Ernest Becker Professions : Anthropologist Born : September 27, 1924 Died : March 6, 1974 Browse All Authors Top 51 quotes by Ernest Becker The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity - designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man. Ernest Becker destiny men death What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consiousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression and with all this yet to die. It seems like a hoax, which is why one type of cultural man rebels openly against the idea of God. What kind of deity would crate such a complex and fancy worm food? Ernest Becker animal men mean If everyone lives roughly the same lies about the same thing, there is no one to call them liars. They jointly establish their own sanity and themselves normal. Ernest Becker normal liars lying When we understand that man is the only animal who must create meaning, who must open a wedge into neutral nature, we already understand the essence of love. Love is the problem of an animal who must find life, create a dialogue with nature in order to experience his own being. Ernest Becker animal love men I think that taking life seriously means something such as this: that whatever man does on this planet has to be done in the lived truth of the terror of creation, of the grotesque, of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise it is false. Whatever is achieved must be achieved with the full exercise of passion, of vision, of pain, of fear, and of sorrow. How do we know, that our part of the meaning of the universe might not be a rhythm in sorrow? Ernest Becker inspirational-life pain encouragement 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 Ernest Becker real animal men We might say that both the artist and theneurotic bite off more than they can chew, but the artist spews it back out again and chews it over in an objectified way, as an external, active, work project. Ernest Becker artist might way People create the reality they need in order to discover themselves Ernest Becker order reality people What man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance. Ernest Becker extinction insignificance men Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing. Ernest Becker shopping drinking men We consult astrology charts like the Babylonians, try to make our children into our own image with a firm hand like the Romans, elbow others to get a breath-quickening glimpse of the queen in her ritual procession, and confess to the priests and attend church. And we wonder why, with all this power capital drawn from so many sources, we are deeply anxious about the meaning of our lives. The reason is plain enough: none of these, nor all of them taken together, represents an integrated world conception into which we fit ourselves with pure belief and trust. Ernest Becker queens taken children Man's natural and inevitable urge to deny mortality and achieve a heroic self-image are the root causes of human evil. Ernest Becker self roots men The road to creativity passes so close to the madhouse and often detours or ends there. Ernest Becker detours creativity ends The artist takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it, he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art. Ernest Becker personality world art War is a sociological safety valve that cleverly diverts popular hatred for the ruling classes into a happy occasion to mutilate or kill foreign enemies. Ernest Becker safety class war Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever. Ernest Becker men two order It is fateful and ironic how the lie we need in order to live dooms us to a life that is never really ours. Ernest Becker ironic order lying The greatest cause of evil included all human motives in one giant paradox. Good and bad were so inextricably mixed that we couldn't make them out; bad seemed to lead to good, and good motives led to bad. The paradox is that evil comes from man's urge to heroic victory over evil. Ernest Becker victory evil men ...Erich Fromm wondered why most people did not become insane in the face of the existential contradiction between a symbolic self, that seems to give man infinite worth in a timeless scheme of things, and a body that is worth about 98¢. Ernest Becker self men people To live fully is to live with an awareness of the rumble of terror that underlies everything. Ernest Becker rumble terror awareness Similar Authors Bronislaw Malinowski anthropologist Angeles Arrien anthropologist Ann Dunham anthropologist Ashley Montagu anthropologist Arthur Demarest anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace anthropologist All Authors
