The Studio Q Show LIVE! September 21, 2024 at 1000 MST

Greetings! 
I hope you can join me on Saturday for a conversation about war and violence in our culture. This is episode six of Conversations with Solomon. 

Some questions to ponder after watching the video:

What aspects of the video did you find the most engaging or thought-provoking?

Do you believe that war and violence are inevitable aspects of human existence?

If you agree, what reasons support this belief?

How might the themes of violence and war in our culture be expressed or transformed into artistic creations?

Can you give any examples of artists using war and violence as a topic in their art?

I wanted to have this conversation a couple of weeks ago. It's so timely; I think we should look at the idea of war and violence as a jumping-off point for creating art. This is a topic that hits close to home for me. For those that have served in the military, these ideas can alleviate some of the trauma and stress from serving. I'll share some personal insight (my military time) and how Becker had a similar experience in the Army after WW2 liberating the death camps of Europe. Ernest Becker served in the infantry as well.

If you can, spend some time with this; take some notes and wrestle with the questions I asked (above) or your own. It's 40 minutes long, but worth every minute. 

Conversations With Solomon: War and Violence

The links to the show on Saturday:

Stream Yard: https://streamyard.com/tvn88jifd2

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/live/AG2mKG-VrP0?si=Rar2IUvz-shViVLW

I hope you have a wonderful week, and I hope to see you Saturday! 

The Studio Q Show LIVE! September 4, 2024 at 1700 MST

Join Quinn on Wednesday evening (September 4, 2024, at 1700 MST) for a talk with Dr. Sheldon Solomon, author of The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. Quinn and Sheldon will talk about how artists differ in their response to death anxiety. What can an artist do to harness this powerful psychological phenomenon? Can the knowledge of our impending deaths make us more creative?

The Studio Q Show LIVE! August 10, 2024 at 1000 MST

Join Quinn to discuss Sheldon Solomon's video on bigotry, “Conversations with Solomon.” How can we use this for making art? What inspiration does this provide for creative and expressive work? Moreover, how is this connected the fear of mortality?

“Because cultural conceptions of reality keep a lid on mortal dread, acknowledging the legitimacy of beliefs contrary to our own unleashes the very terror those beliefs serve to quell. So we must parry the threat by derogating and dehumanizing those with alternative views of life, by forcing them to adopt our beliefs and co-opting aspects of their cultures into our own, or by obliterating them entirely.”
― Sheldon Solomon, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life

Stream Yard: https://streamyard.com/mzkprn3tk6

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/live/B3-zv1rmisQ?si=3SNju_bd21ua8sq2

The Human Flight from Death: The Driving Force of Civilization

In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil}

The people who follow my writing here know that the concept of my project and book is based on Ernest Becker’s theories of death anxiety and the denial of death. Additionally, Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski—the creators of terror management theory (TMT) and authors of "The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life"—have had a significant influence on it.

My objective is to describe or explain these theories in relation to the genocide, removal, and general marginalization of the Tabeguache-Ute (known today as Uncompahgre-Ute) indigenous people. I live on their land in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, U.S.A.

I'm using art to accompany the theories. And I'm also exploring my own dilemma of coming to terms with death. This work is multifaceted, but the main objective is to communicate WHY these kinds of things happen in the world, past and present. Moreover, there are reasons why they will never stop happening.

Death: It’s a difficult topic to talk about, and we’ve evolved to repress and deny it. We've had to psychologically repress this knowledge; if we weren't able to, we would be paralyzed with anxiety and dread. We use culture to do this. All kinds of pursuits help us distract ourselves from thinking about our impeding death, which could happen at any time for any reason, unknown to us. This has a lot more implications than we realize. I recently read an article by John Gray on Substack.com. He is clear, concise, and hits all of the points of both Becker and The Worm at the Core psychologists, Solomon et al.

He wrote:

“An idea of an afterlife emerged along with human beings.

Around 115,000 years ago, graves were being fashioned containing animal bones, flowers, medicinal herbs, and valuables such as ibex horns. By 35,000–40,000 years ago, complete survival kits—food, clothing, and tools—were being placed in graves throughout the world. Humankind is the death-defined animal.

As humans became more self-aware, the denial of death became more insistent. For the American cultural anthropologist and psychoanalytical theorist Ernest Becker (1924–74), the human flight from death has been the driving force of civilization. Fear of death is also the source of the ego, which humans build in order to shield themselves from helpless awareness of their passage through time to extinction.

More than most, Becker’s life was formed by encounters with death. At the age of eighteen, he joined the army and served in an infantry battalion that liberated a Nazi extermination camp.

When he was dying of cancer in hospital in December 1973, he told a visitor, the philosopher Sam Keen: ‘You are catching me in extremis. This is a test of everything I’ve written about death. And I’ve got a chance to show how one dies.’

Becker’s theories were set out in The Denial of Death (1973), for which he received a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1974, and developed further in Escape from Evil, which appeared two years after his death.” (John Gray)

“Granite & Quartz Rock, Dead Foxtail, and Purple Thistles,” 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25,4 cm) Reversal Direct Color Print August 12, 2023

Cracks in the Shields

"The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life"

Chapter 10: Cracks in the Shields (Mental Health and Terror Management Theory)

- SCHIZOPHRENIA: DEATH DEFIED

- PHOBIAS AND OBSESSIONS: DEATH DISPLACED

- POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER: THE SHIELD SHATTERED

- DEPRESSION: DEATH VISIBLE

- SUICIDE: DEATH ENACTED

- ALCOHOL AND OTHER DRUGS: DEATH DIFFUSED

- MENDING THE CRACKS IN THE SHIELDS

This is a reading of the book "The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life" by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski. Quinn will read a chapter every week and then have a discussion about it. This book, along with "The Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker, is the basis for Quinn's (photographic) book, "In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Genesis of Evil."

When: Saturday, May 20, 2023, at 1000 MST

Where: My YouTube channel and Stream Yard

YouTube: https://youtube.com/live/CEHh0Kr51NI

Stream Yard: https://streamyard.com/5cmyj3e4a4

#intheshadowofsunmountain #ernestbecker #deathanxiety #denialofdeath #sheldonsolomon #jeffgreenberg #tompyszcynski #terrormanagementtheory #thewormatthecore #quinnjacobson #studioQ #chemicalpictures #proximalanddistaldefenses #ra4reversal

The Worm at the Core: Chapter 4: Homo Mortalis From Primate to Human

Photo: Half Plate Negative/Albumen Print, "Black Man in Germany" 2008

Chapter 4: Homo Mortalis From Primate to Human

- The Dawn of Human Cognition

- Mortal Terror and the Invention of the Supernatural

- Ritual: Wishful Thinking in Action

- Sacrifice and Death Rites

- Art and the Supernatural

- Myth and Religion

- Bounding Across the “Yawning Chasm”

This is a reading of the book "The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life" by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski. Quinn will read a chapter every week and then have a discussion about it. This book, along with "The Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker, is the basis for Quinn's (photographic) book, "In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Genesis of Evil."

Saturday, April 8, 2023, at 1000 MST on my YouTube channel and Stream Yard. Links to the show are on my blog.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nJjfE0wvS8

Stream Yard: https://streamyard.com/udpybu94wi

#intheshadowofsunmountain #ernestbecker #deathanxiety #denialofdeath #sheldonsolomon #jeffgreenberg #tompyszcynski #terrormanagementtheory #thewormatthecore #quinnjacobson #studioQ #chemicalpictures

Winter Activities: Reading, Writing, and Research

It’s really exciting for me to be able to find connections between psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and my work. I dig deep for them, but when I find them, it’s like a big, bright light illuminating my way. To blend the social sciences and art seems like a stretch, but you’d be surprised how related and relevant it is. It fits well together in the right context.

Reading, writing, and research are what I’m mostly doing over the winter. I will make a few images, but I live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and at almost 9,000 feet above sea level, it gets cold and snowy here. However, we do have some really nice sunny days in between the storms. I’ll try to take advantage of those when I can.

Most of my day is spent writing the text for my book and laying out the chapters for it. I can see it’s going to be a big job organizing the writing. Right now, I have a rough draft of what the direction will be, and I have most of the introduction written. I continue to edit and rewrite my artist’s statement, too. As the project evolves and becomes clearer, I can articulate the main points better. I have a lot of the psychology and philosophical anthropology written. The organization of that will be the big challenge. I don’t want the book to be a non-pharmacological intervention for insomnia. I want it to be easily consumed and understood. A big challenge for sure, but I’m up to it and very excited to do it.

The book, right now, looks like this:
Foreword
Chapter 1: Artist’s Statement
Chapter 2: Introduction
Chapter 3: Death Anxiety
Chapter 4: Terror Management Theory
Chapter 5: The Photographs
Chapter 6: Essays
Afterword

I’m reading and re-reading these books over the winter. These books have taught me so much about psychology, anthropology, and philosophy. They make up the vast majority of references for my book. I highly recommend reading them if you haven’t.

Death Reminders & Mortality Salience

“If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst.” Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was a British novelist.

"We discovered that subtle, and even subliminal, reminders of death increase devotion to one’s cultural scheme of things, support for charismatic leaders, confidence in the existence of God, and belief in the efficacy of prayer. They amplify our disdain toward people who do not share our beliefs, even to the point of taking solace in their demise. They drive us to compulsively smoke, drink, eat, and shop. They make us uncomfortable with our bodies and our sexuality. They impel us to drive recklessly and fry ourselves in tanning booths to bolster our self-esteem. They magnify our phobias, obsessions, and social anxieties."
The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life

Terror Management Theory (TMT) was developed in 1986 by social psychologists Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, and Sheldon Solomon based on Ernest Becker’s ideas. They wrote the book, “The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life.” William James wrote in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) that awareness of our inevitable, unavoidable deaths is the “worm at the core” of human existence and consciousness. Hence the desperate imperative to avoid that awareness – to deny it and to live as if somehow we might be immortal. (Ernest Becker Foundation)

The Terror Management Theory (TMT) is such good empirical evidence for Becker’s theories. It’s solid and repeatable. It answers so many questions about human behavior.

If you pay attention, especially this time of year, you’ll see droves of people with high death anxiety acting out, trying to quell their terror. Death reminders are everywhere. They’re all around us every day. The pandemic alone created daily death reminders. They happen when you see an ambulance or an accident when you're watching the news, or even when you're driving by a funeral home (usually subconsciously). These death reminders have consequences, and most people are unaware of what they’re even doing when they’re buffering their death anxiety. In Kirkegaard’s words, "they tranquilize with the trivial."

How do you communicate these ideas? It’s very difficult. Most people will shrug them off and justify what they’re doing in any way they can, or they’ll deny them completely. Moreover, most couldn’t care less about these theories. Sometimes, I feel like I’m the crazy religious guy standing on the street corner preaching doom and gloom. I’m hoping that my book will change some minds and at least open the door to being interested in what this is all about.

Psychology has persuaded me to think differently about human behavior and the reasons we do what we do. As I go through the process of deconstructing these theories, I find myself less inclined to follow the masses and less interested in activities that are blatantly in place to buffer the terror of death. The life illusions and all of the "vital lies."

As I learn more about human behavior and Becker’s theories, it makes me more compelled to offer these ideas to those who are curious about why they do what they do. These ideas are life-changing. They’ll engage your mind and, eventually, change your behavior. Moreover, you'll start to discover what's really meaningful and what you're truly grateful for.

Being conscious and fully aware of your own death anxiety and the buffers you use will give you a more authentic life. I'm not saying you'll be enlightened or reach Nirvana, but you will reveal your real self to yourself. Socrates said that the true philosopher does nothing but practice dying and being dead. “So, that’s what philosophy is: a practice for death." That brings peace, appreciation for life, gratitude, and humility—things we all need more of in these precarious times.

Are You Challenging My Illusion?

I want to direct this essay directly at you. I want to talk about your death anxiety. I’m trying to find the best way to succinctly explain it to you. I want to explain what it is, the fact that it exists in everyone, how you repress it and why, and what happens when your illusion is challenged. I hope you get something from it.

The first issue to deal with is understanding that death anxiety is the main driver or motivator in life. In hierarchical order, this is at the top. Everything else would be listed below it. Everything. Also, if you didn’t know it, it’s the premise of my project, ”In the Shadow of Sun Mountain.” This is what the work is about.

First things first, in that order. Like other living creatures, we have a strong instinct to stay alive. We are also the only beings (or animals) that know we are going to die. That creates some major cognitive dissonance, psychologically speaking. What does that do to us exactly? It creates death anxiety. How do we cope with death anxiety? We repress it. We bury it deep in our subconscious. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to stand up in the morning. It would be overwhelming.

How do we bury it? What mechanisms are in place to do that? To answer those questions, we need to address illusions, or what Becker calls “immortality projects.” He says we all strive for heroism. It’s our cultural worldview that provides the buffer and allows us to put death out of our minds. We bury this terror (the knowledge of our death) through our cultural worldviews. Whatever our culture holds up to be meaningful and significant is what we use. For example, we find meaning and significance in our jobs, our families, our social clubs, making art, religion, holidays, earning money, a manicured lawn in suburbia, material things, a fancy sports car, being youthful, being famous, etcetera, etcetera. It’s anything that the culture holds up as meaningful and significant. These distractions allow us to psychologically bury the terror of mortality. Striving for heroism distracts us from the reality of our human condition. Everyone has a buffer; if they didn’t, they would be in a constant state of anxiety and depression. Sheldon Solomon said if we had to psychologically deal with our death—if it was constantly on our mind—we wouldn’t be able to stand up in the morning. We’d be reaching for a Valium the size of a Buick to deal with existing. Whether you realize this or not, you do it every day. That’s how you make it through each day.

"The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death." - Gore Vidal

Some “immortality projects” are not ideal—the pursuit of wealth and fame, for example. While it seems worthwhile and meaningful, it’s always short-lived and very superficial. The pursuit of staying young through surgeries, botox, and hair dye will only last so long too. It’s all done in vain and will never work—none of them will. However, some are better for humanity and the environment than others. I believe good or healthy projects include creative pursuits, spending time with loved ones, being in nature, critical thinking, authenticity, and working on gratitude, humility, and openness. Albert Camus said, “There is only one liberty, to come to terms with death, thereafter, anything is possible.“ I think what he meant by this is that living in reality, as harsh as it may be, will give you freedom—true freedom from the illusions we use to buffer the anxiety of death. I think of Buddhist monks, for example. They understand that life is suffering (death anxiety) and meditate every day on death.

What happens when your illusion is challenged? Anytime your anxiety buffer, or illusion, is challenged, it will cause you to react in a negative way. Religion or politics are good examples of this. When someone from a different religion or political group says or does something you disagree with, it makes you angry, it stirs emotion, and it makes you question, subconsciously, if your illusion is the correct illusion. When that happens, your instinct is to defend your illusion, sometimes at all costs. This is where the treatment of “the other” comes into play. We start wars, we kill, we ostracize, we humiliate, and we hate all to defend our illusion or worldview. That’s how much we want to buffer the knowledge of our death and impermanence.

TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY (TMT)
This is a great video to explain all of this. The movie, “The Matrix” really deals with TMT and how we fashion the world we want to live in or not.

“Rocky Mountain Wheat Grass-Photogenic Drawing,” a whole plate, palladium-toned, waxed, photogenic drawing on vellum paper. I designed a way to process these with the deepest color and to fit cleanly into the whole plate (6.5” x 8.5”) window opening of the mat. They look super gorgeous—I hope you can get an idea from the iPhone photo!

THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE
I have to mention Thomas Ligotti's book, "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror." I have not read it, not completely anyway. I get the gist of it from what I have read. It’s heavy. It’s depressing and can challenge you with some of his “truths.” The author is known for supernatural horror stories. In this book, he uses philosophy, metaphysics, science, and biology to make the claim that life is a mistake. "Existence is a condition with no redeeming qualities,” he writes. and that’s tame compared to some of it. Here’s the strange part: there is a lot of it that I agree with. He borrowed a page or two from Becker’s books.

Like a Buddhist, he believes that life is suffering and that “human suffering will remain insoluble as long as human beings exist.” And the sooner human beings cease to exist, the better. But why does he write this, and what is the “conspiracy” of the title? It all stems from the self-knowledge that we do our best not to acknowledge: the fact that we alone of all living creatures know that we are going to die. Does that sound familiar? As with Eve’s apple or the snake in the Garden of Eden, “human existence [is] a tragedy that need not have been were it not for the intervention in our lives of a single, calamitous event: the evolution of consciousness—the parent of all horrors.” In other words, we act as if we lack “the knowledge of a race of beings that is only passing through this shoddy cosmos.” He addresses the absurdity of life, drawing on Albert Camus and other absurdist philosophers.

He’s not the first person to postulate that consciousness was an evolutionary mistake. Many philosophers have hinted at it for millennia. I’m not sure it was a mistake, but it does create big problems for us. Trying to reconcile our biological drive to stay alive with knowing we are going to die and be forgotten is a big burden to bear, as is understanding that everything we do is an illusion that we create to distract us from the knowledge that there is no purpose or meaning in life.

Before processing and waxing the print.

At The Core Of My New Project: Death Anxiety

Have you ever wondered what makes us (humans) act the way we do? Why are we always looking to blame our difficulties and problems on someone else? What makes human beings racist? Or why do some think of themselves as superior or better than others? What drives people to commit murder and genocide? These are some of the big questions I’ve wrestled with most of my life. And this, at its core, is what my project, "In the Shadow of Sun Mountain," is about.

Over the past 30 years, I’ve made portraits of people from marginalized communities. I’ve asked questions about why we treat people that look different, have a different lifestyle, or believe something different than we do with contempt and distrust. If you read my statement from the work called "Portraits From Madison Avenue," you’ll connect the dots of why and how this started with me.

While I’m not a cultural anthropologist, I really connect with the kinds of questions they ask about human behavior. In a lot of ways, these questions have driven me to use a camera and become an artist. It’s the only way I know how to address these massive, unanswerable questions about our existence and our behavior.

So what is this work about? It’s very important to me that I communicate the details of this work explicitly (the ideas, not the images). I want to make sure the viewer is aware that this is not a documentary project about Native Americans. This project is about how the denial of death or death anxiety influences and drives human behavior. Every human being struggles with it. The theory of death anxiety is responsible for the genocide against the Native Americans.

These ideas are based on Ernest Becker's books "The Denial of Death," "The Birth and Death of Meaning," and "Escape From Evil." I’ve studied his theories for a few years now and have been heavily influenced by them. This is the first work that I’ve made where I directly address it and place the imagery into the theories. I’ve also been reading Sheldon Solomon’s work on Terror Management Theory (TMT) for some time. He co-wrote the book, "The Worm At The Core: The Role Of Death In Life." I had him as a guest on my YouTube show last year. I encourage you to watch it if you haven’t. These are the ideas that are driving this project.

Why is this important? To me, this work transcends photography. It's photography, but it’s not about photography. The photographs act as a catalyst to communicate ideas, questions, theories, and beliefs. And yes, the images are made where some of these terrible events took place. And there are images in the project about what the Ute/Tabeguache used; medicinal plants, for example, or the symbols they embraced. It’s not that the content is irrelevant, not at all; it’s just that the ideas are much bigger than the photographs. For me, this is what art really is-it provides a framework for a larger understanding of something or it can encourage thinking and questioning about the "big questions”. Things that all of us struggle with.

I would encourage you to delve into these theories and learn about them—really understand them. There’s a great set of videos on YouTube called "Conversations With Solomon." If you have any interest at all, you should watch them—there are six videos in the series. And, if you’re a reader, check out the books I mentioned earlier in this post. These are truly life-changing ideas. Becker’s wish was that everyone was aware of these theories. He believed that if you knew what made you think about "that person" or "those people" (“us” versus “them”) the way that you do, you would have a chance to think rather than just feel, an awareness that could change the dynamics of human behavior.