Ernest Becker’s Influence
“All the missiles, all the bombs, all the airplanes,
all human edifices are attempts to defy eternity
by proclaiming that one is not a creature,
that one is something special.
Ernest Becker
About Dr. Ernest Becker
ALL ILLUSIONS MUST BE BROKEN is based on the ideas of best-selling author and Pulitzer-Prize-winning cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker
Best known for his 1973 book THE DENIAL OF DEATH, Becker devoted his entire intellectual career to answer the question, “Why do people do what they do?”
Becker’s ultimate conclusion – one informed by readings across anthropology, sociology, psychology and theology – was simple:
People do what they do unknowingly and do so to avoid confronting the truth – namely, that they are mortal animals destined to die.
“…the peculiar characteristic of man is that…
he’s an animal that has to do something about his ephemerality…
When it comes to being heroic, it lies in that realm.
The idea of overcoming, of standing out, of saying,
“You see, I’ve made a contribution to life.
I’ve advanced life, I’ve beat death….”
Ernest Becker
Ernest Becker
“What the child does… since he knows on some level of his personality
that he’s is very vulnerable,
he has to reinforce his sense of power.
He does this by plugging into a source of other power…
like an electrical circuit … the cultural system of ideas…
becomes his power source and this is always unconscious."
