R.M.'s journal may seem "special" to us because she
was dying and knew it. Yet we have to say that this is our defense
mechanism to protect us from the full impact of what this means
for us. We are all always dying whether we have cancer or not.
Now, you may be ready to turn away.
Don't. It is true, we are going to look a little more closely
at death than is usual or comfortable. It is the guiding
fact of our lives whether we know it or not, acknowledge it or
not, admit it or not. It presents us with some of the "big"
questions. It is the boundary or limit in our lives. It
is the fact of our lives, incontrovertible, indubitable,
undeniable even though our lives are spent in the denial of death.
How we respond to our own future demise is a key to the distinctively
human. R. M. was forced to face the fact and did so with courage.
She was no more extraordinary than are you or I. We too can face
our fear now.
We are the creature most aware of death, of our own inevitable
nonexistence. All creatures seek to survive. It is a basic drive.
The human is not satisfied with mere survival. Why are we still
unhappy even with enough food, a shelter, and some sex? It is
enough for other animals. Even with a surplus of food we are not
satisfied, though we are certain of survival. We always want more.
More of what? More life. More of the power that
keeps us alive, surviving. When ancient peoples made a sacrifice
they were attempting, in their own way, to maintain the flow of
life power to them. When the ancient killed an enemy or an animal,
and then wore the tooth or scalp it functioned not as mere ornamentation.
It represented the life power, the ability to survive, a strengthening
of their power to survive. It was an attempt to deny death and
be immortal.
All of human life, all of history can be understood in terms of
the denial of death and the quest for symbolic immortality. The
"will to immortality" was a central construct in the
writings of Freud's student Otto Rank. The human lives in a world
of transcendent symbols-not just bodily materialism as do the
other animals. We live in much more than the immediate situation.
We live in a world, a galaxy, a universe. We live in much more
than the immediate-now. We look back over countless eons and soar
to the unimaginable future. We live not just with what is in front
of our face. We posit invisible entities: angels and demons, quarks
and neutrons, bacteria and black holes. And herein lies our dilemma.
How can such a marvelous creature not be immortal? How
could we possibly die? How can this creature, so like a god in
creative symbolic imagination also exude smelly, gross shit?
It is in this that the human journey begins and from which it
takes its energy. We are always trying to transcend death. To
achieve some sort of immortality.
THE HERO
It is the heroes who keep our denial alive. They face and triumph
over death so we don't have to. We have played subtle games with
ourselves in order to deny death and secure immortality. We gain
symbolic immortality through our children-we survive and live
through them. We gain symbolic immortality through anything that
is bigger than us-nation or religion. We might die, but the nation
of which we are a part will survive and triumph. We might die,
but the business we built up will carry on. We might die, but
the wealth we accumulated will be passed on to the next generation.
We die, but the Reich is forever. Nothing more than symbolic immortality
and the denial of death.
Why was Oliver North a hero to some? After all he was a renegade,
he broke laws. But he manipulated, in his defense, the nationalism
that for some is their denial and their hope. He manipulated symbols
that many of us desperately hope will not ever fall under the
assault of death's scythe. We deny our own death through something
upon which we base our individual self-identity that will
continue beyond our death; symbolic immortality. If we are
American, and if America survives, then we too survive,
what we are survives. And so Ollie is a hero. He maintained
for us those American values with which we identify. He faced
the threat to all our lives, risked his own life for ours so that
we could continue to have life undiminished, unthreatened.
He is a hero. He risked his own life for the good of the many.
CULTURE AND THE DENIAL OF DEATH
Shrouded within prehistory this drive to immortality gave rise
to sacrifice and ritual. Both were ways of maintaining the flow
of life power or vitality to the human. Rituals were techniques
that would maintain the flow of life. Though they might not ensure
the continuation of physical, organic life they could ensure continued
existence in the realm of the dead. Rituals in those ancient times
were not just "symbolic" as we today would understand
it. For those people rituals were comparable to our sense of scientific
techniques and procedures. Today we might call this magical thinking.
In may ways this magical thinking continues to the present day.
Those prehistoric ritual sacrifices were to an invisible world
of ancestors, ghosts and gods. How much better to have a god here,
on earth, in the community? The hero-the one who faces death and
survives, the one blessed by the invisible realm from whence comes
life was made king-the god made visible. We would work and fight
in the name of the king-our connection to immortality. We could
know that the invisible realm was pleased with our sacrifices
and rituals. To the king we would offer the fruits of our labors,
the lives of our sons and daughters. The kind is divine. The kind
assures immortality and continuation of life, at least to the
community of which we are a part and from whence comes our individual
identity. He is the physical, external manifestation of invisible,
supernatural realities. With what is the kind identified? Why
the sun of course-the giver and sustainer of all life. Without
the sun we would surely die. And how can the divine sun-king show
his favor, the bestowal of life? With symbols of his own divine
being. Perhaps little sun-like circles of a durable, untarnishable
(immortal?!) sun-colored metal. Maybe with his picture stamped
upon it. In other words, a gold coin. The more sun-like circles
you had the more you were favored by invisible, immortal realm.
Visible testaments that you are a hero, that you have more
life.
From this situation, as discussed by Becker, Progoff, Rank and
others it is a short step to our present predicament. The sun-like
circles became, obviously, money. Money, material goods, status
are our symbols of life, survival and immortality. In some ways
we are less sophisticated than prehistoric societies. At least
they were honest about what they were doing-trying to get more
life. Death was for them a constant threat and companion. It lurked
around the next corner. It stalked them on the plain and in the
jungle. It came from the sky and rumbled in the earth. It blew
on the wind. Our lives are, by contrast, quite sterile. We have
succeeded in denying our denial of death! Most of us see death
cleaned up in the funeral parlor. We both sympathize and look
away from the person who becomes hysterical at the funeral. The
person who's denial of death has suddenly broken, at least
for a moment.
The person who feels the full pain and rage of being the god who
shits.
TODAY'S SACRIFICIAL RITUALS
Through the pursuit and accumulation of wealth we feed our denial
of death and maintain the illusion of symbolic immortality. Why
does a Donald Trump accumulate millions, er, billions of the sun-colored
circles? Certainly it is not a question of mere animal survival,
indeed the accumulation is at the expense of other's ability to
physically survive. It is his denial of death! Donald Trump will
survive. He will survive in the monuments to his power, his
vitality, such as Trump Plaza. He will survive in the passing
on to the next generation of his accumulated icons of vitality.
And we are jealous. He has more life-power than do we.
He is a success. He has survived. His name will be remembered.
He has faced annihilation and triumphed. He is a hero.
Because we do not face our denial of death we fall prey to social
rituals that not only make our own lives ones of "quite desperation",
but deny actual physical survival to others. Our careerism, lust
for wealth and consumer goods is nothing more than an attempt
at symbolic immortality. Any threat of boundary of limit, any
sense that another may have more than I is a threat of death,
of annihilation. If he has more goods, greater success he must
have more life, and I have less life-I must be dying. My
competitor's advance is my loss-my loss of life. The person
with an accumulation of sun-colored circles has a savings account
of vitality. My money, my career advance, my consumer goods represent
life. Any threat to these is a threat to my life. Any accumulation
of these protects me from death. Another's success is my diminishment.
Think, seriously think how differently you would spend your time
and energy if you knew you would die next week. With what social
rituals would you dispense? Tell off the boss? Drive at high speeds?
Spend all your money (distribute your symbolic reserves of vitality?)
Would you suddenly "get" religion in an attempt to stave
off death and be immortal?
Admittedly, I have been a bit crude in this analysis. The point
is merely to display our denial of death and some of the means
we use to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality. There are countless
ways besides accumulation of wealth. Immature religio-spirituality,
artistic creations, procreation, ethnic identification, etc. are
all able to serve this need.