A bit grueling, but glad I did it. I'll make another video at some point in the future to see how things look from a longer term perspective.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9MFOGeMoBE
Starts out with a presentation of Terror Management Theory and some of its evidence, using excerpts from various talks & documentaries. Followed by a perspective on world history derived from Ernest Becker's Escape From Evil, The Denial of Death and the University of Amsterdam's study Things Will Get Better: The Anxiety-Buffering Qualities of Progressive Hope http://www.academia.edu/534931/Things_will_get_better_The_anxiety-buffering_qualities_of_progressive_hope_2009_
The video is also informed by historical evidence about ecological degradation and the unpredictability of technological developments.
From the perspective of Ernest Becker & TMT, self-esteem is primarily a reflex of an unconscious fear of death; and human culture an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality - which in turn acts as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic survival mechanism.
For more info go here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289309102_Thirty_Years_of_Terror_Management_Theory
Interestingly, the other competing (or complementary) major theory of self-esteem comes from CP - coalitional psychology (also known as Sociometer Theory”) basically saying that what others think of us has survival & reproductive benefits, so that a sense of self-esteem would help us improve or maintain this fitness by self-monitoring - gauging others’ opinion and modifying our behavior accordingly. This would largely entail a view of history as an evolutionary adaptive set of behaviors.
The problem with CP as a sole explanation is that
1) Our status or “what others think of us” is substantially mediated by invented, largely arbitrary cultural activities and beliefs (abstract meaning systems) that have virtually nothing to do with the specific adaptive threats we encountered (or that could even be logically postulated) in the course of evolution. Work on primates shows that coalitions and alliances in primate groups serve very specific adaptive goals.
2) terror management theory has shown that reminders of death increase allegiance to these abstract meaning systems, and that, conversely, challenges to these meaning systems increase death-thought accessibility. These abstract meaning systems may or may not facilitate the formation and maintenance of coalitions, but TMT evidence shows that this is largely on the basis of a suppression of unconscious death-anxiety (an unfortunate byproduct of our adaptive intelligence), not as a specific adaptation for survival.
3) Every major culture we know of features religious or supernatural beliefs which have at least as much to do with what gods or spirits think of us (or imply about us), than what others think of us. And religious beliefs are definitely proven to diminish death anxie
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWI3FtfKUAk
Echoes by Pink Floyd https://youtu.be/y-E7_VHLvkE
In Art and Artist (1932) Otto Rank describes how any work of art can be analyzed from the perspective of its relationship to death - of the ways it symbolically transcends physical reality and the brevity of life. Some works do so more obviously than others.
One such example is the music video Echoes by Pink Floyd, which combines historical legacy (ancient Roman culture) with spiritual themes (timelessness, poetic possibilities of other-worldly realities) and superimposes them over physical reality (geological panoramas), using the inert stone of Roman sculptures as a bridge between these physical and symbolic worlds.
In addition to the sculptures, the amphitheater in which they perform contains dramatic death-related historical themes, like its gladiatorial contests or the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius, which buried it (& the citizens of Pompeii) in 79 AD.
Ironically, the arid desolate scenery, or absence of wilderness, actually adds symbolic life or immortality to these grim historical themes, as the lives of humans are isolated from other species and then elevated above their contextual animal insignificance. The old divide between nature and culture.
One could imagine, say, the amphitheater in the middle of a vast busy jungle, colonized and degraded by all manner of plants and creatures.
The absence of an audience in the amphitheater, too, plays a role in adding symbolic immortality, as it reduces the performance’s attachment to a particular time period and its collectivity (the impermanent present); increasing the band’s independence and individuality, preventing obsolescence, and enhancing its focus on past and future.
The lyrics and musical notes express a desire to reverberate across the eons; while Pink Floyd’s own talented presence alongside themes of modern culture (sound systems, instruments) is captured for posterity in another inert physical medium: film — which eternalizes their youthful vitality and establishes the band’s own prominent link in this creative matrix of meaning and immortal possibilities.
Of course, the possibilities of reality are, like Shakespeare famously said, greater than can be dreamt of in our creations. But those possibilities are too uncertain or scary, especially as they relate to death and our significance in the world or cosmos. And so, according to Otto Rank, the artist wishfully defies this fear and uncertainty by concretizing possibilities through creative speculations. Or simply by embellishing the creative speculations in preexisting culture.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaIoleJ1VXc
Terror Management Theory Explained https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWI3FtfKUAk&t=11s
Jordan Peterson on Death 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2fy89-iqA4
Jordan Peterson on Death 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2fy89-iqA4
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1JACQiwVf4