Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Rowe, James K.
• Mathews, Darcy

Titel

Human Supremacy: Ernest Becker and Terror Management Theory

Ist Teil von

• Radical Mindfulness, 2024, Vol.1, p.97-121

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

United Kingdom: Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2024

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This chapter turns to the work of anthropologist Ernest Becker, particularly his existential explanation for human supremacy. His argument that death denial shapes behavior, culture, and institutions inspired a subfield of social psychology known as terror management theory (TMT), which received considerable media attention in the COVID-19 era. And yet, beyond social psychology, his work has had limited uptake across the humanities and social sciences, even though his death-denial thesis bears on foundational questions of power and injustice. According to Becker and other TMT researchers, the intense existential fear caused by the reality of death compels humans to psychologically buffer themselves with cultural constructions of supremacy that compensate for the overwhelming helplessness they feel in the face of finitude. A key limitation of Becker's argument, however, was his overreach: his claim that all cultures denied death, albeit in different ways. The final part of the chapter includes a case study of Coast Salish approaches to mortality, arguing that the nonsupremacist worldviews and ecological successes of Salish peoples are deeply connected to their different orientations toward death, especially when compared to Euro-American death denial. The Coast Salish case is one example among many of non-European societies who have developed mind-body practices to face the fact of finitude and avoid compensatory illusions of supremacy. This chapter turns to the work of anthropologist Ernest Becker, particularly his existential explanation for human supremacy. From governments declaring climate emergencies to debates about whether the sixth mass extinction is already upon the reader, the people live in a period of heightened ecological crisis. White's thesis anticipated recent work on the role of affect, or often subconscious feelings and energetic pulses, in shaping environmental outcomes. Death denial, for Becker, plays a formative role in all cultures. Numerous tests have linked fear of death to the idea of human supremacy. Facing death becomes an incitement to live more intentionally. The activity is used as a prelude to forming groups for action projects. For that assignment, students are asked to collectively make an intervention and improvement in an area they are passionate about. The visualization helps bring forth those passions that become the basis for organizing the groups.