Denial of Death and Ethical issues of Dying
Answer 1: Analysis of ‘Denial of Death’ by Ernest Becker
The phrase ‘Denial of Death’ is from the famous book of Ernest Becker (having the same title as the phrase) which won him the 1974 Pulitzer Prize. This book talks about the human beings and focus on their strategies to fend off vulnerability and mortality awareness (Becker). The book shows that how human beings escape from the reality and feels themselves as they are immortal. Death is inevitable and every living being in this world has to die. One cannot escape from death no matter what he does. Socrates, the famous Philosopher of the Greeks, used the phrase ‘Practice of dying’ which portrays that how one individual becomes mature morally (Becker). This phrase was also quoted by Plato and describes the same point. Socrates wants to clarify that the motive of death urges the humans to face their mortality and purifies our intentions (Becker).
‘The Denial of Death’ is an impassioned and a brilliant work of Ernest Becker that helped him win the Pulitzer Prize in the year 1974. The main theme highlighted in this book is about the existence of human being, ‘Why’ we exist and what is the purpose of our existence (Becker). Becker highlighted a predominant concept of psychological thought of Freud and tackles the issue – Why human beings refuses to accept their own mortality (Becker). Becker as a cultural anthropologist, searches for rational reasons and explanations relating to the human society. Becker want to figure out why do societies develops in a path, why the society of human beings tends to be so violent, why the other communities of human beings are hateful and violent towards each other. The Denial of Death is the ninth book written by Becker (Becker). In this book, he shows us that he has finally found the reasons which explains the crucial principle for understanding the human culture and behavior. This crucial factor is summarized with brevity that is extreme and is described in this book (Becker).
Becker says that human beings know that they are mortal. This sense of mortality and vulnerability leads us to anxiety and problems and give rise to terror. That is the reason why human beings devise various kinds of strategies to escape from the vulnerability and their awareness of mortality (Becker). According to Becker, the most crucial factor that drives the behavior of the human beings is the ‘Denial of Death’ (Becker). The escape from this inevitable fact of death is what reflects the culture of human society. It is indeed one of the main function of the human culture that it is trying to avoid the mortality awareness. This awareness suppression plays an active role in the proper functioning of the human beings and the society (Becker). This is because if human beings keep on thinking about their death they can go nuts and crazy. Human beings suppress this awareness to escape from this fragility. This is where the culture of the human beings help them perform the functions that are critical (Becker). Societies shape the realities of the human beings and make them part of an eternal, permanent and invulnerable sense. Becker believes that the social and personal consequences of the denial of death by the humans and societies are disastrous.
Answer 2: Ethical issues of Suicide, Dying and Death
When the human beings deny an inevitable fact i.e. Death, it gives rise to many ethical problems. One is that at the level of a person, the ignorance of vulnerability and mortality can create a perception of one-self as unrealistic. So, this creates a false sense of human being’s existence (Beauchamp). Secondly, we human beings are a part of society and as members we tend to forget that we are immortal. This tends to show with each other ‘a system of immortality’ as Becker quotes it. Human beings identifies and merges with a political group, religious group or engages in cultural activities of any kind to grasp a culturally certain viewpoint that is sanctioned to invest in the meaning that is ultimate (Beauchamp). It means that we humans ascribes the permanent and absolute truth of Death. Thus, the human beings in doing so are inflated with the sense of righteousness and invulnerability.
Human beings tries to safeguard themselves against this absolute truth exposure by denying mortality among each other. This can only be possible by insisting that all the other truths that are absolute are wrong. For this reason we degrade and attack, kill the others belonging to a different sense of mortality (Beauchamp). Thus, denying the universal truth of Death. Christians are being vilified by the Muslims, Catholics are being killed by the Protestants and vice versa. The Americans lifestyle denies the Communist view. Heretics are being tortured by the Spanish inquisitors. Communists kills all the Cambodian Intellects. The remaining class of students who are good thinks that the Enlightenment is demonized by religion and religion is seen as the root of all evils (Beauchamp). Human beings suppress this awareness to escape from this fragility. This is where the culture of the human beings help them perform the functions that are critical.
Ernest Becker is right about his main thesis. It can be said accurately that the death denial is pervaded by the culture of human beings. The denial of death is the deepest source of human evil, aggression and intolerance. One of the most useful tool for diagnostic is the notion of the systems of immortality. People can be easily spotted that are clanged to the universal truth (Beauchamp). But it is difficult to understand what they actually want to do. It is not merely just a trouble, instead it is over from the vulnerability of the physical being. It is a deeper kind of feeling. We as human beings want to live a meaningful life and no one wants to die (Beauchamp). This is because death gives no meaning to the life. We cannot alter nature and death is a part of nature (Beauchamp). Human beings are desperate to live life that can really be counted and be real. Majority of the people strives to find out the identities whose meaning is enduring and seems permanent. We have created systems of immortality which includes; the race, nation, revolutionary vision, scientific truth, philosophical verities immutable, pursuit of happiness, cosmic energy, law of survival, timelessness of art, natural rhythm, the Tao, Buddha consciousness, Krishna, Gaia, Jesus and Torah. The systems of immortality promises to give a meaningful existence to our life and connect what endures to our lives (Beauchamp). Thus, the thesis of Becker is true that the death fear leads to meaninglessness, denial that is self-deluding towards mortality and many people follow these immortality systems to escape from the concept of Death.
Work Cited
Beauchamp, Tom L., and Robert M. Veatch, eds. Ethical issues in death and dying. Prentice Hall, 1996.
Becker, Ernest. The denial of death. Simon and Schuster, 2007.
