Self-Esteem, Life's Gift-Character, & Natural Guilt (Becker)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1557535612/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=c...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSjlpeYXP2I
Is life itself a kind of gift that we need to address as such?
Please also see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6UlM4c-GTI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqaO4CJTuic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmP1fpRmmNk
BECKER: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&fiel...
This is admittedly a rough and loose account, a beginning video. For a much more detailed account of all of this please keep on eye out for my book "Sources of Significance," which is coming out in the Fall 2010 at Purdue University Press.
For a wonderful Playlist on Becker see: http://www.youtube.com/user/pangeaprogress#grid/user/D6D51D15F024A28F
To learn more about the Ernest Becker Foundation, go to: http://www.ernestbecker.org/

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Ernest Becker
• death denial
• meaning
• guilt
• heroism
• death
• evil
• purpose
• inheritance

[brokennarcissist]

So suburban white kids trying to leech off the struggle for solidarity of a marginalized community in consuming rap culture is just their lack of a narrative to reconcile their guilt for having a privileged position in life?

[Professoranton]

@brokennarcissist Good stuff.

[amabodie]

Wonderful!

[Professoranton]

Thanks!

[gedgetips]

One of Becker's points in DoD is that psychology has limited itself by avoiding natural guilt, where guilt becomes linked to merely the personal life-history of the individual. This makes psychology predominately negative, and not a suitable vehicle for helping one develop an effective heroic vision & practice in the world. The symbolic animal seeking a vision who strives to make his life a triumph can thus be treated as a neurotic problem to pull back from, versus a real need to resolve.

[Professoranton]

This is so articulate and thoughtful. Thank you

[theraccoun]

this is so beautifully said. probably my favorite video of yours. thanks for this

[SirWinstoneChurchill]

@Professoranton

"natural guilt"

Despair? Søren Kierkegaard?

The Sickness Unto Death???

[brokennarcissist]

@dantean Was just a generalization of a demographic.

[dantean]

@brokennarcissist I'm black, from the South Bronx, and rappers I know (since the mid 1970s) do it for the $ same as everyone else. White suburban kids' motivations for rhyming and stealing James Brown's beats (and George Clinton's, and Sly Stone's etc.) may not feel heroic to you as the cartoonish "marginalized community" you offer, but, as a guy from 158 St / Morris Ave (Google Map it) I want to thank you for the hard work you show in ghettoizing me. White boys can show the love all they want!

[LeonidasIII300]

Becker calls it existential guilt...the existential thinkers from Kierkegaard to Hiedegger to Camus also had theories on this guilt, and Becker in terms of Keirkegaard, made use of this.

[LimpLoser]

@Professoranton Hi. Have you ever spoken to a user called Mrcropper? I would ( and i'm sure others would ) be interested in you and him talking to each other in video format.