Topic
The Person Experiences Social Death before Physical Death
Instructions
In the Denial of Death, Becker develops the thesis that the desire to ignore or avoid the certainty of our own mortality is one of the most basic drives in individual behaviour and cultural beliefs. He explains at length the extent to which we build lies about our own mortality and how precarious our reality really is. In chapter 4, ‘Human Character as a vital Lie’, Becker’s thesis is that typical character development involves an individual building up an interpretation about themselves, about reality, and is illusory enough to protect us from the facts of existence that are terrifying, including our mortality. Facts that in Becker’s view would paralyse us with anxiety.
What happens when this reality is shattered? What symbolic systems evident in aspects of culture do we use to sustain meaning? How can we use Becker’s thesis to understand human responses to death, dying, bereavement? Explain using one contemporary example.
Using a topic of your own choice, examine Becker’s denial of death thesis. The aim of this exercise is to look at how can this thesis be explained sociologically, how can we understand this thesis drawing on empirical examples? Your ‘evidence’ can be of your own choosing and methodological preference. For example, in this five-week block, I have chosen to draw on textual, biographically based accounts to highlight fundamental issues relating to death, dying and bereavement. This is by no means comprehensive, but will give you a basic framework, with which to consider in greater depth, issues that are of interest to you. Therefore, this exercise is an opportunity to do that, so in empirical terms, you may draw on any number of sociological paradigms and produce a narrative, and prepare no more than four slides, to discuss your ideas with the group.
Some suggested themes:
- Heroism (you may make reference to comic superheroes)
- Conflict and war
- Death pornography (any examples from television or films)
- Cemeteries
- Festivals
- Friendship
- Sport
Answer preview
According to Becker, most individual behavior and cultural beliefs are inspired by man’s desire to ignore or avoid the certainty of individual mortality. All the same death is a guaranteed inescapable fact that at times can be preceded by a period of unproductiveness which is one type of what is referred to as a social death. Most people will create an interpretation about themselves or about their reality which is shrouded in enough illusion to protect themselves against terrifying things such as social ostracism and even mortality. Moreover, some will be socially dead for a period before they are physically dead. This shows the term social death has been applied in several disciplines at times creating some ambiguity in its usage. It has been applied in the description of grim scenarios such as slavery, genocide and even dementia (Gazit 310–322).
Word count: 1715