Ernest Becker

Jan 11, 2024 | shepherd.com | James Hider |Ernest Becker |Paul Broks |Shlomo Sand

I first read this Pulitzer Prize winner in my early twenties, and it blew my mind, almost literally: I was in a bar in post-revolutionary Prague describing to a friend the book’s central idea – that human character, and the culture it lives in,  are both effectively an illusionary construct that we build around ourselves as a means of denying that we are all doomed to vanish. As I explained it, the idea suddenly made perfect sense to me and I felt my entire personality briefly dissolve.

Apr 15, 2023 | calitreview.com | Ernest Becker

Classics According to Becker, man is torn between his symbolic, self-conscious awareness and his animal nature. The same creature that names himself, imagines, explores and speculates is in the end, food for insects.