Denial of Death The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker is a groundbreaking book in psychology and philosophy that explores the deep human fear of death and how it shapes our thoughts, actions, and societies. Becker argues that knowing we’re going to die causes existential anxiety, and to deal with this, we create cultural beliefs and worldviews that give our lives meaning and protect us from this fear. While these beliefs give us purpose, they can also limit us in other ways.

Becker’s work was highly influential, particularly in the development of terror management theory, which looks at how people cope with the fear of death. His ideas also impacted fields like sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. The Denial of Death encourages us to face our mortality and recognize how much our cultural beliefs shape us. It’s praised for its clear, original insights into the human condition and continues to inspire thinkers across various disciplines.

“Man is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with atowering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever.”

- Ernest Becker, The denial of death, 1973
Released: 2016-2017
Material: Handmade collage