In the Christian context, man recognized death when, with the words “for you are dust and to dust you will return,” God expelled Adam and Eve from paradise because they had eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge. This may well be a metaphor for the scientific fact of the development of the neocortex, which in animals is present only in its infancy, while in humans it forms the main part of the cerebral cortex. It was the neocortex that endowed man with self-awareness, the ability to think symbolically, from which our civilization grew, as well as the ability to remember the past and predict the future. Together with them, man received another evil gift — an understanding of his own mortality. Anyway, since people began to realize the finiteness of their lives, one of the main axes of the entire human civilization has been the struggle against this realization. Traditionally, people have responded to the fear of death in 4 ways: fantasies of literal immortality, dreams of resurrection, the concept of the soul, and the idea of cultural heritage. Literal immortality is the simplest and most infantile fantasy, a continuation of the instinct of self—preservation, understandable to the vast majority of human beings. The most ancient literary work “The Epic of Gilgamesh” (XVIII–XVII centuries BC) is dedicated to the quest for the flower of eternal youth. This tale contains an important symbolic lesson for all wise men who expect to escape death with a slight fright: Gilgamesh, after long and grueling adventures, manages to get a flower of immortality, but before using it, he decides to swim — a snake crawls in and steals his cure for death. Dreams of resurrection are familiar to ancient Egyptian pharaohs who embalmed their kings; Christians who believe in the resurrection of Jesus; the Russian people, who still keep Lenin’s body in the Mausoleum, as well as some billionaires from Silicon Valley. People are pleased to think that our “leather bag with bones” can resist the merciless onslaught of death and decay and contains the beginnings of immortality. “The soul was created in the big bang of the collision of an irresistible psychological force, our will to live forever, and the unshakable biological fact of our death,” wrote Otto Rank, one of Freud’s closest disciples and followers. This is a more refined concept based on people’s belief that we are not just physical beings, but that we contain within us a certain particle of eternity, a soul that existed before birth and, most likely, will exist after death. The idea of cultural heritage is based on the belief in the importance of our own lives, actions and sacrifices that we make in the course of our biological existence. To continue oneself through one’s children, to leave a mark in art, in science, in politics, in the life of the country and humanity as a whole — these thoughts have helped countless generations of people to find meaning in life and solace in the face of death.

In 1973, the American anthropologist Ernest Becker wrote the book “Denial of Death.” He argued that a significant part of human activity is somehow aimed at overcoming the fear of one’s own death. Becker finished work on this book, suffering from an incurable form of cancer, and in 1974 she won the Pulitzer Prize (after the author’s death) and became widely known in narrow circles. Pretty soon the book was forgotten — but not by everyone. In 1986, based on Becker’s ideas, psychologists Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Piszczynski developed his ideas into a theory of fear of death management, which argues that the universal fundamental defense mechanisms against death awareness are cultural norms and a sense of self—worth.

A person turns to faith in his culture, as it tells him what is good and what is bad and somehow promises to overcome death — symbolically or literally. This is how culture fills life with meaning, order and consistency. A Christian believes in Jesus, a liberal believes in freedom, and a patriot believes in his homeland. Cultural identity is a collective pact of protection from awareness of death, in the implementation of which each of us invests a lot of effort and effort. Many people risk their freedom and even their lives for him, no matter how paradoxical it may sound. We turn to government, educational, and religious institutions and rituals to convince us that human life is unique in some ways and means something in the face of harsh infinity. Nationalism, communism, liberalism, feminism — almost all “isms” somehow introduce us to the idea of the existence of some abstract “greater”, under whose caring and sometimes harsh wing we seek protection and oblivion from thoughts of our own demise. One of the first serious experiments that proved this point was an experiment with a judge and a prostitute. A group of judges were given questionnaires in which they were carefully questioned about their feelings about the idea of their death, and then asked to pass a verdict in the case of a prostitute caught negotiating with a client. The judges from the control group, who were not reminded of the death, fined the prostitute an average of $ 50. But the judges, agitated by thoughts of their own demise, had an average fine of all 455 dollars — nine times more. It was the judges’ defense mechanism that worked: they are more identified with their role as law enforcement officers than people from the control group, and they have hardened against the “immoral lawless people” who threaten their worldview. Time after time, such experiments show a sad trend: the more terrified we become at the thought of our own demise, the more we cling to our identity—to the norms of the group to which we identify ourselves. In such circumstances, there is nothing more frightening than the thought that other people may have a different truth, their own god. After all, if someone else’s god is also omnipotent, it means that something is wrong with our god: it means that the immortality that he promises us for worshipping him may not be true, it means that we may… really die — and that’s the end of it?! Our worldview, and with it our identity, begin to take shape from infancy. Adults tell children what the world consists of, what is good and what is bad, how to behave in order to receive a reward in the end, and what not to do in order not to receive punishment. At first, very little is needed to get approval: it is enough for a baby to get a spoonful of food into his mouth to cause great delight among his parents. But the older the child gets, the wider his world is, and the more relevant cultural values become to him with their own requirements, having satisfied which, the child can receive approval and feel safe. Along with useful knowledge like staying away from boiling water and not picking at the outlet, adults also pass on more abstract ideas and values to children: gender, national, religious, and age stereotypes, based on which children eventually learn to identify themselves. In this identification, a person receives a whole system of coordinates, values and meanings, thanks to which life becomes definite. The idea of mortality begins to visit children from about the age of three. They suddenly realize that dad and mom will die sooner or later, and what worries them even more is that they themselves will die someday and no one will be able to save them from this scourge. It’s easy to distract a small child from this thought by playing, eating delicious food, or going to the zoo. But over time, his cultural identity grows stronger, and he acquires his own weapon from thoughts of death. Thoughts about severe physical pain, meaninglessness, social isolation, failure in exams or at work, thoughts about future problems — all these negative thoughts do not affect us as much as thoughts about our own death. The basic human defense mechanisms against stress are not particularly different from similar animal mechanisms. But the fear of death is a unique existential scourge of humanity. Israeli scientists conducted an experiment with children aged 7 and 11. Half of the children were asked 26 questions (“Does a dead person know what is happening to them?” or “will all people die sooner or later?”). Then all the children were shown photos of their peers, which indicated the age and place of birth of the child, and asked if you would like to play and make friends with these children? Some of the children in the photos were native Israelis, while the other part was born in Russia (there is a stereotype in Israel that Russian migrants are cultural outsiders). The children from the seven-year-old group reacted negatively to all the photos because they were agitated by thoughts of death and generally frustrated. However, children aged 11 showed an increased desire to make friends with Israeli children and more often refused to be friends with Russian children. That is, at the age of 11, they had already adopted an adult model of protection from the fear of death — a cultural identity.

Belonging to a nation, people, and culture allows a person to reliably protect themselves from the meaninglessness of their own existence and promises immortality on many levels. Let me die, but my children, grandchildren and great—grandchildren will live, which means that a part of me will live – an idea that is quite logical from the point of view of evolution and the transfer of genetic material, which acts primarily on a symbolic and psychological level, and not on the level of reason. “I will die, but our common cause is to continue living, I am a drop in the ocean of my people,” these thoughts have helped and are helping millions of people find the strength to get out of bed in the morning, while others are given the opportunity to manage and direct these millions in the direction they need. They have repeatedly led people to their deaths in trenches, trenches, and even in corporate offices. The Roman philosopher Cicero wrote about it this way: “No one could accept death for the good of his country without the hope of immortality.” Patriotism is a double—edged sword: on the one hand, it helps people cope with the fear of non-existence, and on the other, the fear of non-existence and the reminder of the finiteness of life ignites patriotism in people. In a German experiment, citizens who were stopped near a grocery store and asked what products they preferred did not show much love for domestic products. But the Germans, who were asked the same questions near the cemetery, showed a much greater commitment to German food, German cars, and even German resorts. A natural consequence of patriotism and nationalism is the emergence of a charismatic leader, a “larger than life” hero who is revered, followed and identified with by hundreds of thousands of his followers. A hero, unlike an ordinary person, is able to defeat death and instill in people’s heads the improbable idea that through heroism (that is, fanatical adherence to the requirements of the cultural system) every person is able to transcend non-existence. In one experiment, participants were given election flyers by three candidates for governor. The first candidate said: “I can achieve all the goals that I have set. I have developed a very detailed and thorough plan of what needs to be done so that there are no ambiguities.” The second leaflet read: “I urge all citizens to take an active part in improving the state. I know that every individual can bring about change.” And the third candidate stated: “You are not just ordinary citizens, you are part of a special state, a special nation.” In the control group, which was not reminded of the death, only 4 out of 95 participants voted for the third, charismatic candidate, the rest of the votes were distributed approximately equally between the other two. However, in the group that was reminded of death before the experiment, 8 times more votes were cast for the charismatic leader.

Thoughts about the superiority of one’s own culture and the inferiority of someone else’s calm people down and give them the strength to continue following their own cultural patterns in the hope of heroic immortality. If a person learns that outsiders accept his point of view and beliefs, he feels more confident in his own culture and in its promises of symbolic immortality, which means he receives more reliable protection from the fear of death. Ernest Becker, an anthropologist, from whose work the creators of the theory of fear of death management started, wrote: “One culture is always a potential threat to another, because it provides evidence that it is possible to live a heroic life in a completely different, alien value system.” The fear of death makes people more aggressive and ready to use violence against their cultural and political opponents: after being reminded of their own mortality, Christians turn against Jews, conservatives curse liberals, Italians despise Germans, and people from all countries mock immigrants. In a 2006 experiment, Americans who were reminded of their mortality or the events of September 11 were more willing to support preemptive atomic and chemical attacks on countries that did not pose an immediate threat to the United States. They also supported the potential thousands of civilian casualties if it would help catch Osama bin Laden. Similarly, they showed great tolerance for the torture of suspected foreign terrorists. In a similar experiment, Israeli conservatives were more understanding of violence against Palestinians, and they were also more enthusiastic about a preemptive atomic attack on Iran. In turn, Iranian students, after being reminded of death, expressed greater support for terrorist attacks on the United States and were more interested in the idea of becoming suicide bombers themselves.

Being a part of culture is not enough: you need to feel the value of your role in some kind of cosmological drama. Self—respect is our second and perhaps most significant shield in the fight against the ever-pressing force of death. And if culture is not so easy to lose, since we are bombarded with it from all sides by other participants in the life performance, then self—respect is a very fragile defense and our personal business. For the sake of self-respect, we are ready to swallow any dose of self-deception, believe any crook who can increase our self-esteem, and also perform any feat and even self-sacrifice. “A good Christian,” “a true patriot,” “a consistent liberal,” “a striker of production,” “an implacable oppositionist,” “an exemplary father,” “a popular blogger”—all these titles (as well as thousands of others), for which we go out of our way every day, help us dig deeper into the fabric of life. In one experiment, scientists offered participants tests, after which, regardless of the results, they received two types of ratings: neutral and positive. After that, the participants were shown excerpts from the film “Faces of Death”, a collection of naturalistic documentary videos about death, and the other part was a neutral video. Then they were asked to rate their level of anxiety and found that in the group of people who received a neutral assessment, the “Faces of Death” caused an increase in anxiety, while the usual video did not bother them in any way. But in the group of subjects who received positive ratings, the reaction to the “Faces of Death” and the neutral video turned out to be the same: increased self-esteem provided them with immunity against the fear of death. Since increased self-esteem increases our resistance to the fear of death, when faced with thoughts of our own demise, we unconsciously activate in order to meet the higher standards of our culture. Often such a desire takes on paradoxical forms, then the fear of death increases the likelihood of death. People who consider themselves good drivers and draw self-confidence from this skill begin to behave more riskily on the roads after they are reminded of death. Heavy smokers, who consider a cigarette an integral part of their lifestyle, take even deeper and longer puffs after a lecture on the deadly dangers of smoking. Sex lovers, a few minutes after mentioning death or AIDS, show an increased willingness to have sex without a condom and dream of more sexual partners.

In light of thoughts about death, we become more greedy for luxury goods and show an increased interest in consumption in general. Shortly after the events of September 11, 2001, President Bush appealed to his fellow citizens: “We cannot allow terrorists to achieve their goal and intimidate our nation to such an extent that we will stop doing business or shopping.”… Mrs. Bush and I want to encourage Americans to go shopping!” In the next two months, Americans bought houses and cars in record numbers, and total consumption of goods increased by 6% in three months. They also began to buy up star-spangled flags and badges with unprecedented enthusiasm, and there was an unprecedented rise in patriotism (often understood in America through capitalism and consumerism). A little later, when France spoke out against the US invasion of Iraq, American shoppers began to boycott French food and wine and even organized a movement to rename French fries into Freedom fries.

“It’s surprisingly good when it’s clear, not that you understand, but you feel that life is not limited to this, but endless,” Leo Tolstoy used to say. People have always raved about immortality: the Greeks believed that their gods ate ambrosia, which gives immortality; the Hindus — that their deities eat amrita; Chinese alchemists tried to prepare the elixir of eternal youth, and the European — were looking for the Philosopher’s stone, conquering death. To this day, humanity has not abandoned these attempts. Source