I’ve been fascinated these last several days (not unlike a dog with a new rawhide bone) by a quote that Stuart McAllister featured on Ravi Zacharias’ “Just Thinking” radio ministry recently. I’m way behind on this great program for the thinking faithful–as well as the thinking they might someday maybe consider being one of the faithful–having just caught up to the September 6th broadcast on podcast. It’s the fourth in a better-than-average five-part series on hedonism.
The quote comes from an introduction by Sam Keen to Ernest Becker’s landmark book “The Denial of Death”, originally published in 1973 (not that the subject is any different today). I transcribed the quote from the podcast, so some small words and punctuation may be slightly off from the original. Keen writes (my emphasis added):
“Society provides a second line of defense against our natural impotence by creating a hero system that allows us to believe that we can transcend death by participating in something of lasting worth. We achieve ersatz immortality by sacrificing ourselves to conquer an empire, to build a temple, to write a book, to establish a family, to accumulate a fortune, to further progress and prosperity, to create an information society and a global free market. Since the main task of human life is to become heroic and transcend death, every culture must provide its members with an intricate symbolic system that is covertly religious. This means that ideological conflicts between cultures are essentially battles between ‘immortality projects’: holy wars.”
Just be with that one for awhile and let it sink in. Comments not only welcome–I’m really curious to hear what folks have to say on this one and where it hits them. There are many angles–both personal and grandiose/geopolitical. Have fun. Oh, and be nice. 
This is a great intro to this book, and one I highly agree with. Ever since science and philosophy have proven “god is dead,” contemporary society has thrown the baby out with the bathwater and killed all sacredness along with it. People need to be heroic in order to live without constant anxiety about insignificance. So what do they do? They project their feelings of inferiority onto “the other,” scapegoating them, and killing them in one form or another to achieve self-esteem (uh, like in Iraq). We need a new symbolic “hero-system” that allows for self-transcendence without killing the planet or the people on it. Any ideas?
By: Eric on January 31, 2008
at 6:50 pm
Check out a book by David Loy called “Lack and Transcendence: Problem of Death and Life in Psychotherapy, Existentialism, and Buddhism.”
By: Padma on January 20, 2008
at 12:43 am
OK, with an espresso fix, I’m ‘grokking’ more of Patrick’s fine comment. Re. Mother Theresa: yes, God calls us to be faithful and (here’s the twist) successful in carrying out his work and fulfilling his plan… very different from being “successful” in the world’s eyes. To your second point, our idea of heroism will always be warped by that same world. There is one and only one hero in the true, full life-giving sense (i.e., giving his up for us).
Perhaps oddly for a non-Catholic, I have a framed 2-ft by 2-ft picture of St. Therese in my office that just sort of ‘popped up’ a few days after my brother’s death (long story). I keep it/her there as a reminder that we are ALL called to be ‘heroes’ in the very small, interpersonal things… the things that are often remembered and treasured in our hearts years after we forget the name of the architects who built our monuments.
Finally, if you can weave Casablanca together with the LOTR like that, you’re welcome to be ’scattered’ here any time.
Final note: to all my bloggy friends: mea culpa on not setting up a blogroll yet. I am absolutely slammed (well, blessed actually) with consulting work these last weeks. It will go up!!
By: ultraguy on November 1, 2007
at 4:36 am
Art,
Thanks for the link. I downloaded the whole week worth of Stewart’s talk onto my mp3 player and I’m replacing my drive time fix of NPR with some really good stuff.
By: Tigger23505 on October 31, 2007
at 4:07 pm
Patrick!! So glad you stopped by. Waaaay too tired to respond, but thank you for enriching this place. Will ponder with a clearer head…
By: ultraguy on October 30, 2007
at 8:28 pm
I am not yet sure where these two reference points fit the discussion started here, but I do think they apply: First, a maxim from Mother Teresa, chiding the so-called “gospel” of prosperity: “God does not call us to be successful; He calls us to be faithful.” If she’s right (and both Job and Jesus would seem to illustrate her point), then our customary definitions of heroism must make more allowances for the Marine Corps motto, and fewer allowances for making an ostentatious mark on the world.
Second, both the Lord of the Rings trilogy and movie “Casablanca” can be understood as extended meditations on these same questions. In LOTR, Boromir, Faramir, and Arwen all aspired to heroism, but things ended badly for 2 out of 3 of them. Aragorn, if I remember rightly, was indifferent to heroism, but grew into his role. Frodo and Sam were heroic without aspiring to be. Gandalf and Galadriel understood the temptation to heroism as a siren song of the One Ring, but were heroic in refusing to wield the ring themselves when they had the chance. Frodo and Sam seem to have mastered what St. Therese of Lisieux (sp?) famously called “The Little Way.”
In Casablanca, Bogart’s character becomes heroic by dint of simple decency. Rick Blaine is not the inspiring Resistance figure, but in giving up Ingrid Bergman– in choosing virtue over love– he becomes the role model he never thought he would be. Far as I know, it wasn’t transcendance he wanted; it was survival. But he also realized that survival depends on the non-material for any meaning it has.
These thoughts are way too scattered, but you raised an interesting subject, and I hope at least some of this off-the-top-of-my-head stuff makes sense.
By: Patrick O'Hannigan on October 30, 2007
at 5:38 pm
Ilona, you’ve described Buddhism without naming it. Was that intentional?
Ultraguy, regarding holy wars: I believe one reason Americans, particularly the cultural Left, have such a hard time understanding today’s Islamic jihadists is because they see everything through a secularist grid, and thus think this war is political. “They’re jealous of our prosperity. They resent our freedoms.” Yada yada. But it is, in fact, a theologically motivated war, waged by those who have returned to their religious foundations against us who have forsaken ours.
Also, Nancy Pearcey’s master work, “Total Truth,” deals impressively with the points you raise. It is, bar none, the best book I ever took the time to read.
By: Jim Gilbert on October 30, 2007
at 7:53 am
I agree with Hughstan – another purpose can be to end suffering (starting within ourselves), and to fully live IN each moment (which is not the same as living FOR the moment). Then there is the idea that there is no purpose. Hard to take, as we are creatures who want to make meaning and believe in a purpose.
By: ilona on October 28, 2007
at 8:59 pm
hughstan – I agree. The alternative answers to the base assumption about purpose that you point out are, to my mind, unsatisfying, e.g., living for the moment, living for ‘happiness’ (whatever that means), or else they are subsidiary to, or derivative of the original: attempts, however small, to have an impact beyond our lives.
By: ultraguy on October 28, 2007
at 4:23 pm
Hello,
as you are interested in immortality, maybe you’d like to have a look at this project: http://www.memorycemetery.com/about
It’s rather seculiar attempt, and there are no reasons to create heroes or given heroes.
It’s rather about celebrating life, and transcending death using scientific and humanitarian approach, spare brainwashing.
So you are welcome to become immortal too. No strings attached
Cheers
By: kislitsin on October 28, 2007
at 2:26 pm
There’s a boatload of stuff at You Tube. I found a Ravi Zacharias lecture excerpt without looking far. Impressive.
It’s been years since I started on that trail. Eventually, after plowing through Joseph Campbell and a raft of philosophers both sacred and profane I realized that personal experience is for me more compelling than any argument. I have experienced (and continue to do so) a good many events and experiences that make absolutely no reasonable sense. Non-believers call them coincidence. We Christians call them grace and/or blessings.
And yes, I see a lot of evidence that vast numbers of people are worshiping at altars I find vain and in some cases repellant.
After a lifetime of thinking about it, I still don’t have any good grasp of what a growing number of people call “demonic,” but it is clear that a toxic element definitely exists in our world. To deny that tendency in both individuals and groups is to be in denial of something as well-known as genetics. But to argue that the phenomenon can be understood and controlled by man strikes me as unbelievable…in both senses of the word, rational and religious.
By: hootsbuddy on October 28, 2007
at 5:24 am
The main challenge to those thoughts is the basis on which they rest:
“Since the main task of human life is to become heroic and transcend death.”
It would be difficult to work to any conclusion without first discussing the veracity of that statement.
By: hughstan on October 28, 2007
at 3:29 am