The Denial of Death

Here, Becker defines neurosis. According to Becker, neurosis is “universal” (179). However, Becker sees the label “neurotic” as applied to people whose self-defenses and heroism backfire. Most people are able to live normally by focusing on what Kierkegaard calls philistinism. However, some people struggle with the denial of reality more than others. These people can become fixated on relationships or develop “obsessions and compulsions” (180). Becker sees an irony in how people subconsciously seek to avoid death, but they do so by cutting off parts of their personality and limiting their actions and experiences. Others do so by embracing “too much experience, too large a chunk of the world” (181), which makes it harder for them to fit into normal society.

Following Rank, Becker suggests there is little separating someone who is clinically neurotic and the artist. The neurotic “cannot create” while the artist “takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art” (184). According to Rank, the neurotic who does not have an outlet like art cannot be comforted by society, culture, or “the natural therapy of everyday life” (188).

The problem has been worsened by modern man, with the decline of religion or what Becker describes as “the eclipse of the sacred dimension” (190). Instead of religion, modern people have adopted the ideas of psychology, social science, and individualism. However, even psychology only addresses part of the problem—the events and traumas within an individual’s life—and not the wider problems with the human condition.

For this modern problem, Rank’s solution is that “the only thing which can ‘cure’ it is a world-view, some kind of affirmative collective ideology in which the person can perform the living drama of his acceptance as a creature” (198). In other words, something has to be found that shares the benefits of traditional religion and how it gave people a sense of being part of something greater. However, Rank’s cure is difficult to achieve for three reasons: it cannot be prescribed like medication; traditional religion, which filled that role, is no longer supported extensively by modern society, weakening it; and the attitudes of modern people include the “banishment of mystery, of naïve belief, of simple-minded hope” (200).

Still, Becker partly supports Rank’s theory in asserting that religion is still an ideal solution, since it holds out the possibility of heroic victory over death itself and provides a God that can offer security and dependency yet is so distant that people can develop their own selves.