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DEATH, DYING & IMMORTALITY.
Term Paper ID:18072
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Essay Subject:
Psychological, mythological, cultural & religious views. Ideas of Ernest Becker, Joseph Campbell, James Frazer, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross on denial, heroism, transference, humanism, anxiety, more.... More...
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12 Pages / 2700 Words
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Paper Abstract:
Psychological, mythological, cultural & religious views. Ideas of Ernest Becker, Joseph Campbell, James Frazer, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross on denial, heroism, transference, humanism, anxiety, more.
Paper Introduction:
Since the beginning of time, man has pondered the problem of death and dying.
The attitudes of various religious groups toward death appear to both reflect and determine attitudes of persons within the dominant culture. In primitive societies, where religion and culture were for all practical purposes the same thing, death was tied to life in a cyclical way. That is, death would lead to rebirth or resurrection in one form or another. In this connection, Frazer describes primitive rituals connected with the agricultural and seasonal cycles that in some measure sought to discover meaning in the cycles of human life as well. One such European folk festival, which is designed to ward off ill luck, involves what Frazer refers to as "Burying the Carnival."
On the evening of Shrove Tuesday, the Esthonians make a
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189 . Thisis the very irony, the very tragedy, of human existence. 16Ibid., 275-6. What a dyingmedical patient brings to the experience of impending doom, according toKubler-Ross, is a summing up of what has been believed, experienced insociety, or as Becker might put it, a function of culture. . 3rd. Otto Rank is his mainmentor, and in his presentation of a "summing up on psychology after Freudby tying the whole development of psychology back to the still-toweringKierkegaard,"8 Becker acknowledges his debt to Rank. Becker's work is acritique of solutions to perplexing human problems, notably psychotherapy(particularly Freudian psychoanalysis), pure and social sciences, and thevarious religious and philosophical statements of the ironies of humanexistence. . He may destroy himself by retreating intoschizophrenia or ally himself with a greater or more significant power.The quest may become religious, with any god acting as a cosmic mediator.But whether religious, metaphysical, political, or psychological (in theanalytic sense), there must be an appeal to a power perceived as superiorto assuage the pain of the dance of death. Since the beginning of time, man has pondered the problem of deathand dying. . "Society itselfis a codified hero system, which means that society everywhere is a livingmyth of the significance of human life."9 This suggests that there is a collective longing for exemption fromthe terror of the ultimate. In this connection, one of Becker's primary targets is psychotherapy,in particular Freudian psychoanalysis. The attitudes of various religious groups toward death appear to bothreflect and determine attitudes of persons within the dominant culture. Because they demand illusions . . 2Ibid., 2:2 6-7. According to Paul Tillich, says Williams, who is a philosophicaldescendant of Soren Kierkegaard, whose meditations on death and anxietyframed the basis for much modern existential thought, "Man's existence infinitude is existence in 'ontological anxiety.' Death and guilt are, whenprofoundly understood, the twin symbols of man's two ultimate problems; hisanxiety about the 'end' of his life and his anxiety about his spiritualisolation from God . V:12, speaks most plainly: "through one man sin entered into the world and through sin death, and thus death has passed into all men." That death would follow only as a consequence of sin is evident from the very threat of God to Adam: "In what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death" (Gen. In other words, transference reflects the whole of the human condition and raises the largest philosophical question about that condition.15 The various forms that death-denial takes are therefore not alwaysnegative, any more than transference always is. Catholicdoctrine, for example, cites biblical verses to show that except fororiginal sin, or the act of disloyalty in the Garden of Eden, man would nothave had to suffer physical death at all. andthe demon fled. [P]rojection is a necessary unburdening of the individual; man cannot live closed upon himself and for himself . New York: Harper ChapelBooks, 1967.----------------------- 16 In the traditional Christian view,however, the ultimate hope for man's fate in such a universe lies in thesoul, which will be entitled to salvation as long as man accepts theredemption of mankind by Jesus. The Denial of Death. Natural narcissism--the feeling that the person next to you will die, but not you--is reinforced by trusting dependence on the leader's power. . Father Smith Instructs Jackson. 17Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death and Dying (New York: Macmillan,1969), xi. We can conclude with Rank that religion is 'just as goodas a psychology' as the psychology that pretended to replace it."2 Inother words, as long as transference is taking place, man might as well gofor broker and project his problems and stature of God. . The real world is simply too terrible to admit; it tells man that he is a small, trembling animal who will decay and die.11 Becker dwells on the implications of this kind of identification,terming it in large part "the nexus of unfreedom."12 This is another wordfor psychological transference, a key element of Becker's discussion ofheroism and the denial of death. To talk about hope is to give the right focus to the problem. . Kubler-Ross's thesis appears to be that those who can learn not toshy away from the terminally ill "will learn much about the function of thehuman mind, the unique human aspects of our existence, and will emerge fromthe experience enriched and perhaps with fewer anxieties about their ownfinality."17 On Death and Dying deals in a practical way with how to faceanxiety in the Age of Anxiety. The key element is that resurrection is implied in the death."Death was originally the spirit of vegetation," says Frazer, "who wasannually slain in the spring, in order that he might come to life againwith all the vigour of youth . The ceremony is believed to be a protection against all kinds of misfortune. Why are groups so blind and stupid? . What Present-Day Theologians Are Thinking. Inprimitive societies, where religion and culture were for all practicalpurposes the same thing, death was tied to life in a cyclical way. Lacking the courage to quest alone, man findsthe courage to attach himself to what may be a more powerful personality oridea. Philosophers who are not specifically Christian have also examinedthe implications of attitudes toward death. On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross is far more clinically oriented than Becker's theoretical work. . Yet as Becker demonstrates, the normal societycannot escape this terror. Inthis connection, Frazer describes primitive rituals connected with theagricultural and seasonal cycles that in some measure sought to discovermeaning in the cycles of human life as well. 2 Ibid., 194. While admitting Freud's genius,Becker acknowledges Freud's limitations, in particular showing that whatFreud viewed as the ultimate determinant of the human condition--sexuality--may be seen as merely symptomatic of the larger and more telling fear andloathing of death. Becker'sconclusions are titled "The Dilemmas of Heroism" in which he draws togetherdiscrete elements discussed throughout the book. Death was not merely the dying god ofvegetation, but also a public scapegoat, upon whom were laid all the evilsthat had afflicted the people during the past year."2 With death surrounded by so much ceremony in primitive cultures, itis but a short leap from the death and rebirth of agricultural cycles to aculture of human death that involves death and rebirth as well. A child's experience of transferenceoccurs when he invests his parent with the power to protect or insulatefrom death or indeed from the reality of life. is a realistic account ofhow man feels when he has come to the very edge of despair, and can find nomeaning in life unless there comes a healing disclosure from beyondhimself."6 In this view, the modern Christian reaches out to the healingpower represented by Jesus, but the Jesus of the modern Christian thinkersdiffers from the one of the early Christian thinkers inasmuch as for themoderns, there is a reach for meaning in the present life rather than areach for guarantees about the quality of the afterlife. . but by the envy of the devil, death came into the world." And St. Adventures of Ideas. Despite man's horridly ironicposition, despite the looming meaninglessness or absurdity of hiscondition, Becker comes down on the side of hope and suggests man's abilityto become his own tragic hero. The views of these theologiansconcentrate far more on the process of living and confronting thepossibility of death rather than on the rules and regulations by which theconsequences of mortal death can be overtaken by anticipation of eternallife. Forget it. 15Ibid., 158. 12Ibid., 127. . . yetthe two are neither unrelated nor incompatible. Thatis, death would lead to rebirth or resurrection in one form or another. In one sense, man's "creatureliness,"22 orability to function sensibly at the level of mundane existence, isimportant. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1949.Whitehead, Alfred North. 19Becker, 141. In this view,"psychoanalysis failed therapeutically where it fetishized the causes ofhuman unhappiness as sexuality, and when it pretended to be a total world-view in itself. Williams discusses the position of whathe calls the Christian existentialist theologians, who have incorporatedmany elements of modern psychology and philosophy into their examination offundamental problems facing mankind. And he is once morethe speck of dust in the cosmos. Kubler-Ross's study isnarrowed to those for whom death is an inescapable certainty. Awareness without action,Becker argues, i.e., without a projection of an idea of heroism into theterror of reality, defeats the purpose of such awareness. One such European folkfestival, which is designed to ward off ill luck, involves what Frazerrefers to as "Burying the Carnival." On the evening of Shrove Tuesday, the Esthonians make a straw figure called a metsik or "wood-spirit;" one year it is dressed with a man's coat and hat, next year with a hood and a petticoat. It also makes sense to celebrate the creativeeffort of the lost loved one. This figure is stuck on a long pole, carried across the boundary of the village with loud cries of joy, and fastened to the top of a tree in the wood. In the Book of Wisdom II, 23, 24, we read: "God created man incorruptible . 7Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York: Free Press, 1973),ix. . In the section subtitled "The DepthPsychology of Heroism," Becker shows that fundamental human narcissism isone aspect of it, whether in terms of egoism and self-esteem or anonrational feeling that one will somehow be exempted from the ordinarycourse of human peril. . Tillich's theology . (189 ; reprint ed., New York: Avenel, 1981), 1:256-7. 4Ibid., 16. Yet the frustrating andpowerless position of man at his most heroic, or in search of the mostheroic is seen in the irony that at the very apex of his heroic quest andat the very moment he displays heroism, he is scalded by knowledge that hehas touched the penultimate rather than the ultimate. The typical course for anindividual is to live in a state of indirection, for the pain of thisanxiety directly confronted might lead to madness. . These may be movie stars, political leaders, oreven the family member who guides loved ones through the perplexing maze ofeveryday life. Fallon, Father Smith InstructsJackson (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday VisitorPress, 1949), 13-14. , 7. And we know why. In the section "The Fallacies of Heroism," hediscusses man's quest to be at one with the eternal because this senseconfers a sense of power over history and yet to be relieved of theultimacy of cosmic knowledge, which is an undisguised certainty that deathwill occur and a,strong sense that therefore life has no meaning. New York: Free Press, 1961.Williams, Daniel Day. Frazer, The Golden Bough: The Roots of Religion andFolklore, 2 vols. Men are doomed to live in an overwhelmingly tragic and demonic world.21 Or, when you've got life, what have you got really, except a mass ofinescapable anxiety about life; it is a vicious irony that it isoverbalanced by an anxiety about death. As Becker puts it, "they have to leave tragedy behind as partof a program to awaken some kind of hopeful creative effort by men."23 Infact, Becker appears to insist on the need for such effort, citing "theDeweyan [pragmatic] thesis that, as reality is partly the result of humaneffort, the person who prides himself on being a hard-headed realist andrefrains from hopeful action is really abdicating the human task."24 Itmakes sense to grieve. In itsattempt to deal with the whole of human experience, at its most personaland most cosmic, mythosocietal sense, The Denial of Death exhibits analmost anthropological atmosphere. Paul, Rom. For as Whitehead says, "The Day of Judgment isalways with us."1 Still, man seeks to validate his own worth, in life, byidentifying with one considered more worthy. Curiously enough, Becker takes his text from Freud: Even with the numerous groups of really liberated people, at their best, we can't imagine that the world will be any pleasanter or less tragic a place . New York: Free Press, 1973.Campbell, Joseph. (New York: Harper ChapelBooks, 1967), 7 . No wonder men imagine victories against impossible odds: don't they have the omnipotent powers of the parental figure? In the modern period, there has been some recasting of the tensionbetween earthly life and the promise of salvation after death as theprincipal elements of immortality. Additionally, the state of unfreedomrepresents in part a failure of the individual to seek radical freedom thatconfronts the anxiety of death directly. This kind of identification is a limitation that is self-perceived as an achievement. The professional therapist or indeedlayman might read Becker, therefore, not as he reads Kubler-Ross's (fortips on how to conduct a session), but as a theoretical index of whypersons in the culture require or seek therapy or other help with theiranxieties. That, inan age of anxiety about death and the fragility of life, is perhaps as nearas the modern tragic hero can come to immortality. The author accepts that society as a wholehas progressed but also notes its limitations in value-system building:"What happens in a society that puts more emphasis on IQ and class-standingthan on simple matters of tact, sensitivity, perceptiveness, and good tastein the management of suffering."18 Ultimately, Kubler-Ross emerges as an advocate of a humanistic valuesystem and critic of the contemporary society. . The Blessed one that night achieved Enlightenment."4 Inother words, by confronting death directly, it is transcended and pointsthe soul in the direction of immortality. BibliographyBecker, Ernest. The degree towhich the illusion of convention can be faced plays a role in Kubler-Ross'spatients' ability to accept the inevitability of what so-called "normal"society tries to ignore. 24Ibid. In this sense again it is Freud's somber pessimism, especially of his later writings such as Civilization and Its Discontents, that keeps him so contemporary. 9Ibid. 8Ibid., xi. 23Ibid., 278. ed. Ernest Becker begins with theproposition that "the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the humananimal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity--activitydesigned largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denyingin some way that it is the final destiny of man."7 Becker's assumption isthat a valid examination of this subject can be made through literature andart that treats the fundamentals of human existence. The empirical facts of the world will not fade away because one has analyzed his Oedipus complex, as Freud so well knew, or because one can make love with tenderness, as so many now believe. Thus, in some parts of Swabia, on Shrove Tuesday Dr. Iron- Beard professes to bleed a sick man, who thereupon falls as dead to the ground; but the doctor at last restores him to life by blowing air into him through a tube.1 Elsewhere, Frazer notes that in Middle Eastern and some EasternEuropean religions, Death was not so much buried as expelled, as ascapegoat. II:17). On Death and Dying. As Woody Allen inManhattan would have it, man has to model himself after somebody. The Golden Bough: The Roots of Religion and Folklore. They were partially self-hypnotised, so to speak. Therefore,retreat, or for that matter ascendancy to a higher plane of consciousness,particularly as practiced by the convinced of any persuasion, is itselfillusive. . 5John Francis Noll and Lester J. . It helps us understand why even the thinkers of great stature who got at the heart of human problems could not rest content with the view of the tragical nature of man's lot that this knowledge gives. No wonder that hundreds of thousands of men marched up from trenches in the face of blistering gunfire in World War I. Theagricultural cycle is personified in the myth of the death and resurrectionof the Egyptian god Osiris, but the same structure can be seen in Asian andChristian religions as well. The Denial of Death by Becker is divided into three sections, eachdealing with an aspect of "heroism," which Becker takes to be emblematic ofman's resistance to his mortality. It may even make sense to continue life inhope as a fulfillment of the lost one's potential for creativity. 18Ibid., 11. Central to Becker's argument regarding the forms that death-denialtakes is a discussion of the phenomenon of transference, not only inpsychotherapy but--more important--in life itself. Lester Fallon. Even the necessity of wearisome labor for the maintenance of life is a consequence of our first parents' sin.5 Campbell cites parallels to the Genesis episode in the Garden of Edenin Oriental religions, with a view toward showing that there was a factorof concurrent development in the ways primitive cultures sought to explainthe presence of death amid life. Man must reach out for support to a dream, a metaphysic of hope that sustains him and makes his life worthwhile. Or how Jung wrote an intellectual apologia for the text of ancient Chinese magic, the I Ching.16 If there is a connection between philosophy and mysticism where deathis concerned, there is also one between both of them and what might becalled the clinical view of death. It is here that the idea of the afterlifeenters into the religious conception of death. The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. 13Ibid., 129. Becker emerges as a criticof whole thought systems, notably of psychological and psychosocialtheories that claim to explain humanity in whole or in part. . 22Ibid., 1 7, et passim. Becker identifies a number of problems with various commentaries onthe human condition that for one reason or another fail to recognize thefear of death as paramount and fundamental to the way man lives life. Yet nothing negates the power of death. 2 vols. New York: Avenel, 1981.Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth. But he touched the earth . . Becker continues, If transference represents the natural heroic striving for a "beyond" that gives self-validation and if people need this validation in order to live, then the psychoanalytic view of transference as unreal projection is destroyed . 14Ibid., 15 . But there is no panacea, no escape, from the limitations oftransference or from a realization that transference is a vital need. Joseph Campbell cites rites of initiation inGreek culture that involved the death of Demeter's son Plutus, and hissubsequent rebirth and return to her, but as her consort: "[I]n thoserites of initiation . Becker notes that Freud eventually admitted the difficulty with his"narrow sexual emphasis on transference surrender."19 A failure to come toterms with the terror of death as fundamental to neurosis or everyday lifemay represent the failure of psychoanalysis itself. The phenomenon of transference has positive and negative effects. 1 Alfred North Whitehead, Adventure of Ideas (New York: Free Press,1961), 269. the initiate, returning in contemplation to thegoddess mother of the mysteries, became detached reflectively from the fateof his mortal frame (symbolically, the son, who dies), and identified withthe principle that is ever reborn, the Being of all beings (the serpentfather): whereupon, in the world where only sorrow and death had beenseen, the rapture was recognized of an everlasting becoming."3 Implicit in this conception of cyclical death and rebirth is a notionof immortality that has appeared in religions throughout the world.Campbell sees such an implication in the legend of the Buddha. The quest for oneness with the eternal, for identification with thepowerful, is not only personal but cultural, and in a broad sense can beheld to be at the core of the formation of civilization. Atits most negative, it is a "passive surrender to superior power,"13 whichrelieves the individual of responsibility and in large measure explains thepower of a Charles Manson or Hitler. . 21Ibid., 281. At the same time, remarksBecker, "Man is always hungry, as Rank so well put it, for material for hisown immortalization . Transference emerges asman seeks identification with and protection from or by what might betermed Significant Others. A prime example of this tendency is the conviction of themilitantly mystical or avowedly self-aware. Endnotes 1James G. New York: Penguin, 1964.Frazer, James G. This makes onewonder whether an examination of Jamesian pragmatism might not be useful,inasmuch as pragmatism's efficacy is commonly held to rest on the testingout of ideas. "When heplaced himself on the Immovable Spot beneath the Tree of Enlightenment, theCreator of the World Illusion, Kama-Mara, 'Life-Desire and Fear of Death,'approached to threaten his position. . 3Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology (New York:Penguin, 1964), 15. Sometimes the resurrection of the pretended dead person is enacted. New York: Macmillan, 1969.Noll, John Francis, and J. . . 6Daniel Day Williams, What Present-Day Theologians Are Thinking, 3rd.ed. Manysolutions to man's inexplicable frustration have been offered: religion,social and political programs, science, a turn toward mysticism, an embraceof what can conveniently be called a California style of self-awareness andpsychological personal liberation. 11Becker, 133, et passim. . The Christian view of death is connected with sin. It is today well known how Wilhelm Reich continued the Enlightenment in the direction of a fusion of Freud with Marxist social criticism, only to reach finally for Orgone, the primal cosmic-energy. True, transference is a reflex of cowardice inthe face of both life and death, but it is also a reflex of the urge toheroism and self-unfolding."14 Accordingly, there appears a nisus towardaddressing or projecting life in spite of, or indeed because of, the.terrorof death.
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