This Czech-language edition of Ernest Beckers now-classic work offers a brilliant and passionate answer to the question of why human existence is the way it is. Becker proposes that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate symbolic defense mechanism against awareness of our own mortality. Because people have a dual nature, consisting of a physical and a symbolic self, we can overcome the dilemma of mortality through heroism connected with our symbolic side. He describes humanitys pursuit of immortality projects, through which we create something that we believe will outlive our earthly existence. In this way, we feel that we become heroes and part of something eternal that, unlike the physical body, will never die. Yet our heroic projects, intended to destroy evil, paradoxically bring even more evil into the world. Human conflicts become struggles to the deathmy gods against yours, my immortality project against yours. The root of human evil is not our animal nature, territorial aggression or innate selfishness, but our need for self-esteem, denial of mortality and a heroic self-image. Our desire for the best is the cause of the worst. Elisabeth Kbler-Ross calls the book a brilliant and desperately needed synthesis of the most important disciplines in human life, and one of those rare masterpieces that stimulate thought and intellectual curiosity while also nourishing the soul.
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