did anyone else feel kind of freaked out after finishing this book

Nothingburger - the book

>>24479654
how so?

>>24479645 (OP)
I’ll need to give it a read before I make solid judgements, but my exposure to Terror Management Theory or adjacent beliefs seems too generalizing. It’s also hard not to believe it isn’t projecting modern existential anxieties into the past.

>>24479683
Did you read The Worm at the Core, or just come across TMT in other contexts?

my theory is the people who say this book is good haven't read it because it is mid at best. like if u skim the wikipedia for it, it sounds like some mind blowing modernist theory that explains all human behavior, but then you read it, and it just doesn't deliver any of that.

also terror management theory is just one of those corny unfalsifiable modernist theories that explain everything and if it doesn't that actually proves that it does! you're not actually obsessed with death like the author? well, that just proves he's right because you've created a psychological defense to avoid fear of death!

>>24479732
i'm not particularly well-read in philosophy but it resonated with me. i know 'the fear of death is the primary driving force of human action' sounds reductive but it is a one sentence summary of a 200 page book, and he provides some incontrovertible evidence...

>>24479645 (OP)
No because most of the thoughts provided are the ideas of a cynical man who put his worldview out there. It’s the same as any philosophy book where you decide if it pertains to your life or not. I personally found it too general

>>24479645 (OP)
>immortality projects
>we have children to deny death
>we great great works of art and science to deny death
Isn't that obvious though?

>>24480852
we create*

>>24479645 (OP)
>pee pee poo poo anus death
Wow, very profound, Mr. Becker!

>>24480852

No, not at all. Woody Allen said it best: "I don't want to achieve immortality through my art. I want to achieve immortality by not dying." If you yourself don't survive, then there is no point to whatever offshoots are downstream of you, whether people or works.

This is basically why the instinct to care for children and aspire that they should have a better life than you had is so deeply stupid. It's a deeply incorrect and arbitrary instinct that can easily be imagined to be otherwise, but for the arbitrary stupidity of nature itself which gives rise to such objectively incorrect feelings which are ingrained in our psychology. Why should I want my child to have a better life than I did? Because I "love" the child? Nonsense. What difference does it make to me if the kid enjoys a higher quality of life that I MYSELF do not get to personally enjoy?

The man who plants a tree whose shade he knows he will never rest in is not wise. Rather, he is a sucker.

Wisdom itself is false, because "wisdom" implies age, a certain accomodation to nature, getting used to the way that everything is basically wrong. Maturity suffers from the same defect. The whole point is that nature is itself plainly wrong, not just merely cruel but excessively cruel, and something either to be overcome or rejected. Usually, it's only adolescents, fully apprehending the horror of things for the first time, who see things properly.

I read it years ago, and I thought it would be this huge mind raping book (I was at the peak of baby's first existential crisis) and while it had some interesting insights (like the whole nightmare spectacular bit) it really gets stupid with nonsensical Freudian shit and it feels like the guy was just writing stuff to fluff up the book.
Like that time he said feet were so ugly we do everything to hide from them, because it reminds us of our animal nature. Or that other time where he started talking about castration anxiety and penis this vagina that someone passed out on Rome, or all those times he goes on about how poop and pooping are awful, or that one thing about homosexuality. Honestly I forgot like 90% of the book. He, like that Solomon guy who shills Terror Management Theory, sounds like a low-test anxiety ridden jumble of nerves.
So no, it didn't freak me out. Neither did On The Heights of Despair, or The Last Messiah, or The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, or Better Never to Have Been, or 2 Arms and a Head.
The wave of pure, perfect terror that approaches what UG Krishnamurti described as his calamity and which changed my life forever and sent me on a years long depression, as well as a never-ending struggle with the fear of non-existence, the weight of futility, and the cold indifference of an empty universe came about as I was reading TV Tropes.

>>24480882
I wish myself for those whom I love to lead a better life than I. If you're materialistic and place value exclusively in tangible accreditation, sure. How is one a sucker without feeling like one internally? Wisdom doesn't imply age, it implies experience and extrapolation from scenarios undergone. One may be 50 with the experience of a prominent 20 year old, and vice versa, and that which is remediated posthumously is dependent on the individual and the magnitude of their introspection of such.
I am happy with next to nothing, elusive to the (proclaimed) temptations of greed and possession, yet it is often implored that is the unwise and feeble to perceive in such a manner. From the mouths of those satiated by greed (they truly aren't) you can see the insecurity in their eyes, for I have also been guilty of such in the past.
You cannot claim a feeling as "objectively incorrect" as just by reading your implications, I can wholeheartedly tell you that I do not feel as such, nor would I have reason to claim so as a dishonest guise. You seem cold. By the same hand but the opposing hand, I believe you should try loving your fellow man more as it comes off as lacking empathy and compassion for those whom are conscious. Maturity only suffers from your proclaimed defect as you seem to be encumbered by a deficit in such a platitude.
As per the cycle of life, all lives, and all dies, and history is maintained by those by choice and disseminated truthfully or dishonestly by the living, not by the dead, nor assuredly by the future. Time has already played out and you are speaking to a paradox, merely a statement in a current state which will not exist in the future as that is how time works, while simultaneously lasting for eternity. Your effort expletive in proclamation via your post (if you aren't a bot) disproves your very claim.

Smile more, anon. Enjoy your temporary life within this realm of existence. Take care of those you love, and they will take care of you. Subjectivity would not exist if everything was absolute, and if all were absolute, then life would truly be meaningless. Interpretation is the soul of existence, and a frail exposition hurts no one except yourself.

>>24480887
cute fat girl
which tv tropes page?

>>24480852
>we great great works of art and science to deny death
stupidest shit i've heard

>>24482093
ohhh he's mad

>>24479732
>looking for a new philosophy
>ask the author if their theory is based or kafkatrap
>he doesn't understand
>pull out illustrated diagram explaining what is based and what is kafkatrap
>he laughs and says "it's a good book sir"
>buy a copy
>its kafkatrap

>>24482116
Can I see the diagram?

>>24482118
I lied on the internet for comedic effect, there is no diagram.

>>24482199
oh... sorry. what's kafkatrap? i haven't read any kafka other than the metamorphosis.

>>24482252
An argument where rejection of the argument's premises is itself construed as positive evidence for the argument's truth; particularly common in left wing progressive arguments. The argument is called a kafkatrap because the catch-22 style argument is literally kafkaesque, and a trap.
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122

>>24479645 (OP)
“Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?" -Epicurus

>>24479645 (OP)
Not really, no

>With anal play the child is already becoming a philosopher of the human condition.
Sorry, I can't take freudfags seriously.

>>24482291
ur not wrong but like if it's a catch-22 shouldn't it be called a hellertrap then tho

>>24479645 (OP)
>We said that the truly gifted and free spirit attempts to bypass the family as the instrument of distinctive procreation. It is only logical, then that if the genius is going to follow to the letter the causasui project, he comes up against one large temptation: to bypass the woman and the species role of his own body. It is as though he reasons: "I do not exist to be used as an instrument of physical procreation in the interests of the race; my individuality is so total and integral that I include my body in my causa-sui project." And so, the genius can try to procreate himself spiritually though a linkage with gifted young men, to create them in his own image, and to pass the spirit of his genius on to them. It is as though he were to try to duplicate himself exactly, spirit and body. After all, anything that detracts from the free flight of one's spiritual talent must seem debasing. The woman is already a threat to a man in his physicalness; it is only a small step to bypass sexual intercourse with her; in that way one keep's one's carefully girded center from dispersing and being undermined by ambiguous meanings. Most men are content to keep their meanings firmly in hand by refraining from extramarital infidelity; but one can narcissistically harbor his meanings even more by refraining from "heterosexual infidelity," so to speak.

I stopped reading this dogshit after I got to this point. I was already considering dropping it because he kept meandering and rambling on about Freud's personal life even when it wasn't relevant to the purpose of the book. I don't remember what exactly but shit like his eating habits or people he hung out with or friends of friends of friends of his. Just inane bullshit. This excerpt took me over the edge and made me realize I was reading the work of a bored academic who wanted to leave something behind before he died.

>>24479645 (OP)
No. The Birth and Death of Meaning on the other hand...

>>24480852
>we need glory
No bro glory is overrated we need purpose now I am going back to overwatch

life against death by norman o. brown is way better

>>24483794
that's why i believe anyone who thinks this book is good has only ever skimmed the wikipedia page because if you actually read it, it does a poor job of arguing its point and is generally all over the place and just pretty bad.

>>24483810
The Birth and Death of Meaning is at least 10x better and never gets mentioned here idk why

>>24479645 (OP)
i'm from BC and this is literally just a canadian book. canadian nihilism in a nuthshell

>>24483814
denial of death is just spammed by one guy who seems to have no read it and in this thread repeatedly admits he hasn't read any philosophy which i guess is why some third rate freud spinoff blew his mind, assuming he even read it.

>>24483820
i said i'm not particularly well read in philosophy once in this thread, which is true. as far as related works i've only read rank's Art and Artist, derrida's Writing and Difference, foucault's Will to Knowledge, and some scattered descartes, freud, and mol. I have never made another thread about ernest becker or the denial of death. sorry for not being better read, I'm trying.

>>24483773
something can be multiple things at once

>Is that a piece of poop coming out of my butt? Arggggggggg im going insane
-pullitzer prize winner ernest becker

>>24484898
Everyone hates Freud, huh?

>>24483954
dude you've been spamming this crap for years

>>24484912
i have not! i don't know how to convince you of that. this thread was my first post on this board.

>>24483794
I agree the asides into Freud's personal life were excessive - It felt like a biography at times. I especially didn't think that the section where he discusses Freud's fainting episodes and extrapolates his apparent fear of his sexuality theory being discarded to mean he's masking death-terror was convincing - or the extension of that to every 'great man'... That said, what's wrong with the passage you posted specifically?

>>24479645 (OP)
Becker was neurotic and unoriginal. He just takes it for granted that everyone is ashamed of themselves for having to poop or have sex. A direct quote from the book is "it is difficult to have sex without guilt". A genuine lunatic.

>>24484899
Dude, he spends almost a whole chapter outlining how Freud had fainting spells because he didn't believe in God, and then right at the end acknowledges that Jung also had fainting spells even though he believed in God. It's comical how bad that book is.

>>24485622
>"it is difficult to have sex without guilt". A genuine lunatic.
Humbert would disagree