What's really interesting to me that psychology twitter seems to have a rabid hatred for TMT which I find really strange since, at the very least, Becker's book (the Denial of Death) lays out a pretty reasonable foundation (much more reasonably than the vast majority of psych papers I've read) for a lot of human psychological behavior.
Becker's view is pretty straight forward: We cannot incorporate a true understanding of our inevitable death into our psyche and function, so basically a huge amount of the complexity of our psychology is based in ways our mind is able to divert accepting this reality. When I was younger I though "fear of death" was a wildly over blown notion (I remember reading Delillo's White Noise and thinking "is death that scary?"). But as I got older, and started having friends die, I realized that in youth I was just much more deeply in denial of death. Needless to say I think Becker makes a good point.
For me, the violent reaction by the psychology community against TMT seems to only add validity to Becker's idea. We really can't deal with the reality of our own personal death, and that is so strong that on an intellectual level we immediately was to laugh off the idea so that we don't have to face that this might even be the case.
Is it possibly due to a lot of the psychoanalytic language Becker uses? I'm uncertain how psychoanalysis is generally viewed by the presumably relatively young twitter psychologists, but I wouldn't expect it to be in fashion.
The Worm at the Core presents a more modern, evidence-based to TMT, but I don't know if it's widely read.
He chose the most fundamental category we have. It all comes to life and death, by definition everything a human can experience or do fits in there. There have been great philosophers who have explored the idea.
What does that give us from a psychological perspective? People still live, where's the new tool from the reframing?
Just to be clear I don't think much of Tmt. It has been done better before by the greats. It should be clear in the application of it, that it does not bring anything new.
What does it actually mean to “be in denial of death” though? How does our mind divert accepting this reality? I’ve never experienced that; it sounds somewhat dramatic.
You don't think about it much. You see death, you hear or read about death, and it doesn't register emotionally. The concept of your own death seems too distant to worry about.
That's what I understood GP to mean, though there's another form of death denial: all the stories people invent about "death giving meaning to life", about "great circle of life", or the various reasons people give to dismiss the idea that we should focus a bit more on working towards extending life.
There is an excellent "hidden brain" podcast episode about TMT.
It is not conscious.
One of the consequences is that it makes you want to belong to a group and makes you chastise people that go against its moral norms. One of the experiments was to determine the amount of an amend (or was it bail?) a prostitute would have have to pay.
The expected amount is $100 and that's what the control experiment got, but if you remind the judge of their own mortality before asking that question, the median amount jumps to $400.
The authors are very liberal in what they consider as evidence for their theory. The first experiment, with the judges, relies on a sample size of 22, from which any sort of analysis of variance is pretty suspect--the partial eta squared effect size confidence interval at a = .05 ranges between nearly zero and more than .4. The second experiment has a similarly wide CI on the effect size. The article claims to have provided robust, data-based evidence of TMT, but the experiments that followed from the earlier ones must be judged in consideration of those earlier ones, which puts into question the coverage of alternative explanations.
Consider this claim:
"The major finding of Experiment 1 was that, as predicted,reminding subjects of their mortality led them to recommendhigher bonds for an accused prostitute. According to terror management theory, moral principles are part of the culturalanxiety-buffer that protects individuals from anxiety concern-ing their vulnerability and mortality. Transgressions againstthese standards implicitly threaten the integrity of the anxiety-buffer and thus engender negative reactions toward the trans-gressor. Inducing subjects to think about their mortality pre-sumably increased their need for faith in their values, and thus increased their desire to punish the moral transgressor"
The experiment, to them, is confirmation of their theory, but this hardly follows as a parsimonious explanation that emerges by eliminating alternative explanations.
Frankly, I find the article absurd, and I have difficulty taking the theory seriously. Then again, I only have an undergraduate's understanding of the field.
"But on further consideration, when, after finding the cause of all our
ills, I have sought to discover the reason of it, I have found that
there is one very real reason, namely, the natural poverty of our feeble
and mortal condition, so miserable that nothing can comfort us when we
think of it closely.
Whatever condition we picture to ourselves, if we muster all the good
things which it is possible to possess, royalty is the finest position
in the world. Yet, when we imagine a king attended with every pleasure
he can feel, if he be without diversion, and be left to consider and
reflect on what he is, this feeble happiness will not sustain him; he
will necessarily fall into forebodings of dangers, of revolutions which
may happen, and, finally, of death and inevitable disease; so that if he
be without what is called diversion, he is unhappy, and more unhappy
than the least of his subjects who plays and diverts himself.
Hence it comes that play and the society of women, war, and high posts,
are so sought after. Not that there is in fact any happiness in them, or
that men imagine true bliss to consist in money won at play, or in the
hare which they hunt; we would not take these as a gift. We do not seek
that easy and peaceful lot which permits us to think of our unhappy
condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the labour of office, but the
bustle which averts these thoughts of ours, and amuses us.
Hence it comes that men so much love noise and stir; hence it comes that
the prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it comes that the pleasure
of solitude is a thing incomprehensible. And it is in fact the greatest
source of happiness in the condition of kings, that men try incessantly
to divert them, and to procure for them all kinds of pleasures.
The king is surrounded by persons whose only thought is to divert the
king, and to prevent his thinking of self. For he is unhappy, king
though he be, if he think of himself.
This is all that men have been able to discover to make themselves
happy. And those who philosophise on the matter, and who think men
unreasonable for spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would
not have bought, scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not
screen us from the sight of death and calamities; but the chase which
turns away our attention from these, does screen us."
Interesting, "Terror management theory" is not what i expected it to be. Probably influenced by the modern history and current dynamics, I didn't expect it to be about evolutionary psychology or death-related cognitions, I expected macro-economics and political theory.
Well according to that theory things like nation states or big economic interests or religions exist because of death anxiety. So yeah, going to a political rally or protesting civil rights abuses even if you're not abused, participating in wars, etc. is triggered by death anxiety and the need to do "something more".
"We go out of our course to make ourselves uncomfortable; the cup of life is not bitter enough to our palate, and we distill superfluous poison to put into it, or conjure up hideous things to frighten ourselves at, which would never exist if we did not make them."
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay, 1841
> things like nation states or big economic interests or religions exist because of death anxiety
Interesting, it makes sense on the surface but not if you dig dipper. I doubt that this fear has ANY impact on nation states or big economics, fear of death is very well situated and certain conditions must be met to trigger it, meaning it's not predictable, not constant, and can not be a major driver in global politics or economics. Sex and mating on the other hand, is a completely different story, I find the idea of sex being the major factor, influencer, and driver behind global trends and economics a lot more plausible (I'm a Freud's fan)
> I find the idea of sex being the major factor, influencer, and driver behind global trends and economics a lot more plausible (I'm a Freud's fan)
Sex and death are often viewed in opposition. Psychotherapist Esther Perel has described eroticism as "an antidote to death" and the essay "Why Men Love War" [1] describes the use of sex by soldiers to forget about the death and destruction around them. TMT would argue that the influence of sex in society is precisely due to its effectiveness at distracting us from death.
Oh nice! Great argument! But correlation does not imply causation. When you are talking about feared solders, you are most definitely talking about a war. Wars are about the assertion, or defense of the right to power (mostly done/triggered by political elites), and there can not be more sexual thing other than power, even pre-historically, we can agree that power gives you freedom, freedom of choosing your mate. It gives you options. Gyms, healthy diets, financial success, fashion, entertainment, all these are driven by sex, by desire, desire to mate. Sex is not about distraction, sex is about power. when we are talking about politics or macro-economics, fear of death is not relevant or even considered at all.
Your argument actually confirms how powerful sex is. A lot more powerful than what we give it credit for.
Association does not imply causation either. Your entire argument is simply association. You say soldiers and then you associate war; you say war and then you associate power; you say power and then you associate sex. What you are not being plain about is that you choose each association. You could have chosen another; there is no reason offered for why we have to consider this particular chain of associations.
This is how so much psychoanalysis worked, by the way, and is part of why that school lost credibility.
Your final point, turning the commenters argument around on itself, is a masterful example of rhetoric but not of argument or explanation. Of course, you leave open the question of why sex is important to us; of what it draws its importance from.
That is a great dissection of my comment but it does not provide any reason to doubt my arguments other than a falsy appeal to an authority (psychoanalysis.. right, the thing that "failed").
I have made some argumentative choices strictly because I find those visual and colorful within the scope and the nature of the discussions on the "interents".
Sex is the major driver behind evolutionary dynamics in nation states, and macro-economics, and I have yet to see any evidence suggesting otherwise.
And hereby I "masterfully" shift the burden of proof onto yourself, SolidSnack9000.
Unless you have a solid argument, we can dismiss your comment as a "dissection of banality", an argument for the sake of the said argument.
Much of the evidence supporting TMT shows things such as people behaving significantly differently when even subtly primed with thoughts of their mortality, such as driving past a graveyard.
At the end of the day it's always going to be a theory within which that evidence finds its explanation, but it's perhaps more compelling than the alternatives.
I on the other hand can't find any visible connection between sex and just about anything important, except negatively - in the sense that a significant job of societies, governments and religions is limiting how people can express their sex drive.
It's the first time I've heard of TMT, but it does seem intuitively reasonable to me. Fear of death and its inevitability leads to search for meaning and symbolic immortality, and from that you can derive most of civilization, up to and including everything that happens in geopolitics. So the connection seems much more obvious.
TMT exists because of the delusion people have from thinking free will is a real thing. Once the illusion of having free will breaks, understanding of how death will come and just how every event happens in your life happens by fate. Although, I think my fear of death went away when thinking about infinity and how the universe can repeat the conditions that made this very life occur for eternity.
I read it (well, parts) on a long plane ride recently. It's an interesting book—very 1970s and very much looking back to the existential psychotherapists and psychoanalysts of the mid-20th century. I do not say that as a bad thing, on the contrary.
What surprised me most is how big a role Otto Rank plays in it. I only knew of Rank as the originator of the birth trauma theory and thought he was a minor disciple of Freud. Becker regards Rank as the greatest figure in the tradition after Freud if not greater. It made me want to learn more about Rank's work.
Rank's "The Myth of the Birth of the Hero" elaborates what Becker meant by "society as a heroic system", to a certain degree. I myself still in pursue of "Art & Artist" paper copy, regarded as his magnum opus.
At the core, every sentient being loves being alive, and every mind wishes to be immortal, and not be lonely.
All the icky crap comes from knowing that can't be.
The subconscious dread of death is also a form of the Fear of Missing Out. How much cool tech and new discoveries will there be after us? I for one cannot cope with the possibility that I may never get to see a proper ending to Game of Thrones or a good Dungeons & Dragons movie.
>At the core, every sentient being loves being alive, and every mind wishes to be immortal, and not be lonely.
This is a strong universal claim about a fact, and I'm pretty sure that it is not true. While probably generally true for young people, research on older people suggest that not everyone wishes to be immortal and some are actually in peace with the approaching end of their life.
> * While probably generally true for young people, research on older people suggests that not everyone wishes to be immortal*
Exactly, by very definition of getting "older", they already know it's damn well not going to happen. They feel their frailty and corporeal limitations, and have lost other people to mortality, so they learn to cope with it, via the very topic of this post: Terror management or whatever you want to call it.
I said at the core, because the purpose of any mind is to, well, mind. If a mind wishes to cease to exist, it's because it's unable to attain its desires and knows it will never have enough time (for some, to even find a desire in the first place.)
I've always been fairly morbid myself. If given a choice, I'd choose to be immortal or never have come into existence at all, rather than this temporal teaser.
Like the comment below by rinchik [0], our global culture encourages every mind to .. succumb. We're discouraged from feeling, from the core essence of sentient existence.
I agree with you. The only universal thing that could be said of any conscious entity is that it is capable of experience. No other aspect of consciousness (e.g. fear of ceasing to exist) could be claimed to be a universal.
> The subconscious dread of death is also a form of the Fear of Missing Out.
That is true. I've been thinking about death more in the recent years, and most recently, the thinking focused on ideas like "if there's no afterlife, I wish there was at least a 'high score' screen, and a way to see how did the rest of humanity fare, how life looks a hundred thousand years from now".
The word suicide does not appear on that wikipedia page. I'm curious how that phenomenon fits with TMT being all about death avoidance. It seems like something that should be covered.
Hi HN. I’m feeling sad today. I just wanted to say that I hope all of you are having a good weekend and working on interesting projects or just enjoying life.
Much like Stack Overflow I think HN could actually be more useful if it lightened up a little. It needn’t instantly degenerate to reddit if a joke or feelings are allowed.
Becker's view is pretty straight forward: We cannot incorporate a true understanding of our inevitable death into our psyche and function, so basically a huge amount of the complexity of our psychology is based in ways our mind is able to divert accepting this reality. When I was younger I though "fear of death" was a wildly over blown notion (I remember reading Delillo's White Noise and thinking "is death that scary?"). But as I got older, and started having friends die, I realized that in youth I was just much more deeply in denial of death. Needless to say I think Becker makes a good point.
For me, the violent reaction by the psychology community against TMT seems to only add validity to Becker's idea. We really can't deal with the reality of our own personal death, and that is so strong that on an intellectual level we immediately was to laugh off the idea so that we don't have to face that this might even be the case.