[ExI] Psychology Today Article: "The Boy Who Wants to Live Forever..."

[Jeff Davis]

>From the Psychoogy Today piece (with comments inserted  thusly: [comment] ) :

When reminded of death by something as simple as a photo of a grave,
people react by adhering more tightly to their social values and their
self-image.  [You mean they go back to their habitual, everyday-life
concerns?!!]  Liberals become more tolerant, religious people more
spiritual, racists more consumed with hate.  [Why "more"?  Why not
"once again?] "By being a good American, a caring parent, a committed
sports fan, a creative musician, or a brilliant scientist, and by
believing in the ultimate importance and value of such pursuits, one
is able to feel part of something that extends into eternity", [Or
maybe it's just part of what engages them, by default, in the present,
when they wake up each morning.] writes University of Maryland
psychologist Mark Dechesne in a recent paper on the subject of terror
management theory [How very "post 9/11".  Is the job market good for
"terror management professionals" or am I being rude?], the branch of
psychology that tries to explain this behavior.

                 **************************************

I've always been skeptical of (and annoyed by) this view, that
everything we do in living is somehow a response to some sort of
chronic "terror" we have about our inevitable death.  (Similar to the
thesis of Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death".)

I'm not buying it.  Am I death obsessed, but blocking it from my
consciousness?   Is it maybe a cultural thing where some people -- say
the religiously indoctrinated -- are in fact death obsessed, and
others  -- say secularists or those not exposed to religious
indoctrination in their formative years -- are not?  Or is the "terror
of death" thesis more or less bogus -- the invention of authoritarians
of one stripe or another: clerics who arrogate "God's authority" as a
means of asserting dominance over lay people, or "psychologists" who,
disguised as "healers", seek to dominate based on "scientific"
authority?

Personally, I have my cryonics arrangements in place, which I assert
has nothing to do with dying and everything to do with living.  Am I
deluding myself?

  --
Best, Jeff Davis

               "Everything's hard till you
                     know how to do it."
                              Ray Charles


On 5/8/07, Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:
> Well.. of all places. The transhumanists (congrats Michael!) are in
> "Psychology Today" and the author didn't paint us as flakes, despite
> the title of the piece. I am pleasantly surprised.
>
>
> "The Boy Who Wants to Live Forever... and Other Champions of the Lost Cause"
> By:Kathleen McGowan
>
> Page 5 of 5
> http://psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-20070227-000001&page=5
>
> Ciao,
> Amara
>
> P.S. And I especially like the advertisement directly underneath the title:
> "Find a therapist near you..."
> --
>
> Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
> INAF Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI), Roma, ITALIA
> Associate Research Scientist, Planetary Science Institute (PSI), Tucson