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Exploring Human Behavior and Death Anxiety Through Art
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The Organ Mountains—Las Cruces, New Mexico,” January 12, 2025

The Origins of Evil

Quinn Jacobson January 12, 2025

The title of my book includes the phrase “The Origins of Evil.” The full title is In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil. I want to share some of the writing I’ve been working on around this theme.

Humans have grappled with the concept of evil ever since we became conscious—since we gained the ability to understand what others feel, a capacity tied to the theory of mind. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been preoccupied with the ways humans treat one another—whether it’s the large-scale horror of war or the quiet, everyday conflicts between neighbors. Ernest Becker’s perspective on this resonates deeply with me, and his work continues to shape how I think about these issues.

Ernest Becker viewed evil not as an external force or inherent quality but as a human creation, deeply rooted in our existential condition. According to Becker, the psychological strategies we use to deal with the fear of death give rise to evil. At its core, Becker saw evil as the destructive outcomes of humanity's denial of mortality, expressed through the dehumanization, domination, and destruction of others.

Evil as the Byproduct of Death Denial

Becker believed that humans, aware of their mortality, develop cultural worldviews or meaning systems that give their lives significance and offer a sense of symbolic immortality. These worldviews—whether religious, political, or ideological—help shield individuals from existential terror. However, when these worldviews are threatened, people react defensively and often violently. Evil, in Becker’s terms, is what results when individuals or societies use domination, violence, or oppression to preserve their illusions of immortality and meaning.

The Role of "Otherness" in Evil

For Becker, the creation of the "other" lies at the heart of human evil. To preserve their meaning systems, people project their fears and insecurities onto those who hold different worldviews. By dehumanizing others, they justify violence, exclusion, or oppression. In this way, evil is often framed as a necessary act to protect the "good"—a tragic irony Becker frequently emphasized.

Evil as an Attempt to Eradicate Evil

Becker saw evil as a paradox: much of human violence is committed in the name of eliminating evil. Whether through religious crusades, genocides, or wars, societies often justify atrocities as moral imperatives to rid the world of perceived threats. However, this effort to purge the world of "evil" only perpetuates it. Becker argued that this cycle is driven by humanity's unconscious fear of mortality and the desire to assert control over an uncontrollable reality.

Heroism and Evil

Becker connected evil to humanity’s desperate pursuit of heroism, the drive to achieve significance in the face of death. He argued that this pursuit can lead to both constructive and destructive outcomes. When heroism involves creativity, compassion, or self-transcendence, it can inspire greatness. However, when it involves domination over others, it leads to evil. He noted that totalitarian ideologies and imperial conquests often stem from this darker side of heroism, as leaders and followers alike seek to assert their worldview at the expense of others.

Evil as the Fear of Impermanance and Insignificance

Evil, in his view, is also rooted in humanity’s fear of impermanence and insignificance. The knowledge of our impermanence drives people to cling to meaning systems that promise eternal significance, or symbolic immortality. When these systems are threatened by alternative perspectives or "others," people lash out. This existential anxiety becomes the psychological basis for atrocities as individuals and societies attempt to assert their importance by diminishing or annihilating others.

Systemic Evil

Becker recognized that evil often becomes systemic, embedded in cultural and institutional frameworks. When groups define themselves as morally or spiritually superior, they create structures that dehumanize and marginalize others. For example, he linked the violence of colonization to the death anxiety of the colonizers, who sought to suppress indigenous cultures to reinforce their own symbolic systems. This has happened throughout humanity to a wide range of marginalized populations. You can see it today, played out all over the world.

Ernest Becker Quotes about Evil

"Men cause evil by wanting heroically to triumph over it, because man is a frightened animal who tries to triumph, an animal who will not admit his own insignificance." This underscores the paradoxical nature of evil—how humanity's denial of insignificance leads to destructive heroism.

"Man’s natural and inevitable urge to deny mortality and achieve a heroic self-image are the root causes of human evil." This directly ties evil to the existential dread that drives people to deny their creatureliness and seek immortality through domination.”

"The need for self-esteem entails the denigration of others." Becker saw the quest for personal or cultural significance as inherently competitive, often leading to the devaluation or destruction of those perceived as "threats."

The Solution to the Problem of Evil: Consciousness of Mortality

Becker believed that the solution to evil lies in confronting our fear of death rather than projecting it onto others.

I’ve written a lot about how artists can channel this awareness into their work, using it as both a buffer against anxiety and a constructive, non-destructive way to confront and process death anxiety.

He advocated for humility and self-awareness, urging humanity to recognize the shared condition of mortality. By facing our fears head-on, we could reduce the cycles of violence and othering that perpetuate evil.

In Becker’s framework, evil is not inherent to human nature but a symptom of our existential condition. It arises from our denial of death, our need for meaning, and our tendency to dehumanize others to sustain the fragile illusions that protect us from existential terror.

His work challenges us to confront these truths with honesty and courage, offering a path toward a more compassionate and self-aware existence.

“Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an aesthetic end.”
— James Joyce
In Evil, The Origins of Evil Tags evil, escape from evil, the origins of evil
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“Uprooted-Colorado Fern”—a whole plate, palladium-toned, photogenic drawing on waxed vellum paper.

I recently watched a documentary on Yayoi Kusama. It’s called “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity.” She’s a Japanese artist. She’s a painter, sculptor, and multimedia artist.

She was flying over the ocean and looking out of the window at the light hitting the water. That really inspired her, and she started making paintings that reflected that (no pun intended). She was addressing the idea of “infinity.” I mentioned Turtles All The Way Down a few days ago; it’s about infinite regress or infinity too. This is a wonderful theme to work with and think about.

The real message of the film was about discrimination and othering. She was female and Japanese in the 1960s and 70s, and the (white) American art world basically rejected her. Well-known artists stole her ideas and used them. They were recognized while she was ignored. She struggled with mental illness too—some parts of her life seemed very difficult. It was a moving piece of work. Another case of belittling and denigrating “the other” because of death anxiety.

I mention this film because I see the same pattern in these waxed vellum photogenic drawings as she painted. The background of these prints reflects light the same way water does. I think it’s beautiful. And I love the idea of infinity. Look at her early paintings (from the 1960s) and you’ll see what I mean.

Escape From Evil and Uprooted

Quinn Jacobson November 1, 2022

"An essential element of any art is risk. If you don't take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful that hasn't been seen before?"- Francis Ford Coppola, interview in 99u, 2011

ERNEST BECKER: ESCAPE FROM EVIL
Immortality and the pursuit of a perfect world. According to Becker, the majority of the bad things that people do—to both other people and the earth—are motivated by these aspirations. Starting with hunter-gatherer man, Becker illustrates how the notions of sacrifice and scapegoating were utilized in pre-civilized civilizations to try to please the gods. These were the first attempts by man to manipulate nature and force it to perform what man desired. Some would eventually assume the position of chief or shaman and serve as the intermediary for the people to seek the god's favor.

From ancient shamans and chiefs; kingship, religious states, and eventually money, all took turns in being in the service of man's attempts to fend off death. Becker looks at genocide as the technological amplification of ancient scapegoating--sacrificing the lives of some to appease the gods. He elaborates on how modern society still clings to those who they see as heroes to save them from their fears and the threats of death.

In the leading paragraph of his conclusion, Becker summarizes his points most succinctly.

"If I wanted to give in weakly to the most utopian fantasy I know, it would be one that pictures a world-scientific body composed of leading minds in all fields, working under an agreed general theory of human unhappiness. They would reveal to mankind the reasons for its self-created unhappiness and self-induced defeat; they would explain how each society is a hero system that embodies in itself a dramatization of power and expiation; how this is at once its peculiar beauty and its destructive demonism; how men defeat themselves by trying to bring absolute purity and goodness into the world. They would argue and propagandize for the nonabsoluteness of the many different hero systems in the family of nations and make public a continuing assessment of the costs of mankind's impossible aims and paradoxes: how a given society is trying too hard to get rid of guilt and the terror of death by laying its trip on a neighbor. Then men might struggle, even in anguish, to come to terms with themselves and their world."

When Becker speaks of expiation, he is speaking of the guilt that he believes many feel for the very act of existence. He argues throughout the book that people have sought to alleviate this guilt in many ways, through blood sacrifices, scapegoating, and projection. Becker argues that men do not kill out of hate, but out of heroic bloodlust. It is because men kill with lust that he believes the evil that men do is less likely to be corrected.

EVIL IS A VICIOUS CIRCLE: RID THE WORLD OF EVIL WITH EVIL?
It's because humans cannot accept their animal nature, their insignificance, and oblivion after death that so much evil comes into the world. As he says, "man is not human." Examine the war on drugs, its desire to create a utopian society with no perceived weakness through reliance on substances, and its subsequent effects. It has left a wake of shattered lives, and no progress has been made at all.

Consider the appeal of Trump, a man who truly embodies the hero system Becker wrote about in his book. As the hero for the downtrodden in America, Trump represents a strongman who can vanquish evil from the land. With his demonization of outsiders and reckless promises, we see parallels to when Becker wrote about the need to "fetishize evil," to locate the threat to life in some special places where it can be placated and controlled. Trump believes evil is in the Mexicans, the Muslims, Hillary Clinton, and the media. Trump’s supporters feel that now evil can be located, named, and vanquished. And Trump is the hero to do it. Becker's book, written before his death in 1974, argues that it's this very process that results in most of the evil in the world.

"Men defeat themselves by trying to bring absolute purity and goodness into the world." This can be leveled as criticism of the left as well: their purity tests, thought policing, and other extreme measures are being used in the service of purity and goodness. The left has killed millions in the past to achieve these ideological aims, and no doubt they will again. No matter which side you look at, when people take violence into their hands "to make the world a better place," they will continue to perpetuate the evil they claim to be eliminating.” (from Ian Felton’s book review).

“Uprooted-Colorado Fern”—a whole plate, palladium-toned, photogenic drawing on waxed vellum paper.

“Uprooted-Colorado Fern”—a cyanotype photogram.

“Uprooted-Colorado Fern”—a cyanotype photogram.

In Escape From Evil, Photogenic Drawing, Ernest Becker, Shadow of Sun Mountain Tags ernest becker, escape from evil, death anxiety, death denial
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