Ernest Becker
Ernest Becker
Ernest Beckerwas a Jewish-American cultural anthropologist and writer. He is noted for his 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Denial of Death...
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth27 September 1924
Ernest Becker quotes about
betrayal real depressed-person
Why would a person prefer the accusations of guilt, unworthiness, ineptitude - even dishonor and betrayal- to real possibility? This may not seem to be the choice, but it is: complete self effacement, surrender to the "others", disavowal of any personal dignity and freedom-on the one hand; and freedom and independence, movement away from the others, extrication of oneself from the binding links of family and social duties-on the other hand. This is the choice that the depressed person actually faces.
lying mean reality
What is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality; one honest enough to follow its own commandments: I mean, not to kill, not to take the lives of others to justify itself.
religious real men
When you confuse personal love and cosmic heroism you are bound to fail in both spheres. The impossibility of the heroism undermines the love, even if it is real. This double failure is what produces the sense of utter despair that we see in modern man... Love, then, is seen a religious problem
spring real creativity
The creativity of people on the schizophrenic end of the human continuum is a creativity that springs from the inability to accept the standardized cultural denials of the real nature of experience. And the price of this kind of almost "extra human" creativity is to live on the brink of madness, as men have long known.
real animal men
The real world is simply too terrible to admit. it tells man that he is a small trembling animal who will someday decay and die. Culture changes all of this,makes man seem important,vital to the universe. immortal in some ways
reality order people
People create the reality they need in order to discover themselves
animal herd led man
It is not so much that man is a herd animal, said Freud, but that he is a horde animal led by a chief.
men mad cost
We might say that psychoanalysis revealed to us the complex penalties of denying the truth of man's condition, what we might call the costs of pretending not to be mad.
guilt slavery kind
Relationship is thus always slavery of a kind, which leaves a residue of guilt.
fall existential denial-of-death
Obviously, all religions fall far short of their own ideals.
love animal order
Love is the problem of an animal who must find life, create a dialogue with nature in order to experience his own being.
analysis existentialism problem
the best existential analysis of the human condition leads directly into the problems of God and faith
creativity
The road to creativity passes...
responsibility guilt burden
Better guilt than the terrible burden of freedom and responsibility.