The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker

A book on the fear of death from a psychoanalytic and philosophical perspective. A bit too dense in parts. There were sections where I felt every sentence was giving an important message and I needed time to process. I also felt some messages were a bit too repetitive. I struggled to get to the end of the book and didn’t quite get everything, but here my take:

We humans are the only conscious animals, the only ones who understand our mortality. We are a duality, part physical (and mortal), part spiritual/intellectual/conscientious which imagines way beyond our physical world and which cannot cope with the knowledge that everything has to end at some point. This knowledge translates into fear of death and affects every aspect of our lives even if we do not know it consciously. From childhood when we discover everything about our bodies to adulthood when we know the clock is ticking. 

We make up and construct concepts or institutions which are defences “against the knowledge that we are mortal beings.” Religion is one of them. Cities and culture are too. However the most discussed was science. One problem in our days is that science is taking religion’s place explaining what reality is about. This is giving us anxiety as science, so blunt on our faces, tells us how mortal we are and how even the universe will have an end. (This book was written in 1973 and does not mention any scientific research on transhumanism.)

Something I enjoyed reading was the discussion on Sigmund Freud's life and work. Especially the references to his death anxiety which made an interesting read. Becker however did not agree with Freud's view of sex as driver for human behaviour. Instead, Becker drew heavily on work by Carl Jung and mostly Otto Rank to argue that not sex but fear of death was our main motivation for everything.