Born | September 27, 1924 Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S. |
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Died | March 6, 1974 (aged 49) |
Residence | Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada |
Alma mater | Syracuse University |
Known for | Eliciting the creation of Terror Management Theory |
Notable work | The Denial of Death |
Spouse(s) | Marie Becker-Pos |
Awards | Pulitzer Prize (1974) |
Website | The Ernest Becker Foundation |
Ernest Becker (September 27, 1924 – March 6, 1974) was an American cultural anthropologist and writer. He is noted for his 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Denial of Death.
Ernest becker (1975). “escape from evil” 27 Copy quote.Erich Fromm wondered why most people did not become insane in the face of the existential contradiction between a symbolic self, that seems to give man infinite worth in a timeless scheme of things, and a body that is worth about 98¢. Escape from Evil Ernest Becker on Amazon.com.FREE. shipping on qualifying offers. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Denial of Death, a penetrating and insightful perspective on the source of evil in our world.“A profound. The Ernest Becker Reader: Most will savor this rich longitudinal view of Becker after they have caught the fever from one or all of the three books still in print. For all Becker fans The Reader is a must.
Early life[edit]
Escape From Evil - Ernest Becker.pdf - Free ebook download as PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read book online for free. Scribd is the world's largest social. Sep 06, 2014 The Denial of Death is a 1973 work of psychology and philosophy by Ernest Becker. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1974, two months after the author's death.
Becker was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Jewish immigrant parents. After completing military service, in which he served in the infantry and helped to liberate a Nazi concentration camp, he attended Syracuse University in New York. Upon graduation he joined the US Embassy in Paris as an administrative officer. In his early 30s, he returned to Syracuse University to pursue graduate studies in cultural anthropology. He completed his Ph.D. in 1960. The first of his nine books, Zen: A Rational Critique (1961) was based on his doctoral dissertation. After Syracuse, he became a professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
Academic career[edit]
After graduating from Syracuse University in 1960, Becker began his career as a teaching professor and writer. Becker taught anthropology in the Department of Psychiatry at the Upstate Medical College in Syracuse, New York. Becker was summarily fired, along with other non-tenured professors, for supporting tenured Professor Thomas Szasz in a dispute with the administration over academic freedom. After a year in Italy, Becker was hired back at Syracuse University, this time in the School of Education. In 1965, Becker acquired a lecturer position at the University of California, Berkeley in the anthropology program. However, trouble again arose between him and the administration, leading to his departure from the university. At the time, thousands of students petitioned to keep Becker at the school and offered to pay his salary, but the petition did not succeed in retaining Becker. In 1967, he taught at San Francisco State's Department of Psychology until January 1969 when he resigned in protest against the administration's stringent policies against the student demonstrations.
In 1969, Becker began a professorship at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he would spend the remaining years of his academic life. During the next five years, he wrote his 1974 Pulitzer Prize–winning work, The Denial of Death. Additionally, he worked on the second edition to The Birth and Death of Meaning, and wrote Escape from Evil. In November 1972, Ernest Becker was diagnosed with cancer.
Becker's insistence on interdisciplinary work, along with the fact that students flocked to his lectures, which were marked by a high level of dramatic theatricality, did not endear him to many of his colleagues. Referring to his insistence on the importance symbolism plays in the human animal, he wrote 'I have tried to correct... bias by showing how deep theatrical 'superficialities' really go'.[1] It was only with the award of the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 (two months after his death from cancer at the age of 49) for his 1973 book, The Denial of Death, that he gained wider recognition. Escape From Evil (1975) was intended as a significant extension of the line of reasoning begun in The Denial of Death, developing the social and cultural implications of the concepts explored in the earlier book. Although the manuscript's second half was left unfinished at the time of his death, it was completed from what manuscript existed as well as from notes on the unfinished chapter.
Beliefs[edit]
Becker was fired from his first academic position at Upstate Medical College in Syracuse, NY before attaining tenure, as a result of a dispute the school had with 'anti-psychiatrist' Thomas Szasz. For this reason, Szasz's views are sometimes imputed to Becker. However, Becker's support of Szasz was limited to the issue of academic freedom – whether or not Szasz (who had tenure) had the right to teach his views to psychiatry students. During this early period Becker was formulating a 'fully transactional' view of mental health that eventually formed the basis for his book, 'Revolution in Psychiatry' (1964). Although Szasz is cited on a few key points in this book, Becker pursues a very distinct path.[2]
Becker eventually came to the position that psychological inquiry can only bring us to a distinct threshold, beyond which belief systems must be invoked to satisfy the human psyche. The reach of such a perspective consequently encompasses science and religion, even to what Sam Keen suggests is Becker's greatest achievement, the creation of the 'Escape from Evil'.[3] In formulating his theories Becker drew on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Norman O. Brown, Erich Fromm, Hegel, and especially Otto Rank. Becker came to believe that individual character is essentially formed around the process of denying one's own mortality, that this denial is a necessary component of functioning in the world, and that this character-armor masks and obscures genuine self-knowledge. Much of the evil in the world, he believed, was a consequence of this need to deny death.
Becker also wrote The Birth and Death of Meaning, which gets its title from the concept of mankind moving away from the simple-minded ape into a world of symbols and illusions, and then deconstructing those illusions through our own evolving intellect.
![Ernest Becker Pdf Ernest Becker Pdf](/uploads/1/2/6/0/126043172/306931195.jpg)
Influence[edit]
Becker's work, particularly as expressed in his later books, The Denial of Death and Escape from Evil have had a significant impact on social psychology and the psychology of religion. Terror Management Theory, an important research programme in social psychology that has spawned over 200 published studies[4] has turned Becker's views on the cultural influence of death anxiety into a scientific theory that helps to explain such diverse human phenomena as self-esteem, prejudice,[5] and religion.[6]
Death[edit]
Becker died on March 6, 1974, from colon cancer in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Shortly before Becker's death, he participated in a series of interviews with Keen for Psychology Today.[7] After his death, the Ernest Becker Foundation was founded[8] devoted to multidisciplinary inquiries into human behavior, with a particular focus on contributing to the reduction of violence in human society, using Becker's basic ideas to support research and application at the interfaces of science, the humanities, social action and religion. Flight From Death (2003) is a documentary film directed by Patrick Shen, based on Becker's work, and partially funded by the Ernest Becker Foundation.[9]
Works[edit]
- Zen: A Rational Critique. New York: W.W. Norton, 1961.
- The Birth and Death of Meaning: A Perspective in Psychiatry and Anthropology. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962.
- Revolution in Psychiatry: The New Understanding of Man. New York: Free Press, 1964.
- Beyond Alienation: A Philosophy of Education for the Crisis of Democracy. New York: George Braziller, 1967.
- The Structure of Evil: An Essay on the Unification of the Science of Man. New York: George Braziller, 1968.
- Angel in Armor: A Post-Freudian Perspective on the Nature of Man. New York: George Braziller, 1969.
- The Lost Science of Man. New York: George Brazillier, 1971.
- The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man. Second Edition. New York: Free Press, 1971.
- The Denial of Death. New York: Free Press, 1973.
- Escape from Evil. New York: Free Press, 1975.
References[edit]
- ^p.xiv. Becker, Ernest (1962) The Birth and Death of Meaning: A Perspective in Psychiatry and Anthropology. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe
- ^D. Liechty (1995) Transference and Transcendence
- ^https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=escape+of+evil+earnest+becker
- ^'Two decades of terror management theory: a meta-analysis of mortality salience research'. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 14 (2): 155–95. May 2010. doi:10.1177/1088868309352321. PMID20097885.
- ^Greenberg, J.; Solomon, S.; Pyszczynski, T. (1997). 'Terror Management Theory of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews: Empirical Assessments and Conceptual Refinements'. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. 29. p. 61. doi:10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60016-7. ISBN9780120152292.
- ^Jong, J. (2014). 'Ernest Becker's Psychology of Religion Forty Years On: A View from Social Cognitive Psychology'. Zygon. 49 (4): 875. doi:10.1111/zygo.12127.
- ^'A conversation with Ernest Becker'. Psychology Today: 71–80. April 1974.
- ^Ernest Becker Foundation website http://www.ernestbecker.org
- ^Film's official website http://www.flightfromdeath.com
Sources[edit]
![Ernest Becker Pdf Ernest Becker Pdf](/uploads/1/2/6/0/126043172/979022513.jpg)
- Liechty D (ed.) (2005) The Ernest Becker Reader. University of Washington Press. ISBN0-295-98470-8
- Liechty D (ed.) (2002) Death and Denial: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Legacy of Ernest Becker. Praeger. ISBN0-275-97420-0
- Liechty D (1995) Transference & Transcendence: Ernest Becker's Contribution to Psychotherapy. Aronson. ISBN1-56821-434-0
- Streeter J (2009) Human Nature, Human Evil, and Religion: Ernest Becker and Christian Theology. University Press of America. ISBN978-0-7618-4357-3
Ernest Becker Pdf Online
External links[edit]
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ernest Becker |
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ernest_Becker&oldid=901792643'
in Springfield, Massachusettes, The United States
September 27, 1924
Ernest Becker Denial Of Death
March 06, 1974
Social Sciences, Philosophy, Nonfiction
Søren Kierkegaard, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Norman O. Brown, Eri...more
Dr. Ernest Becker was a cultural anthropologist and interdisciplinary scientific thinker and writer.
Becker was born in Springfield, Massachusetts to Jewish immigrant parents. After completing military service, in which he served in the infantry and helped to liberate a Nazi concentration camp, he attended Syracuse University in New York. Upon graduation he joined the US Embassy in Paris as an administrative officer. In his early 30s, he returned to Syracuse University to pursue graduate studies in cultural anthropology. He completed his Ph.D. in 1960. The first of his nine books, Zen, A Rational Critique (1961) was based on his doctoral dissertation. After Syracuse, he became a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC (Canada)....more
The Denial of Death by, 4.16 avg rating — 6,821 ratings — published 1973 — 32 editions | Rate this book |
The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man 4.38 avg rating — 517 ratings — published 1962 — 10 editions | Rate this book |
Escape from Evil 4.41 avg rating — 434 ratings — published 1975 — 4 editions | Rate this book |
Angel in Armor: A Post-Freudian Perspective on the Nature of Man 4.11 avg rating — 36 ratings — published 1969 — 2 editions | Rate this book |
The Structure of Evil: An Essay on the Unification of the Science of Man 4.20 avg rating — 35 ratings — 3 editions | Rate this book |
The Ernest Becker Reader by 4.41 avg rating — 27 ratings — published 2004 | Rate this book |
Revolution in Psychiatry: The New Understanding of Man 4.60 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 1985 — 4 editions | Rate this book |
Beyond Alienation: A Philosophy of Education for the Crisis of Democracy 4.14 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 1967 — 2 editions | Rate this book |
The Lost Science Of Man 3.83 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1971 — 3 editions | Rate this book |
Zen: A Rational Critique 3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1961 | Rate this book |
“The road to creativity passes so close to the madhouse and often detours or ends there.”
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tags: art, creativity, existentialism, humor, psychosis
Ernest Becker Reader Pdf
“Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level.”
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“When we are young we are often puzzled by the fact that each person we admire seems to have a different version of what life ought to be, what a good man is, how to live, and so on. If we are especially sensitive it seems more than puzzling, it is disheartening. What most people usually do is to follow one person's ideas and then another's depending on who looms largest on one's horizon at the time. The one with the deepest voice, the strongest appearance, the most authority and success, is usually the one who gets our momentary allegiance; and we try to pattern our ideals after him. But as life goes on we get a perspective on this and all these different versions of truth become a little pathetic. Each person thinks that he has the formula for triumphing over life's limitations and knows with authority what it means to be a man, and he usually tries to win a following for his particular patent. Today we know that people try so hard to win converts for their point of view because it is more than merely an outlook on life: it is an immortality formula.”
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Ernest Becker Biography
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