The Slavery of Death: Part 22, Worldview Defense, Doubt, Love & the Rubbish of Self-Esteem

In Part 20 of this series--The Devil's Work--we discussed, in light of the work of Ernest Becker, how our cultural worldviews make us violent. Given that our cultural worldviews, what Becker calls a hero system, prop up our self-esteem in the face of death we defend these worldviews from threat and critique. We generally do this by demonizing outgroup members. According to Becker this produces the great tragedy of human existence: That which supports my self-esteem--the cultural worldview--is the source of human evil.

This argument is no mere theory. The dynamics Becker describes have been documented in the laboratory. Researchers have worked Becker's theory into a research paradigm called Terror Management Theory (TMT) that has garnered significant empirical support.

Developed in the mid-1980s by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski, TMT has focused on two key questions rooted in the work of Ernest Becker:

1. Why are people so intensely concerned with their self-esteem?

2. Why do people cling so tenaciously to their own cultural beliefs and have such a difficult time coexisting with others different than themselves?

As we know, Ernest Becker gave an answer to the first question in The Denial of Death and an answer to the second in Escape from Evil. TMT follows Becker, suggesting that we are intensely concerned with self-esteem because it guides us through cultural worldviews that give life meaning and significance in the face of death. Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski summarize the core axioms of TMT, relating self-esteem to success in upholding cultural worldviews in order to achieve death transcendence:

TMT posits that humans share with all forms of life a biological predisposition to continue existence, or at least to avoid premature termination of life. However, the highly developed intellectual abilities that make humans aware of their vulnerabilities and inevitable death create the potential for paralyzing terror. Cultural worldviews manage the terror associated with this awareness of death primarily through the cultural mechanism of self-esteem, which consists of the belief that one is a valuable contributor to a meaningful universe. Effective terror management thus requires (1) faith in a meaningful conception of reality (the cultural worldview) and (2) belief that one is meeting the standards of value prescribed by the worldview (self-esteem). Because of the protection from the potential for terror that the psychological structures provide, people are motivated to maintain faith in their cultural worldviews and satisfy the standards of value associated with their worldviews.

Given the fact that self-esteem is involved in managing existential anxiety, Ernest Becker pointed out in Escape from Evil that the cultural worldviews that support our self-esteem are vulnerable to the critique of Otherness. The mere existence of alternative cultures, worldviews, religions, and value systems threatens the assumption that one’s own values, culture, or beliefs are timeless and eternal sources of meaning. Otherness threatens our self-esteem at the deepest level.

So in the face of this threat we demean, denigrate, or destroy ideological Others. We protect our existential equanimity by lashing out at difference. In the language of TMT we engage in worldview defense. In the words of Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski worldview defense occurs when we display “vigorous agreement with and affection for those who uphold or share our beliefs (or are similar to us) and equally vigorous hostility and disdain for those who challenge or do not share our beliefs (i.e., are different from us).”

We defend our worldview by siding with those who share our values and attacking those who do not, we display increased ingroup favoritism along with an increased tendency to denigrate outgroup members. And by engaging in these largely unconscious defensive processes we secure our cultural hero systems in the face of the existential threat posed by Otherness.

This is the source of human evil.

And empirical research backs up this conclusion. TMT studies have shown that, in the face of a death awareness prime, American participants denigrated non-Americans and Christians denigrated Jewish persons. In the face of death we lash out at these outgroup members to reap the solace found within our worldview, be that worldview based upon a nation or a god. And, more often than not, god and country are the very same things. In biblical language these are "principalities and powers" that keep us enslaved to sin due to our fear of death.

In many ways, you might say that the TMT research on worldview defense--denigrating outgroup members in the face of death--is how psychologists are studying demon possession in the laboratory.

In light of all this, how are we to be set free from the demonic impulse toward worldview defense?

Well, as described in the last post it seems clear that we have to "die" to the worldview and hero system. We have to "die" to the self-esteem project. And for the culturally religious, as described in the last post by Peter Rollins, this death also involves dying to the cultural god and religion.

But "death" here is largely a metaphor. What, exactly, does it look like when we "die" to the cultural worldview?

Let's get a start on an answer by thinking about this quote (a quote I ponder in the final chapter of The Authenticity of Faith) from Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld in their book In Praise of Doubt:

Sincere and consistent doubt is the source of tolerance.

In light of the work of Ernest Becker I think we can see the reasoning at work here. If fundamentalism about our worldviews--a neurotic dogmatism driven by death anxiety--is the source of violence (e.g., worldview defense) then the way toward love, embrace, welcome and hospitality toward others is letting go of certainty. That is, if I doubt and question my worldview, if I hold it lightly, then there is little desire or impulse on my part to defend my worldview or demonize its critics.

Doubt becomes the precondition of love.

This is exactly what Becker concluded in Escape from Evil. Becker was skeptical that we could abandon all hero systems. He believed that we need myths to orient our life projects, values and "greater goods" to narrate our lives. But we need to protect against the evils inherent in these myths, how they dispose us to become violent. The way forward is to treat these hero systems as fallible and open to criticism. In biblical language, hero systems need prophets. Becker's assessment:

Men cannot abandon the heroic. If we say that the irrational or mystical is a part of human groping for transcendence, we do not give it any blanket approval. But groups of men can do what they have always done--argue about heroism, assess the costs of it, show that it is self-defeating, a fantasy, a dangerous illusion and not one that is life-enhancing and ennobling. As Paul Pruyser so well put it, "The great question is: If illusions are needed, how can we have those that are capable of correction, and how can we have those that will not deteriorate into delusions?" If men live in myths and not absolutes, there is nothing we can do or say about that. But we can argue for nondestructive myths...

This is, incidentally, what I think Peter Rollins is doing in Insurrection, arguing for a myth--a way to use religious language--that is less destructive compared to the dominant myth of Christianity. The notion that "God is love and only love" is less self-defeating and dangerous, it is more life-enhancing and ennobling.

In summary, the way toward love is to begin to die to the hero system that brings us into conflict with others. This may involve a "dark night of the soul" but it will generally manifest as a self-criticism, suspicion and doubt about the hero system. Of course, there is an emotional cost to all this. But it is worth the price to find better ethical footing. Dogmatism is comforting--It is existentially cozy to have all the answers--but doubt is the route toward love.

But there is more here than just doubt. Recall again the connection between the cultural worldview and self-esteem. The doubt here isn't abstract. We're doubting the things that give us legitimacy and significance. We're doubting the ground of our identity. So the doubt here is as much psychological as it is philosophical.

What might this doubt about the foundations of self-esteem look like?

I think one of the best descriptions of this comes from Paul in Philippians:

Philippians 3.7-11
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Notice how Paul dies to the hero system. All those things that used to be props for his self-esteem project Paul now considers "loss" and "rubbish." It's also interesting to note how Paul focuses on the word "righteousness." As Ernest Becker points out, "righteousness" is just a religious synonym for self-esteem, it is the way we experience the self-esteem project within a religious hero system.

Paul has rejected all this. Paul rejects everything in his cultural worldview that made his life meaningful, important, significant and righteous.

In a certain sense, Paul no longer has self-esteem. He's left that game behind and the way it is pushed and pulled by a death anxiety that is masked as a quest for significance. Paul no longer has a self-esteem project. He has died to all that to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Paul no longer lives. Rather, the resurrected Christ lives within him setting him free from the slavery of death and the power of the devil.