by Ernest Becker
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Required Reading, 2008-05-26
Posthumous sequel to The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker's startingly insightful expose of what motivates human behavior. The one drawback, is that while Becker counsels humanity to chose the illusion that provides for the "grandest illusion," he himself does not attemmpt to describe it except as some vague combination of Marxism and pyschoanalysis. Nevertheless, these two books, The Denial of Death and Escape From Evil, should be required reading for every human on the planet.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Becker completes his own Immortality Project, 2008-03-27
This, the sequel to Becker's masterwork, "The Denial of Death," expands upon and completes that earlier project. Together they constitute Becker's own personal "immortality project": his quest for a Super-ordinate Science of Man.
Like "The Denial of Death," "Escape From Evil" (EFF) too is an analysis of how man has tried to grappled with his own confusing and often paradoxical existence, and in the process, it is additionally a story of how, as a byproduct, he also invented evil. And then it is also about how man's pursuit of his own cosmic theater of heroism required scapegoats to close the circle and complete his own immortality project, the most obvious fallout of which has been the evolution of evil itself.
The book thus, is not only about how the formula for evil in man's activities evolved, but also about how it can be resolved. And as is usual for Becker, EFF is intellectually robust and complete: we get the full story of man's attempt to come to grips with his world, from beginning to end. When the dust finally settles and the parts are pulled together in the last chapter, the reader is left with a panoramic view of what makes man tick.
As is typical for him, Becker begins with a series of questions that require a proper probing and interrogating of history and psychology in order to find, not just the correct, but the best synthesis. The over-arching question that animates this work is: What is it in man's psychological nature that propels him towards evil? Becker answers this question by saying that man comes into the world free, but becomes un-free later, and does so willingly, giving up his freedom in exchange for safety and a feeling of redemption.
Leaning heavily on the Anthropologist A.C. Hocart, and using Rousseau and Nietzsche more or less as straw men, against which he bounces his ideas, the author answers his own question by updating a notion central to his previous work: There he argued that man was basically a "self-esteem maintenance machine." Substituted here is a larger more robust concept of "man in pursuit of prosperity." It is used to update, the earlier concept. Thus, in the final analysis, it is "the pursuit of prosperity" rather than "self-esteem maintenance" that serves to answer the questions that Becker poses, and that does most of the heavy lifting for this project. It does so by expanding and greatly refining the former concept, and indeed it is this refinement that is most efficacious in demonstrating more clearly how the process of evil actually comes about.
Greatly summarized, Becker's story goes something like this: Man is inherently a "religious being" due in large measure to the fact that he is born into a hostile world naked, with only his mind and his fears with which to negotiate his survival. Ultimately it is his fears (and the guilt that they engender and the associated need for redemption) that are at the base of "socialized man." For the most part, it is the colonization of fear, guilt and the need for redemption that organizes society and culture.
The earth, which provides man with most of his sustenance, still remains a little understood cosmic force, a gift from the gods, as it were, that man imagines must be returned in kind if the life cycle, the cosmic life force and man's own prosperity and ultimately, which his very life depends on, is to continue. Thus the cosmic force is the primary source of all power in the world. And since time immemorial, man has seen as one of his primary tasks of survival: that of accommodating, or at the very least not antagonizing or offending, this invisible source of power and cosmic force.
However, whether invisible or not, returning the "offerings," became a rather complex psychological task for man. It required the bureaucratization and management on earth of an invisible or superior cosmic force. The most efficacious way of doing this was through representatives who could act openly and visibly as indirect agents of the gods. And here Becker of course means the Shamans, the Priests, the Popes, the Chiefs, the CEOs, the Presidents and Prime Ministers, and the Magicians. With primitive man (and of course in a much more sublimated sense) even with modern man, a system and process of rituals including an altar and rules, ceremonies, customs and traditions for invoking the pleasure of the gods, (and avoiding their approbations) was required in order to properly make sacrifices to them; sacrifices that would of course ensure continued prosperity.
The whole process of ritualization still amounts to a technology of social psychology; one that is co-terminus with all cultures that attempt in their own way to ensure that the sustained gifts of the cosmic force continues the cycle of life and prosperity. Ritualization as a technic of religion and of society, becomes a new sacred modality for vicariously extending the life giving forces, and thus of taming and bringing the mysterious power of the cosmos down to earth; and of course, most importantly, of making it available to ensure the continued success of man's earthly "prosperity projects."
It is axiomatic in human nature that anything that represents the gods, also represent an indirect contact with the power of the cosmic forces that the gods bestow. Such central source of power must at all times be respected. Ultimately, it is the indirect delegation of, and amplification of this power downward to the lowest levels, coupled with the personal tendencies already inherent in man's psychological makeup (to give over his power and freedom to a leader with special powers attached to the cosmic force) that is responsible for providing the motive force for the machinery of evil: Men asked to be mystified, they wanted and needed kings and leaders, and that is the great weakness in man's nature: Ultimately man is scared of operating alone within the confines of his own freedom.
Once the refracted and reflected power of the gods is delegated, bureaucratized, socialized, and eventually colonized, taken together with man's inherent tendencies towards self-subjugation, the turning of the gears towards evil has already been set fully into motion. It is but a short hop, skip and jump through history before god's designated representative's quest for personal power has irretrievably corrupted man's otherwise pristine and free nature. Without being aware of it, man has slid into an unholy "freedom stripping" quid pro quo: trading in his freedom for the comfort and the tyranny of a community invariably based on shared fears and insecurities, shared guilt and shared hopes of redemption -- all orchestrated and ruled by powerful representatives with mandates from their gods. As Becker puts it on page 51 "Men fashion un-freedom as a bribe for self-perpetuation."
In rapid evolutionary succession, personal property acquisition, inequality, greed and all other known forms of social corruption follow: First in the name of the sacred and the divine, and then in the name of the less divine: that is, in the name of ideology and eventually in the name of the state. Once it has evolved to this last stage, of the state, man has irretrievably lost all control of the corrupting machinery. From there on, his descent into evil is all but automatic. Oppressive power, corruption and inequality have always taken place in the service of the legitimate and all too often, in the service of the religious order. As Hegel has put it: Men cause evil out of good intentions not out of wicked ones."
So what is the correct route to Escape From Evil?
Becker is not so arrogant as to proffer such advice because he believes it fits into the same existential trap of other failed Enlightenment projects: It too becomes just more dead end advice from another failed hero system: psychology. But he leaves us with this important thought, put forth in part by Elie Wiesel that "Man is not human." He is just a frightened creature trying to secure a victory over his limitations, but a creature that is continually failing at this task.
Five Stars.
4 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
 Escape Ffrom Evil, 2007-04-02
This is an interesting book that reviews the findings of some psychologists in recent years. It does develop Freud analysis and the Neo Freud pschologists modifications into a new explanation of evil and death denial.
It sometimes uses concepts too broadly without adequate definitions. If you were read this book it would be wise to read Freud and Jung as a starting point.
It is fairly complex and covers too wide an area. However it a usual contribution to the modern social science explanations of man's behaviour.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
A study with range and depth, 2006-04-21
Escapre from Evil may not be as rigorous as Denial of Death (perhaps fittingly since it was published before Becker finished it), but it is more interesting and engaging. Becker's thesis sounds a bit farfetched at first and, indeed, what he offers in the end may be more of a possible interpretation than a necessary one. However, his observations are wide-ranging and rest on solid ground.
Perhaps I do not want to say to much and spoil it for any potential readers. Suffice it to say that this work is incredible and is possibly my favorite book. I tore through it and will almost certainly read it again. It is a shame that Becker left this world so early, as he had a brilliant mind and would doubtlessly have produced more profound works.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
A book to haunt your bookshelf, 2006-04-10
"Man is an animal...moving about on a planet shining in the sun. Whatever else he is, is built on this." So begins the opening pages of Becker's "Escape". "Existence, for all organismic life, is a constant struggle to feed--a struggle to incorporate whatever other organisms they can fit into their mouths and press down their gullets without choking. Seen in these stark terms, life on this planet is a gory spectacle...in which digestive tracks fitted with teeth at one end are tearing away at whatever flesh they can reach, and at the other end are piling up the fuming waste excrement as they move along..." Becker's "Denial of Death" dealt with the way man controls his basic anxiety by keeping it unconscious, "Escape from Evil", once again, tracks man from his organismic beginning to his emphatic end--detailing man's various ways he USES culture, ritual, power, inequality, money, etc as modes to achieving an expansiveness of meaning in the limited form of his physical body. Becker: "Man is an organism who KNOWS that he wants food and who KNOWS what will happen if he doesn't get it. This translates into a principle of prosperity...Once we have an animal who recognizes that he needs prosperity, we also have one who realizes that anything that works AGAINST continued prosperity is bad." Other insights: Becker's great insights into the primitive economy as religious because nature always gave freely to man, causing man to sacrifice food to remove his basic guilt...which may solve the dilema as to why native people were not content to just "exist" in paradise and be happy: Primitve life was a rich and playful dramatization of cosmic flirtation until Western man, who had long ago forgoten how to "play", came into the picture. Becker: "Society...is a dramatization of dependence and an exercise in mutal safety by the one animal in evolution who had to figure out a way of appeasing himself...We can conclude that primitives were more honest about these things---about guilt and debt---because they were more realistic about man's desperate situation vis-a-vis nature. Becker's insights unfold in front of you like a nasty animal you shine light on in your basement in the darkness. Read "Escape from Evil" along with "Denial of Death" and be prepared to either deny it all...or sit upright in the silent confines of your home and wonder what to do next...
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