Some passages from the conclusion of Ernest Becker’s “The Denial of Death” that resonate with me.
“What singles out Tillich’s cogitations about the New Being is that there is no nonsense here. Tillich means that man has to have the “courage to be” himself, to stand on his own feet, to face up to the eternal contradictions of the real world. The bold goal of this kind of courage is to absorb into one’s own being the maximum amount of nonbeing. As a being, as an extension of all of Being, man has an organismic impulsion: to take into his own organization the maximum amount of the problematic of life. His daily life, then becomes truly a duty of cosmic proportions, and his courage to face the anxiety of meaninglessness becomes a true cosmic heroism.”
and another…
“What we are describing is not a creature who is transformed and who transforms the world in turn in some miraculous ways, but rather a creature of courage and endurance. It is not very different from the Athenian ideal as expressed in Oedipus or from what it meant to Kant to be a man. At least, this is the ideal for a new kind of man; it shows why Tillich’s myth of being “truly centered” on one’s own energies is a radical one. It points to all the evasions of centeredness in man: always being part of something or someone else, sheltering oneself in alien powers. Transference, even after we admit its necessary and ideal dimensions, reflects some universal betrayal of man’s own powers, which is why he is always submerged by the large structures of society. He contributes to the very things that enslave him.”
And still another…
“If the Freudian revolution in modern thought can mean anything at all, it must be that it brings to birth a new level of introspection as well as social criticism… But this brings up the second great problem raised by the therapeutic revolution, namely, So What? Even with numerous groups of really liberated people, at their best, we can’t imagine that the world will be any pleasanter or less tragic a place. It may even be worse in still unknown ways.”
