BIRTH AND DEATH OF MEANING

Rating:
Summary: early ideas from Ernest Becker
Review: A well-written book but really a prelude to DENIAL OF DEATH; better to start there and work backwards if one finds that book of significant interest.

Rating:
Summary: early ideas from Ernest Becker
Review: After reading "The Birth and Death of Meaning" along with "The Denial of Death", Ernest Becker quickly became one of my personal heroes. Who else would have had the guts to write something so penetrating, so frightening, so threatening to the mechanisms we use every day to cope with life? Becker makes shockingly clear the fictitious nature of human meaning and the contrived nature of social game: if you've ever wondered why the mentally ill are so neglected as a minority and generally spurned even by so called "activists" for racial acceptance, etc, you won't wonder after reading this book. For all that Becker is gentle, not some arrogant nihilistic jerk. There is no typical existentialist self pity here, no "nausea", simply a tough recognition of the way things actually are and a few relative ideas as to how we should deal with them. This is what differentiates Becker from the postmodernists and others who delight in impotence: he is open to solution, to creative play and even religious answers (of an unconventional kind, of course.) His insight and intellect are so powerful as to be scary, and one wonders how such a man dealt with the trivialities of everyday life knowing that they are part of a gigantic charade of illusory meaning. He makes it clear that man is a social animal, and that we are built from the outside in rather than the other way around. His theory of the "urge toward cosmic heroism" fits perfectly into actual concrete everyday life, where anyone and everyone is eager to stand out in some way as cultural heroes. Like Nietzsche, perhaps even better, Becker illustrates the way in which we deceive ourselves and deliberately confuse the cultural game with underlying material reality. He offers four levels of possible solution, the first of which he warns can lead to narcissism and mandess, the second and third being religious in an abstract and metaphysical way. Becker is not, like so many sociologists, drunk on his own lucidity or on a power trip: he is telling us to relax, because the question of relevance is very much up in the air. Authenticity is his message. I would recommend this book as it is easily one of the most important philosophical awakenings that are on the bookshelf, but I would qualify that statement by also recommending it be taken in small doses.

Rating:
Summary: devastating and life changing
Review: After reading "The Birth and Death of Meaning" along with "The Denial of Death", Ernest Becker quickly became one of my personal heroes. Who else would have had the guts to write something so penetrating, so frightening, so threatening to the mechanisms we use every day to cope with life? Becker makes shockingly clear the fictitious nature of human meaning and the contrived nature of social game: if you've ever wondered why the mentally ill are so neglected as a minority and generally spurned even by so called "activists" for racial acceptance, etc, you won't wonder after reading this book. For all that Becker is gentle, not some arrogant nihilistic jerk. There is no typical existentialist self pity here, no "nausea", simply a tough recognition of the way things actually are and a few relative ideas as to how we should deal with them. This is what differentiates Becker from the postmodernists and others who delight in impotence: he is open to solution, to creative play and even religious answers (of an unconventional kind, of course.) His insight and intellect are so powerful as to be scary, and one wonders how such a man dealt with the trivialities of everyday life knowing that they are part of a gigantic charade of illusory meaning. He makes it clear that man is a social animal, and that we are built from the outside in rather than the other way around. His theory of the "urge toward cosmic heroism" fits perfectly into actual concrete everyday life, where anyone and everyone is eager to stand out in some way as cultural heroes. Like Nietzsche, perhaps even better, Becker illustrates the way in which we deceive ourselves and deliberately confuse the cultural game with underlying material reality. He offers four levels of possible solution, the first of which he warns can lead to narcissism and mandess, the second and third being religious in an abstract and metaphysical way. Becker is not, like so many sociologists, drunk on his own lucidity or on a power trip: he is telling us to relax, because the question of relevance is very much up in the air. Authenticity is his message. I would recommend this book as it is easily one of the most important philosophical awakenings that are on the bookshelf, but I would qualify that statement by also recommending it be taken in small doses.

Rating:
Summary: Profound explaination of life as a script
Review: I read this book when I was in college, nearly 30 years ago. The fact I am writing this review after such a long time should attest to what impact this book had on me. At that age, in my early twenties, I was concerned about the meaning of human existence, and this book provided satisfactory answers.

What impressed me most were; Becker's discussion of ego; our unique awareness of the fact that we will die; and (most interesting) our abilities and inabilities to role play in society. I can't say that reading Becker will necessarily make one a happier person, but after reading this book life will make a lot more sense.

Today, I am an engineer who is used to viewing things mechanically, on face value. Perhaps Becker's philosophy appealled to me because of his explaination of the mechanics of ego and role playing in society. On this basis, as an explaination of the fundamentals of human behavior, it rings profoundly true.

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant intellectual quest
Review: In each of his books, Ernest Becker presents his most current view of what human life (and our experience of it) 'really means'. His intellectual life was a constant quest for some theoretical framework that would explain human experience/behavior in a satisfactory way. Each book seems to say, "We'll, I didn't quite have it right before, but now I really know what it is all about." Reading his books in order is a grand journey of mind and spirit. I never felt that he fully succeeded in his quest, but each book - and this in particular for me because it was the first of his I read - forces the reader to come to terms with aspects of life that we usually avoid thinking about - either because they are too difficult or because we have supressed any awareness of them.

If the unexamined life is not worth living, this book, and all of Becker's output, should become tools to assist in the examination we need to make if life is to be meaninful.

Rating:
Summary: I WISH I COULD GIVE IT 10 STARS OR 100
Review: Truly a philosophical and psychological classic with powerful ideas exploding from every page. Highly recommended for hundreds of passages like the following:

"The thing that makes the study of character so fascinating and so difficult is that is largely a matter of sorting out bizarre collages ... That is why self-analyses for anyone who wants to work at it, is a task for more than one lifetime - it can never really be finished." • "The ego finds out what feelings, thoughts, and situations are dangerous and then permits the organism to exist in a world in which there is no danger by steering clear of these feelings, thoughts and situations. ... And this price is the heaviest we have to pay: namely, the restriction of experience ... by skewing perceptions and limiting action." • "One of the things that most people take with them out of their early experience is a dependency on others for their sense of self, a rooting in the powers of someone else; this gives them a certain serenity, an ability to carry on daily without worrying or thinking about their own weakness or lack of self-confidence." • "Genuine heroism for man is still the power to support contradictions, no matter how glaring or hopeless they may seem." • "We think we see power in the people with sure beliefs, unshakable convictions, smug self-confidence. Yet these are psychological weaknesses on a planet which is fluid and full of surprises."

Rating:
Summary: I WISH I COULD GIVE IT 10 STARS OR 100
Review: Truly a philosophical and psychological classic with powerful ideas exploding from every page. Highly recommended for hundreds of passages like the following:

"The thing that makes the study of character so fascinating and so difficult is that is largely a matter of sorting out bizarre collages ... That is why self-analyses for anyone who wants to work at it, is a task for more than one lifetime - it can never really be finished." * "The ego finds out what feelings, thoughts, and situations are dangerous and then permits the organism to exist in a world in which there is no danger by steering clear of these feelings, thoughts and situations. ... And this price is the heaviest we have to pay: namely, the restriction of experience ... by skewing perceptions and limiting action." * "One of the things that most people take with them out of their early experience is a dependency on others for their sense of self, a rooting in the powers of someone else; this gives them a certain serenity, an ability to carry on daily without worrying or thinking about their own weakness or lack of self-confidence." * "Genuine heroism for man is still the power to support contradictions, no matter how glaring or hopeless they may seem." * "We think we see power in the people with sure beliefs, unshakable convictions, smug self-confidence. Yet these are psychological weaknesses on a planet which is fluid and full of surprises."