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2024-11-02
The Denial of Death 2024 pdf epub mobi 电子书
我正在读这本书的原版,有时会将汉译本拿来比对,于是发现几处译文颇令我困惑。 比如第二章第三节“死亡恐惧的消失”第一段,汉译本为: “然而,随着儿童的成长,恶梦越来越频繁地出现,而某些儿童的恶梦又比另一些更多。” 原文为:Yet, the n...
评分这本书是我反复读的一本书; 同时读《反抗死亡》《旁观者》《哈利波特》《江城》的时候,就能掂量出《反抗死亡》的分量。 这本书是吴思《潜规则》作者推荐的。 我读了六千本书,其中五百本是值得反复读的,《反抗死亡》适合在遇到困境的时候读。 这本书我读了中文版,又买了英...
评分这本书是我反复读的一本书; 同时读《反抗死亡》《旁观者》《哈利波特》《江城》的时候,就能掂量出《反抗死亡》的分量。 这本书是吴思《潜规则》作者推荐的。 我读了六千本书,其中五百本是值得反复读的,《反抗死亡》适合在遇到困境的时候读。 这本书我读了中文版,又买了英...
评分一本书值得林和生这样不倦的思想者和诗人在二十五年间三次翻译,这本身就说明了其意义。《死亡否认》比《拒斥死亡》更接近作者要表达的终极关怀深度,也代表了译者走进西方文化思考生命意义的进程。 ——金观涛、刘青峰 一本杰作,致力于直探人性深层,并揭示生存之要义,为...
评分看到吴思老师推荐找来看的书。吴思说这本书看完,不需要再看别的心理学书了,我理解对非心理学专业的人来说,足足够了。理性悲观派的书,与以前看的理性乐观派的《无穷的开始》互相补充。我有些没看太懂,有些不认同,有些非常认同,沉淀一段时间可能会有变化。 死亡恐惧和生之...
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.
精神分析作为心理学的一个分支已经在这个核磁共振的时代没落了,但是作为现代思潮的一个源头,它继续根深蒂固、改头换面地存在于社会文化之中。这本书的学术价值在于,它在人类文明全景图中对“死亡焦虑”进行了尝试性的定位。但也许应该从另一个角度去读这本书——一部精致的史诗,充满智慧、灵感、想象和悲伤。
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
The Denial of Death 2024 pdf epub mobi 电子书