The Denial of Death
Yesterday afternoon, I viewed the documentary, Flight From Death: The Quest for Immortality. This film deals with ongoing research into the psychological effects of death anxiety on humans and their culture. It follows the theories of Ernest Becker, a cultural anthropologist who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for his book, The Denial Of Death. Becker’s theory claims there is a correlation between the fear of death and the violence we inflict on our fellow humans. Basically, unconscious death anxiety…