Ernest Becker was a cultural anthropologist dedicated to unraveling the mystery of human behavior and understanding the origin of evil. His theory, outlined in the Pulitzer Prize winning The Denial of Death, is that the fear of mortality is a primary wellspring of both human character and culture.
This insight provides us the opportunity to increase the authenticity of our lives and to diminish by some portion the amount of evil in the world.
The Ernest Becker Foundation is dedicated to exploring his contributions; the New York Chapter, founded by Chad Gracia in 1999, engages in a variety of activities to further its mission, primarily through the Becker Press.
"We now know that the human animal is characterized by two great fears that other animals are protected from: the fear of life and the fear of death... Heidegger brought these fears to the center of his existential philosophy. He argued that the basic anxiety of [humanity] is anxiety about not being-in-the-world, as well as anxiety of being-in-the-world. That is, both fear of death and fear of life, of experience and individuation." - Ernest Becker |
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