Dr. Ernest Becker was a cultural anthropologist and interdisciplinary scientific thinker and writer.
Becker was born in Springfield, Massachusetts to Jewish immigrant parents. After completing military service, in which he served in the infantry and helped to liberate a Nazi concentration camp, he attended Syracuse University in New York. Upon graduation he joined the US Embassy in Paris as an administrative officer. In his early 30s, he returned to Syracuse University to pursue graduate studies in cultural anthropology. He completed his Ph.D. in 1960. The first of his nine books, Zen, A Rational Critique (1961) was based on his doctoral dissertation. After Syracuse, he became a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC (Canada).
Becker came to the recognition that psychological inquiry inevitably comes to a dead end beyond which belief systems must be invoked to satisfy the human psyche. The reach of such a perspective consequently encompasses science and religion, even to what Sam Keen suggests is Becker's greatest achievement, the creation of the "science of evil." In formulating his theories Becker drew on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Norman O. Brown, Erich Fromm, and especially Otto Rank. Becker came to believe that a person's character is essentially formed around the process of denying his own mortality, that this denial is necessary for the person to function in the world, and that this character-armor prevents genuine self-knowledge. Much of the evil in the world, he believed, was a consequence of this need to deny death.
Because of his breadth of vision and avoidance of social science specialization, Becker was an academic outcast in the last decade of his life. It was only with the award of the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for his 1973 book, The Denial of Death (two months after his own death from cancer at the age of 49) that he gained wider recognition. Escape From Evil (1975) was intended as a significant extension of the line of reasoning begun in 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 what manuscript existed as well as from notes on the unfinished chapter.
The Ernest Becker Foundation is devoted to multidisciplinary inquiries into human behavior, with a particular focus on contributing to the reduction of 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.
Some of the above information is from the EBF website and used by permission.
Becker also wrote The Birth and Death of Meaning which gets its title from the concept of man moving away from the simple minded ape into a world of symbols and illusions, and then deconstructing those illusions through his own evolving intellect.
Flight From Death (2006) is a documentary film directed by Patrick Shen, based on Becker's work, and partially funded by the Ernest Becker Foundation.
发表于2024-11-21
The Denial of Death 2024 pdf epub mobi 电子书
这本书是学术书,还是比较晦涩的,我看这书主要还是为了怎样应用到自己的生活中去,是为了更好的活,本人非科班,很多都没看懂的也就不深究了。谈谈我的一些理解吧,算不上对书的评论。 各种科学都在追求着以一种最简单的基本原因来解释所有世间万物。在精神分析学方面,弗洛...
评分老师推荐看的,看过之后,一个强烈的想法冲了出来:太透彻了,太带劲了。周围的朋友看了之后,有的进入了,整个人的生活学习状态都有了很大改变。我是属于那种有着坚硬内核的人,老是打破不了旧的自我。准备买来重读,但找了很多网店,只有孔夫子旧书网还有得卖(淘宝只有复印...
评分对大多数人来说太晦涩 我觉得写的很有诗意...........................!nnnnmmmjjhhbhhhgffbjjshsjehdhdhdhcbcjcjfjfjfjfjdjfjfjdjdnsndndndndndndndndndndndndndnndndndjdn
图书标签: 心理学 哲学 死亡 社会学 Pulitzer 社會學 心理 death
Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie - man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.
看到倒数第二章,字里行间透露出的主观情感越来越强,强吹Rank,强踩Freud,刚开始还挺感兴趣的,吹多了,踩多了后,开始怀疑作者的reliability。决定还是直接读Rank。作者对马克思主义,对精神分裂患者也是莫名的……怎么说了,很不……就是读着糟心,想象一下,用pathetic去形容the schizophrenic,突然就有骂人的冲动。总体来说,此书探讨的内容可以简化为这几对概念之间的斗争平衡:灵与肉,人性与兽性,个人与集体,死亡与永生……为了应对死亡恐惧,人必须找到一个project实现symbolic immortality,但这么多project,哪个更好呢?sex,fetish,romance,religion,money,etc… DFW也说过,选择你的project!
评分终于看完!比起读书群里三天打卡的还是输得彻底。还要慢慢消化,尤其后20%极不走心。anyway mark#existential
评分从存在主义的角度总结和发展弗洛伊德以来的心理分析学,最终停留在克尔凯郭尔的世界里
评分看了好几年,终于看完啦,撒花~~作者认为宗教才是缓解死亡焦虑的不二之途。知道怕死,对自我消亡的恐惧是无比正常无比清醒的,多少感到了慰藉。
评分看到倒数第二章,字里行间透露出的主观情感越来越强,强吹Rank,强踩Freud,刚开始还挺感兴趣的,吹多了,踩多了后,开始怀疑作者的reliability。决定还是直接读Rank。作者对马克思主义,对精神分裂患者也是莫名的……怎么说了,很不……就是读着糟心,想象一下,用pathetic去形容the schizophrenic,突然就有骂人的冲动。总体来说,此书探讨的内容可以简化为这几对概念之间的斗争平衡:灵与肉,人性与兽性,个人与集体,死亡与永生……为了应对死亡恐惧,人必须找到一个project实现symbolic immortality,但这么多project,哪个更好呢?sex,fetish,romance,religion,money,etc… DFW也说过,选择你的project!
The Denial of Death 2024 pdf epub mobi 电子书