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Confronting Death Consciously a Look at Terror Management Theory

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Confronting Death Consciously a Look at Terror Management Theory EXPLORATIONS Confronting Death Consciously: A Look at Terror Management Theory and Immortality Awareness Theory || Larry Dossey, MD || The decisive question for man is: Is I did. But I liked flying. It was the by many of his adoring fans, his frozen he related to something infinite second-best thing that ever happened remains now reside at Alcor.3 or not? That is the telling question ' 1 to me. If I hadn t had baseball to of his life. come back to, I might have gone on — ”2 C.G. Jung as a Marine pilot. That was my CHEATING DEATH childhood hero! MychildhoodherowasTedWil- There is a backstory. My twin liams, who is widely considered the brother and I excelled at Little League Make sure to send a lazy man for the Angel of Death. greatest hitter in US baseball history and Junior League baseball, and we and one of the greatest sports figures of shared a great admiration of Ted —Yiddish proverb all time. In the 19 years he played for Williams. My brother saved pennies the Boston Red Sox, he won the Amer- and cashed them in for a 1$ bill. He Why would anyone choose to be ican League batting championship six attached this to a letter in which he cryogenically preserved? Max More, times. He was elected to the Baseball asked Ted Williams for an autographed the President and Chief Executive offi- Hall of Fame in 1966. He was the last photo. He addressed the envelope sim- cer of Alcor, one of the world'slargest player in baseball to hit .400; he hit ply to “Ted Williams, Boston Red Sox.” cryonics companies, says, “I freeze peo- .406 in 1941. In his last at bat in 1960, A few weeks later an autographed, ple to cheat death.” More has chosen he hit a home run—a fitting way for glossy 8 Â 10 photo of Ted Williams neuro-preservation for himself, deep- him to retire—for a career total of 521 arrived in the mail. Attached to it was freezing just his brain. “I figure the home runs. my brother's 1$ bill. That clinched it future is a pretty decent place to be, For those who may not be baseball for both of us. so I want to be there,” he says. “Iwant aficionados, let me interpret: these When Williams died in 2002 at the to keep living and enjoying and accomplishments, while not superhu- age of 83 years, his youngest daughter producing.” man, are as close to it as we are likely and his son decided to have their father As of 2014, 984 people had signed up to see for a long time—particularly since cryogenically preserved in liquid nitro- with Alcor to be preserved when they they occurred in an age relatively uncon- gen at the Alcor Life Extension Foun- die. At the time, people paid a yearly taminated by drug-enhanced perfor- dation in Arizona at a cost of $100,000. membership fee of about $770 on sign- mance, which now bedevils many areas “I can tell you that my family chose ing up with Alcor. Preserving just their of sport, as everyone knows. cryonics out of love,” the daughter brain cost an additional $80,000; preser- Williams was no pampered elite ath- wrote. “Our father knew we needed ving the entire body cost $200,000. lete. He was brieflyinvolvedasa something to hold onto for hope and Some clients manage to obtain life draftee in World War II and was comfort and when we missed him the insurance that covers the cost of their recalled for service in the Korean War most, and if cryonics was the answer, freezing. in 1953, where he flew jets in combat as then the solution was simple.” More acknowledges that he and others a Marine pilot. He flew missions with Williams's head was severed from his do not particularly like the idea of being future astronaut and US senator John body and they were frozen separately. frozen for an indeterminate length of Glenn, who praised his performance. The family hoped that scientists one time. “We hate the idea in fact. The idea Williams' plane was hit, but he sur- day would figure out how to reattach of sitting in a tank of liquid nitrogen not vived. He said, “Everybody tries to preserved heads and bodies and bring able to control our own destinies is not make a hero out of me over the Korean them back to life. Although the deci- appealing. But it's a lot more appealing thing….I was no hero. There were sion to cryogenically preserve their than the alternative, to be digested by maybe 75 pilots in our two squadrons father was furiously opposed by worms or incinerated—that doesn't and 99% of them did a better job than Williams's oldest daughter, as well as appeal to us at all.”4 Explorations EXPLORE March/April 2017, Vol. 13, No. 2 81 DYING TO DEATH Becker's emphasis on “the human Extensive empirical testing has yielded animal” implies the universality of the an abundance of data supporting the Die before you die. There is no 10 5 fear of death. Death fear is not a modern theory and its predictions. In a 2015 chance after. cultural artefact; it haunts traditional interview, Solomon describes the — C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces cultures as well. Evidence is close at essence of the theory and how he was hand: Northern New Mexico, where attracted to it: The example of Ted Williams's family I live. shows that, while few people actually Following the settlement of Northern Well, in part, I became interested welcome death, a great many fear it, are New Mexico in the 17th century, a near- because as a young child when I horrified by it, and will do anything to constant state of war developed between realised that I would someday die I forestall or even reverse it. found that a decidedly unwelcome the Mexican settlers and the Navajo These methods crop up in medical realisation. So, I have a personal tribe. In his epic book Blood and Thun- literature from time to time. In 1905 stake in these matters. And then, der, author Hampton Sides describes physician J.L. Corning reported in the quite by accident, as a young pro- how the profound fear of death influ- Journal of the American Medical Associa- fessor, I ran into a book by a now- enced the way in which the Navajos tion his experience with a patient who deceased cultural anthropologist waged war on the settlers: Ernest Becker called The Denial of was morbidly afraid of death. Dr. Corn- Death. And what Becker proposed is ing claimed success by a method we [The Navajos] seldom fought in that humans are unique because … would today call desensitization. He large numbers . [They] avoided we're the only creatures that know reported, “By….saying to himself when killing wherever possible, because that we will someday die and that about to sleep, ‘I die now,’ I have theirs was a culture that had a our death can occur at any time…. sought, by autosuggestion, to make deep-seated fear and revulsion of And if that's all we thought about, him feel that he already knew the worst death. They wanted nothing to do according to Becker, we wouldn't with corpses or funerals or anything that death could inflict on him; that, in be able to stand up in the morn- connected with mortality. When a … … short, he had died, to all intents and ing . [H]e says that the way that person died inside a Navajo dwell- we manage death-anxiety is by purposes, every twenty-four hours.” — ing the round, windowless, dome- embracing culturally constructed Through his experience with dying roofed hogan made of mud and beliefs that give us a sense that we “ — patients, Corning concluded, The timber the body had to be are valuable individuals in a mean- dread of death is usually absent during removed from the structure by ingful universe. And, according to 6 the actual process of dying.” Not so, bashing a hole in the north wall Becker, the fear of death underlies however, prior to the process. and pulling the corpse through it; almost everything that we do…. [I]t Dr. Corning's technique is reminis- then the hogan had to be manifests itself in our need to pre- cent of the enigmatic Buddhist saying: destroyed. The taint could never serve faith in our culturally con- be washed out…. But the Navajos “If you die before you die, then when structed beliefs and, in a sense, that ” were perhaps the unparalleled mas- we're valuable individuals.11 you die, you will not die. ters of the raid. Small-scale warfare suited them. They were an evanes- Research in TMT suggests that the cent people, proud thieves on fear of our own death can influence ERNEST BECKER horseback, adroit in the techniques the way we vote. In the run-up to the of the swift attack and the quick We live as if death is optional. disappearance.8 November 2016 election, presidential —Woody Allen candidate Donald J. Trump capitalized on the principles of TMT, although he Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY probably had never heard of the theory. documented the prevalence of death His major premise was that America was denial in his 1973 Pulitzer Prize- What do we say to the Lord of being overrun by terrorists, rapists, drug Death? winning book The Denial of Death.He dealers, criminals, and immigrants, and Not today.
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