Escape from Evil

You can't hide.What he calls evil is the very depth of our human-self, exposed. As in 'Denial of Death' Becker searches far and wide through the psychological conclusions of previous professionals in the head-shrinking business. He uses some of what they taught but with his own ideas intertwined and groping for final answers.What I got out of the book for my own use is just how greatly human beliefs and actions are motivated by the dread of our own extinction. Death! We don't like the sound of that at all. So, we unconsciously or possibly instinctually sign on [as it were] to some eternalization hope. Whether that be through religious beliefs or political ideals or whatever helps the person to be aligned [to feel aligned] with 'the eternal.'Becker has a very clear somewhat crude view of what we humans really are at the deepest level. From the introduction in this book, I will quote here a paragraph [page 1] that is nearly identical to his one paragraph description of humanity towards the end of Denial of Death. In this version, in Escape from Evil, he puts it like this: "...the human organism, like crawling life, has a mouth, digestive tract, and anus, a skin to keep it intact, and appendages with which to acquire food. Existence, for all organismic life, is a constant struggle to feed--a struggle to incorporate whatever other organisms they can fit into their mouths and press down their gullets without choking. Seen in these stark terms, life on this planet is a gory spectacle, a science-fiction nightmare in which digestive tracts fitted with teeth at one end are tearing away at whatever flesh they can reach, and at the other end are piling up the fuming waste excrement as they move along in search of more flesh..."I've said it before, and I can only say again-- Yikes!

Having read 'The Denial of Death', this was even better. I'm a quick reader usually, but I gave this two weeks to read in sections and think about. Scholarly without being at all heavy, lightning moments every page or so. Draws heavily on Norman O.Brown and Otto Rank. I love this sort of broad-stroke speculative approach grounded in a powerful understanding of 'the human condition'. We are not, as Freud would have it, 'instinctively' aggressive or violent: these are the inevitable evils which follow on our desire to be good, to transcend with culture our animal limitations.

I bought this as a present for my husband and am told it is brilliantly written, so five stars it is!

Continuing with the themes developed in The Denial of Death, which dealt with the individual, Becker argues that human societies (whether hunter-gatherer tribe or modern techno-industrial) are giant immortality projects. They are essentially humans trying to escape from their own creatureliness, their mortality and their littleness. Hence the desperate desire to put together some system or program that people can believe in and dedicate their existence to, whether we call it capitalism, communism, fascism, consumerism, Marxism, theocracy, "progress," etc.As with The Denial of Death, you will begin to recognize the pattern in everyone you know: the identification with nation, political party, religion, sports team, music group, TV show or whatever it is that gives a person the illusion of power and control."As the ancients believed that the kingdom would perish if the king's mana ebbed, so do we feel uncomfortable and anxious if the figure 'at the top' doesn't show real excellence, some kind of 'magic.'""The identification of the mana figure with one's own well-being still influences too the democratic voting process: just as in traditional society, we tend to vote for the person who already represents health, wealth, and success so that some of it may rub off on us.""Each person nourishes his immortality in the ideology of self-perpetuation to which he gives self-allegiance; this gives life the only abiding significance it can have. No wonder men go into a rage over fine points of belief: if your adversary wins the argument about truth, you die. Your immortality system has been shown to be fallible, your life becomes fallible.""All power is in essence power to deny mortality. Either that or it is not real power at all, not ultimate power, not the power that mankind is really obsessed with. Power means power to increase oneself, to change one's natural situation from one of smallness, helplessness, finitude, to one of bigness, control, durability, importance."

I suppose I'm one of those weird people who actually appreciates books of this nature, which attempt to address the deepest dimensions of human existence and pathology, but I really like this book. I particularly like and agree with Becker's conclusions about what drives the dimension of evil in the human condition. I won't tell you what that is, in order that you actually buy the book, but I think it's good and mostly correct.