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Ernest Becker / Victor Frankl Term Paper

Becker had a much darker view of life than Frankl. His pessimism is reflected in the fact that, instead of focusing on the solution offered by therapy, Becker focused more upon the Denial of Death, or the cognitive fallacies and imaginative techniques human beings deploy to avoid death, such as idealizing another person, or trying to find something that they alone can uniquely excel at as a hero, even if this heroic ability is at something mundane. "The real world is simply too terrible to admit; it tells man that he is a small, trembling animal who will decay and die. Illusion changes all this, makes man seem important, vital to the universe, immortal in some way" (Becker 133). Frankl believed that the meaning of life, for the individual could not be created, but must be authentic. Becker believed that human beings were sustained by false, invented purposes and meanings on a daily basis. However, Becker also believed these false meanings could alleviate anxiety. But creating a purpose...

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Creating a goal, heroic or otherwise, would not stem the fear of death, however, it would create a sense of fulfillment that would make the anxiety seem worthwhile. "What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him" (Frankl 127). For Becker, the distractions did provide a relief, however false, but for Frankl, the source of a good life was a positive rather than a negative sense of anxiety.
Works Cited

Frankl, Viktor E. (19997) Man's Search for Meaning. New York: Pocket

Becker, Ernest. (1973). Denial of Death. New York: The Free Press.

Williams, Clifford. (2007). "The Denial of Death." Trinity College: Philosophy. Retrieved 5 Nov 2007 at http://tiunet.tiu.edu/faculty/cwilliam/cornerstone9.html

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Works Cited

Frankl, Viktor E. (19997) Man's Search for Meaning. New York: Pocket

Becker, Ernest. (1973). Denial of Death. New York: The Free Press.

Williams, Clifford. (2007). "The Denial of Death." Trinity College: Philosophy. Retrieved 5 Nov 2007 at http://tiunet.tiu.edu/faculty/cwilliam/cornerstone9.html
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