultural pathologies, distinct from his polished book-length arguments.

References

  1. https://www.ernestbecker.org/biography
  2. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Denial-of-Death/Ernest-Becker/9780684832401
  3. https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/archives/cul-6909763
  4. https://www.ernestbecker.org/beckers-synthesis
  5. https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=fpswk
  6. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1263&context=masters202029
  7. https://faculty.washington.edu/ewebb/Zygon.pdf
  8. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-42110-004
  9. https://www.ernestbecker.org/helmuth-on-becker
  10. https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/becker-ernest
  11. https://www.issep.org/features/issep-honors-becker-legacy
  12. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/books/review/denial-of-death-ernest-becker.html
  13. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Denial_of_Death.html?id=jyqGDwAAQBAJ
  14. https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2015-55064-001.pdf
  15. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022167812447135
  16. http://www.yorku.ca/dcarveth/Becker.html
  17. https://www.ernestbecker.org/the-denial-file/on-cosmic-heroism
  18. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/48843104.pdf
  19. https://thegemsbok.com/art-reviews-and-articles/denial-of-death-ernest-becker-criticism-critique-analysis/
  20. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ernest_Becker
  21. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022167813479672
  22. https://www.patreon.com/posts/final-interview-94682299
  23. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/14/archives/further-intimations-of-immortality.html
  24. https://www.ernestbecker.org/lecture-texts/practice-of-dying
  25. https://studioq.com/death_anxiety_ernest_becker
  26. https://sublationmedia.com/gods-with-anuses-reframing-our-common-humanity/
  27. https://us.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-assets/5233_book_item_5233.pdf
  28. https://www.themortalatheist.com/blog/the-denial-of-death-ernest-becker
  29. https://www.themarginalian.org/2023/04/25/ernest-becker-heroism/
  30. https://www.ernestbecker.org/lecture-texts/generative-death-anxiety
  31. https://www.nateliason.com/notes/denial-of-death-ernest-becker
  32. https://profilebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/wpallimport/files/PDFs/9781788164269_preview.pdf
  33. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-we-need-heroes/202205/ernest-beckers-brilliant-explanation-heroism
  34. https://existential-therapy.com/review-of-the-denial-of-death-by-ernest-becker/
  35. https://books.google.com/books/about/Birth_and_Death_of_Meaning.html?id=B_fuj3K42WcC
  36. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/162759.The_Birth_and_Death_of_Meaning
  37. https://dokumen.pub/download/the-birth-and-death-of-meaning-an-interdisciplinary-perspective-on-the-problem-of-man-2nbsped-0029021901-9780029021903.html
  38. https://www.themortalatheist.com/blog/the-birth-and-death-of-meaning-ernest-becker
  39. https://horizons-2000.org/7.%2520Archive/EDA/Psychology/Becker.html
  40. https://xheroism.org/resources/reading-list/books/birth-and-death-of-meaning/
  41. https://www.academia.edu/2770436/Becker
  42. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00221678241244827
  43. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/ernest-becker/the-revolution-in-psychiatry/
  44. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1964/06/25/psychiatry-after-freud/
  45. https://www.ernestbecker.org/books
  46. https://freeassociations.org.uk/FA_New/OJS/index.php/fa/article/download/480/749/2003
  47. https://humanposthuman.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/ernest_becker_the_denial_of_deathbookfi-org.pdf
  48. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Denial_of_Death.html?id=GQCOngEACAAJ
  49. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2761.The_Denial_of_Death
  50. https://books.google.com/books/about/Escape_from_Evil.html?id=91tqAAAAMAAJ
  51. http://www.tandemproject.com/issue_statements/statements/2011/101911_issue.htm
  52. https://philpapers.org/rec/BECEFE
  53. https://www.ianfelton.com/post/book-review-escape-from-evil-by-ernest-becker
  54. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308878470_Ernest_Becker%27s_Dark_Turn_1971-1973
  55. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rf4gWz3iHHH9wm9ue/book-review-denial-of-death
  56. https://thedenialfile.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/reading-ernest-becker-in-2011/
  57. https://www.ernestbecker.org/feminism
  58. https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/klwx4v/the_denial_of_death_by_ernest_becker_is/
  59. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/0022-3514.58.2.308
  60. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103120304273
  61. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-00299-003
  62. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10560330/
  63. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tom-Pyszczynski/publication/232558848_Terror_Management_and_Aggression_Evidence_That_Mortality_Salience_Motivates_Aggression_Against_Worldview-Threatening_Others/links/53ea328f0cf28f342f418945/Terror-Management-and-Aggression-Evidence-That-Mortality-Salience-Motivates-Aggression-Against-Worldview-Threatening-Others.pdf?origin=scientificContributions
  64. https://www.union.edu/sites/default/files/psychology/202009/2019-hart-tmt-handbook-chapter.pdf
  65. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9008372/
  66. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-11924-007
  67. https://www.tpmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/20.4.2.pdf
  68. https://onesearch.library.northeastern.edu/discovery/fulldisplay/cdi_proquest_journals_275051914/01NEU_INST:NU
  69. https://www.speakandregret.michaelinzlicht.com/p/the-reports-of-terror-management
  70. https://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/irvin-yalom
  71. https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2023/10/91327/
  72. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7781171/
  73. https://www.ernestbecker.org/terror-management-theory
  74. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313792975_Terror_Management_Theory
  75. https://ernestbecker.squarespace.com/s/Death-anxiety-and-social-change-ernest-becker-foundation.pdf
  76. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289309102_Thirty_Years_of_Terror_Management_Theory
  77. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222826181_How_Terrorism_News_Reports_Increase_Prejudice_against_Outgroups_A_Terror_Management_Account
  78. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/05390184231220227
  79. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20097885/
  80. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5962795/
  81. https://www.amazon.com/Denial-Death-Ernest-Becker/dp/0684832402
  82. https://www.issep.org/ernest-becker-honors
  83. https://www.ernestbecker.org/
  84. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7498956/
  85. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7308596/
  86. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022167820959488
  87. https://www.ernestbecker.org/climate-talk
  88. https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/bitstreams/21a36d30-a4db-4a19-bcef-374dde908a7c/download
  89. https://www.zdnet.com/article/fear-of-death-behind-climate-change-denial/
  90. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4610536
  91. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1964.66.3.02a00180
  92. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcwn4m7
  93. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780295801841-015/html
  94. https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295984704/the-ernest-becker-reader/
  95. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247719224_The_Journals_of_Ernest_Becker_1964-1969
Add your contribution
Related Hubs
User Avatar
No comments yet.