Denying death

The only real answer is a resort to metaphysical notions. In the past religion served this purpose, establishing a serious of myths and rituals that explained the basic existential problem and helped to assist our efforts to deal with it, but they have eroded over time and now we have nothing much left.

We have been reminded in 2020, sharply and suddenly, that our lives of normalcy, of economics, politics, sports and the joys and annoyances of daily life, come to little when faced with even the merest prospect of death. The Covid-19 virus, with a death rate of something around 1 percent of those who contract the disease, has nonetheless caused people to panic, hoard groceries, and lose any sense of perspective. Ultimately the fear-caused panic is very likely to do more damage that the virus itself.

The Covid-19 virus will pass, and then we must return to consideration of a bunch of other threats, from nuclear war to global warming, as well as more disease. Becker argues that it is the panic that is the real danger, but sooner or later it will be the actual threat, a threat we can do nothing about because we failed to act when we could, that gets us.

One part of the answer lies in developing what Becker (following Paul Tillich) called a ‘transmoral conscience’ not based in convenient ethnic or national differences but a universal rationality. We can see this contested process playing out currently as right-wing politicians play the cards of racism and xenophobia, challenging the very basis of rational science itself.

The Denial of Death is an important book containing powerful insights into our troubled times, especially the rise of the neo-fascist right, a growing arms race and the real threat of environmental disaster. There is an atmosphere of anti-intellectualism at the moment promoted by people like Donald Trump that works against such serious analysis, but sooner rather than later we need to figure out just what it is that is driving humanity wild.