Ernest Becker gave the world a profound gift before he died with his Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Denial of Death.” But he wrote one more book after it, published posthumously, that was, “Escape From Evil.” Becker understood what he unleashed with “Denial,” in which he lays out a startling theory of the motivation for much of human activity: our fear of death. We now know through the work of Prof. Sheldon Solomon et al. (“Worm at the Core”), and many others, that Becker’s theory was correct. This leaves us with a very troubling problem though: how do we respond?

I believe this was what Becker was trying to accomplish with Escape. I question whether he got there. I do not believe Becker or Solomon have yet to offer a sufficient “out” to the theory they have proved. The problem goes something like this: humans understand that they will die; they seek ways to ameliorate the terror that comes from that; families, tribes, societies, cultures develop in response to offer security, place, meaning, and immortality. Our culture has immortality ideologies, our local families and tribes have immortality structures, and we have immortality projects. We build hero systems while at the same time we deaden ourselves to a certain reality. These systems put us at odds with others and with Nature (the environment in which we live). But, they also provide humans with what are, in fact, the keys to life in physical care and in terms of meaning which Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning”) so elegantly explained. Becker understood that which supports a good life also brings great evil in terms of war, greed, conflict, genocide, exploitation, etc. A big problem is that those engaged in meaningful immortality projects do not see them as “evil,” but rather “good.” Thus, defining “evil” itself becomes problematic. Becker never makes his definition fully clear, but I can accept one form that he briefly mentions: meaninglessness, illness, or death. Immediately we see problems with this because the whole point of our immortality projects will be to ameliorate these “evils.” We will quickly find ourselves in a loop and wrapped around our own axle.

Recognizing the problem that his quite correct theory seems to lead to no satisfactory response, he expresses hope that science (psychology, or a Science of Man) will greatly help, but he is realistic that humans are unlikely to accept this. He also sees a role for the mystical aspects of humanity but, likely because they were outside his area of expertise, he does not delve too deeply here. He also seems to be peering off into an uncertain future.

Again, before he died Becker gave us a great gift of insight into what kind of creatures we are, but he struggled to offer solace to us in the form of a way forward. It is what I call the human conundrum; and there are many out there willing to sell you an answer (all for just $49.95 plus shipping, tax not included) (which also happens frequently to be their own immortality project; it’s turtles all the way down). I do believe there is hope though, in things that can not be purchased, such as acceptance of our conundrum, love, creativity, and from whence we and this consciousness came – harmony with Nature.