Picrelated

The only reason picrelated has virtually zero discussion is because its true and nobody wants to hear about it

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That's a quite depressing book. I don't think it should be advertised.

Yawn. Another boring book that attempts to reduce all human behavior down to a single motivation with which the author can project his superiority complex. I'll pass.

Also, you sound like your run-of-the-mill wet-behind-the-ears edgelord. Your shtick has been done before and will be done again. Next time, come to the table with something real adults are here to discuss.

Could you elaborate on that criticism a bit more? I've just finished it and found it depressing and have been looking for some discussion/criticism levied against it.

If you hold any philosophical view that is remotely negative, then people who don't want to think about it will call you an edgelord. If you are an adult it means you don't think about bad things and just go to work, or something. Also just b urself ;)

It's an interesting book but I haven't read it yet. I think that the denialism of death is something larger than just the hero myth but I should read the book first before making any statements about it.

you said absolutely nothing in your post

I haven't read it either but I also thought it was very interesting.

Generally, I'm skeptical of all psychology books, particularly those of behavioralists, whose understanding of the mind is weighted in the primordial soup of the pre-neuroscientific era. Furthermore, the book appears to have been written without purpose, being that the author proposes no solution to the supposed "problem of death," other than to shrug his shoulders and say, "Guess it's up to the scientists to sort this whole mess out," after which Becker conveniently peaced the fuck out of this world and moved onto the next. Thus, I'm left to conclude that writing this book with nothing more than a personal exercise of situating himself smugly above the rest of the human race. (Which presumably makes up most of his readerbase) And finally, he uses no real evidence to base his claim, save for a few historical examples which could be interpreted by many people for many reasons. His fundamental understanding of mental illness is limited at best, a comedy of errors at worst.

tl;dr: Ernest Becker's understanding of human behavior, as stated in this book, is overly general and simplistic. It's only real value today is as a relic of a once-uninformed worldview.

Don't let a book written by some old dead guy bring you down, user. I think we're all, dare I say, going to make it.

Not him but do you propose anything to solve the problem? You say that we will all make it some day, but we will most likely also decay one day, get Alzheimer's or something and everything we have built will be destroyed and generally feel miserable despite all our efforts. Though of course this is not really related to death itself.

Anyway you claim that his worldview is uninformed but you don't give any solutions yourself.

Is your perception of the smugness of the book based on actually reading it or is this thread full of people discussing something they have not read? Fitting for Yea Forums though.

btw no hate just curious

I totally agree with you that he proposed no solution to death anxiety. But I'm also sympathetic to him, because he implicitly argues that society's overemphasis on the scientific method/ atheism is precisely what killed man's best solution --religion, and the ultimate, infinite meaning it provides.

>being that the author proposes no solution to the supposed "problem of death,"
How do you know there even is a solution? The fact that there's a problem doesn't mean it can be solved, and the fact there may be no solution is not a reason to pretend there is no problem.
>I think we're all, dare I say, going to make it.
Obviously wrong, deluded optimism.

In fact, I would add that religion is implicitly argued to be even MORE true in the context of death anxiety, because it solved (unlike most non-religious philosophies of life) this problem even before it was conceived. I am talking about Faith; indeed, I am an insignificant, insufficient weakling existing in a reality of vanities, "but one exists over against a living God for whom "everything is possible"".

I don't agree with his underlying thesis, though. Human behavior is way too complex to chalk up to, "we do it because x, y, or z," and needs to be studied further. The concept of death denial is something I've explored myself, and is worth factoring into potential frameworks of the human mind, but it does not account for everything. It's just another mental mind game one can play with themselves; a potential answer to every question, without necessarily being correct.

Assuming, however, that he is correct, the best solution, I'd have to say, is Schopenhauer's solution to a life that consists of nothing more than failed attempts to satiate the "will-to-life":

A.) Become a monk, unburdened from the flawed society that surrounds you.

B.) Immerse yourself in as much art and philosophy as you possibly can.

It sounds more to me like you are struggling more with the concept of death, however, than you are with the material in this book. Coming to terms with the finite nature of it all is something we all have to do. I've done it, and it was painful, even to the point of contemplating suicide, but in time, it does get easier to bear. I do it for the sake of the people I care about.

Hope I could assuage your depression at least a little bit, user.

>deluded optimism.
Then show me and "not make it." Although you won't actually prove anything, you'll simply have wasted everything on the pretense that one "hunch" out of the thousands you'll have in your entire life just so happened to be right among all others.

what do you expect? we're nothing more than animals who fear death. Society we created is superficial but we arm it with technology to protect us and provide necessities but that doesn't prevent save us from oxidation and aging. We are ephemeral creatures desperately trying to shine as bright as possible even for the slightest time, maybe to prove others we lived, to be remember after we pass away. In the end most of it is meaningless, life, time, self. In the grand schemes of things it wouldn't even matter if we were there or not, maybe that's whats most dark about it. Well at least we can consider ourselves lucky we could experience what it is like to be living.

>How do you know there even is a solution?
There HAS to be a solution. No solution = no problem, metaphysically speaking. If there's no solution to life, then death itself is not a problem. If we argue this to its extreme we must conclude that there's inherently nothing wrong with committing suicide. Unless you concede this death must be problem that necessitates being beset by a solution

>If we argue this to its extreme we must conclude that there's inherently nothing wrong with committing suicide.
There isn't anything wrong with it.

I am not really interested in what you have to offer to me, I was just interested in what you have to say against the book since your arguments felt flimsy and assumption-loaded. My own feelings about death aren't important here.

I think death is a consequence of life. You cant be alive if you cant die.

>If we argue this to its extreme we must conclude that there's inherently nothing wrong with committing suicide.
You had a good point up until this. There's point in debating life ethics, which are entirely subjective.

Gay lol I think about death all the time, I don't deny it and it doesn't scare me.

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Then why haven't you committed suicide? If you prefer life over death, then there must be something wrong about death, RELATIVE to life.
(I mean this in the most rational way, just for the sake of argument)

has anyone on this board even read this lol

Because I have a personal motivation not to for the time being. It has nothing to do with life or death being wrong or right. I don't see how you could even say that death is "wrong" as it's a universal human experience. If every single human participates in death then how can it have a moral category? It's meaningless.

>bruh look at how intellectually superior i am because I'm aware if my mortality
>everyone else is a coping retard

You're not the first person to say this ITT. Does the book actually have this attitude or are just assuming things?

>36. The world would be a better place if all the people with death anxiety simply died

Have you actually read this?

Snowflakes like you grow up to be adults.

The solution to death is reproduction. You can all leave the thread now.

I'm an adult already, believe it or not.

> (OP)
>Yawn. Another boring post that attempts to reduce all human behavior down to a single motivation with which the author can project his superiority complex. I'll pass.
>Also, you sound like your run-of-the-mill dry-behind-the-ears edgelord. Your shtick has been done before and will be done again. Next time, come to the table with something real adults are here to discuss.

Ftfy

Ad infinitum

Same but sometimes it just hits u in the feels, especially if ur sick and lonely.

Based.
The organism wont let you. See i would if i could get a pistol but can't right now.
True, in a way. And I'd like to see if you agree user.
Well its discussed fairly regularly it seems to me. Its an interesting enough book for mine. I think the user above is right though in the sense that Becker misses the notion that the major transference object people who become parents use is their children. Presumably he doesn't think this because hes a parent. This is how life becomes hollowed out. In sheer meaningless superfluity.

One result of the above assertion would be to say that all parents are in denial, thus the only people fit to be parents are those who want to adopt. You can build a whole crazy antinatalist politics out of this position that I have scant interest in pursuing for the moment.

Whats really to be said about it? You didn't give any discussion points OP. I think he could have gone further and he was only analysing superficially, perhaps because he was still in denial himself.

mono no aware

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>The Lord said, "James, do not be concerned for me or for this people. I am he who was within me. Never have I suffered in any way, nor have I been distressed. And this people has done me no harm. But this (people) existed as a type of the archons, and it deserved to be destroyed through them. But [...] the archons, [...] who has [...] but since it [...] angry with [...] The just [...] is his servant. Therefore your name is "James the Just". You see how you will become sober when you see me. And you stopped this prayer. Now since you are a just man of God, you have embraced me and kissed me. Truly I say to you that you have stirred up great anger and wrath against yourself. But (this has happened) so that these others might come to be."

>But James was timid (and) wept. And he was very distressed. And they both sat down upon a rock. The Lord said to him, "James, thus you will undergo these sufferings. But do not be sad. For the flesh is weak. It will receive what has been ordained for it. But as for you, do not be timid or afraid". The Lord ceased.

>Now when James heard these things, he wiped away the tears in his eyes and very bitter [...] which is [...]. The Lord said to him, "James, behold, I shall reveal to you your redemption. When you are seized, and you undergo these sufferings, a multitude will arm themselves against you that may seize you. And in particular three of them will seize you - they who sit (there) as toll collectors. Not only do they demand toll, but they also take away souls by theft. When you come into their power, one of them who is their guard will say to you, 'Who are you or where are you from?' You are to say to him, 'I am a son, and I am from the Father.'

Someday, sport :^)

It cured my depression (sort of.) Read it, if you're going through it. I really like it!

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Are you trying to lure struggling anons into reading this so they get even more depressed than they already are?

No one here has read the book based on this thread (me neither)

I could only get through about a hundred pages, it was too depressing to continue.

i never read this book but I took a class on terror management theory which discussed the book heavily
i agree with first poster that its dodgy to reduce all human motivation to one stimulus, but it's interesting because becker is essentially just rehashing what orthodox Christians already believe

Actually no. I am serious. I had tried therapy before, but this book helped me more than one year of treatment. And I had heard about it on Yea Forums so I should have read it sooner.