Death Reminders & Terror Management Theory

DEATH REMINDERS
Albert Camus said, “The day when I am no more than a writer, I shall cease to be a writer.” Those words sit solidly with me. I can really feel what he meant by saying this. I feel the same way. I think we should always strive for our work to be more than just what it is. Whatever medium we work in, we should go beyond the medium itself. Art should transcend the materials, in other words. That’s why the concepts are so important; they carry the work to a bigger and more important place.

If you follow my blog, you know that my project (“In the Shadow of Sun Mountain”) is based on the human response to death anxiety. Specifically, what the European colonizers did to the indigenous people (Ute/Tabeguache) in the 19th century in Colorado. My photographs hold these places, plants, and objects as reminders of the behavior of the colonizers. The colonizers had a common worldview, or set of beliefs. This allowed for the justification of killing the Native Americans and stealing their land. You’ll read about Manifest Destiny in a couple of paragraphs. This is death anxiety and the denial of death played out and acted on in the worst way possible.

Ernest Becker’s theories are clear about why people do these kinds of things to “the other.” There are many reasons to feel threatened by people who are different. It can be as simple as physical appearance or as complex as what “god(s)” you believe in, or not. Or a combination of things.

Cultural worldviews drive these beliefs. Politics, socioeconomic status, and all kinds of cultural standards can provoke these threats. A person will feel secure in his/her/their environment if they’re sharing the same beliefs and acting on the same worldview—all shared experiences and beliefs. They find meaning and significance in common cultural activities. Look at the holidays—any of them. People find a great death anxiety buffer in participating in these kinds of things (see TMT below). If someone doesn’t participate or believe in the same kinds of things, this presents a problem. It’s a threat. When a person’s worldview is challenged, it provokes either conversion or confrontation. If the person that feels challenged can’t convince the “challenger” to come to their beliefs, bad things can happen. In the words of Sheldon Solomon, “My God is better than your God and I’ll kick your ass to prove it.” This is death anxiety acted out.

The colonizers thought that “God” had given them not only the right but had actually commanded them to take this land by force and kill the people here (“the other”). Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined in 1845, is the idea that the United States was destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent. That meant committing genocide on the Indigenous people here and stealing their land and resources. The Indigenous people that survived were moved to prisoner-of-war camps, also known as reservations.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. It’s been going on since the beginning of humanity. And it’s not the most recent instance of this kind of behavior either. It happens all of the time, all over the world. It’s our human condition that drives us to commit these atrocities and to believe that we’re justified in doing so. It’s our denial of death, our death anxiety that’s at the root of it—the driver or motivator for it. We are so terrified of not existing, we make up stories, hide behind material stuff, try to gain status and money, we try anything and everything so that we can quell the anxiety of mortality salience—or the knowledge of our impending death.

Susan Sontag wrote in her book, “Regarding the Pain of Others,” ”Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question of what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing 'we' can do -- but who is that 'we'? -- and nothing 'they' can do either -- and who are 'they?’-- then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.”

I want my art to evoke these feelings in the viewer. I want to encourage them to consider their own existential crisis—their own death anxiety. This is the purpose of my work: to offer some “food for thought" on these concepts.

TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY (TMT)
Terror management theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, and Solomon) holds that people specifically feel threatened by their own mortality, so to allay their anxiety, they subscribe to meaningful worldviews that allow them to feel enduring self-worth. TMT is a dual-defense model that explains how people protect themselves against concerns about death (mortality salience). According to TMT, the specific manner in which people respond is dependent on whether the concerns are conscious or unconscious. Conscious concerns about death are combated by proximal defenses aimed at eliminating the threat from focal attention. Once this goal has been accomplished, distal defenses become the primary method of protection. Distal defenses diminish unconscious concerns about mortality via a sense of meaning (i.e., worldviews) and value (i.e., self-esteem). Such defenses are also activated when death concerns are primed outside of conscious awareness. (J.K. Thompson, ... S. Chait, in Encyclopedia of Body Image and Human Appearance, 2012)

Plate #122-”Fringed Sage (Artemisia Frigida)” whole plate cyanotype from a wet collodion negative.

Plate #121 - In the Shadow of Sun Mountain

Morning walks with Jeanne get me to reflect on topics I've been reading about and researching concerning my project. I always come across things that make me think or motivate me. The cool mountain air and the beauty of the changing seasons are lovely; it’s a great environment to meditate on what I’m trying to do. If there’s something that really hits me hard, when I get home, I’ll head to the darkroom and begin the process of making a photograph. Today was one of those days.

It works well on some days and not so well on others. Regardless, I enjoy the entire creative process. It's challenging trying to make visuals that support the concepts or ideas I have in my head and heart. Symbolism is my staple for this work. Yes, the content is "real" and represents what it is, but my desire is to take it to a deeper conceptual level. We’re symbolic in so many ways, and we create lives that symbolize something they’re not. I’m fascinated and intrigued by these kinds of ideas.

I love the painterly quality and color of the cyanotype (below). I’m going to explore some other organic compounds to tone these prints. I used tannic acid and gallic acid on this one. A lot of people don’t like how the tannic acid stains the paper. I like it. It adds a sense of age to the print. It feels like something else—and it kind of transcends photography.

Plate #121-Whole plate toned cyanotype from a wet collodion negative.

Homo aestheticus: where art comes from and why.
All human societies throughout history have given a special place to the arts. Even nomadic peoples who own scarcely any material possessions embellish what they do own, decorate their bodies, and celebrate special occasions with music, song, and dance. A fundamentally human appetite or need is being expressed—and met—by artistic activity. As Ellen Dissanayake argues in this stimulating and intellectually far-ranging book, only by discovering the natural origins of this human need of art will we truly know what art is, what it means, and what its future might be. Describing visual display, poetic language, song and dance, music, and dramatic performance as ways by which humans have universally, necessarily, and immemorially shaped and enhanced the things they care about, Dissanayake shows that aesthetic perception is not something that we learn or acquire for its own sake but is inherent in the reconciliation of culture and nature that has marked our evolution as humans. What "artists" do is an intensification and exaggeration of what "ordinary people" do, naturally and with enjoyment—as is evident in premodern societies, where artmaking is universally practiced. Dissanayake insists that aesthetic experience cannot be properly understood apart from the psychobiology of sense, feeling, and cognition--the ways we spontaneously and commonly think and behave. If homo aestheticus seems unrecognizable in today's modern and postmodern societies, it is so because "art" has been falsely set apart from life, while the reductive imperatives of an acquisitive and efficiency-oriented culture require us to ignore or devalue the aesthetic part of our nature. Dissanayake's original and provocative approach will stimulate new thinking in the current controversies regarding multicultural curricula and the role of art in education. Her ideas also have relevance to contemporary art and social theory and will be of interest to all who care strongly about the arts and their place in human, and humane, life.
Source: Publisher
Dissanayake, E. (1992). Homo aestheticus: where art comes from and why. New York: Free Press.

Taking A Deeper Dive Into My Concept - The Denial of Death

“Art is crucial for transforming death and pain into forms that can in some way enhance the life that remains.” 
- Robert Jay Lifton

Making Art is difficult. It’s a moving target. No one can just sit down one day and write out a concept, plan, and execute it all without changes, transformation, etc. And sometimes there are major changes to the ideas and concepts. Maybe even to the work. How it’s made, what it’s made with, etc.

As you make work, it reveals something to you. It reveals direction and purpose. But the heart of the work revolves around meaning.

“Deer Antlers” Plate #102. Whole Plate Palladiotype from a wet collodion negative.

As I make prints and live with these images my mind is changing the course of the concept of the work. I’ve been thinking about my project in terms of death anxiety lately. If you ever get a chance, watch my YouTube show called, “Dr. Sheldon Solomon, Death Denial & Artists, Terror Management Theory - Death Anxiety, Ernest Becker“. I was fortunate enough to have Dr. Sheldon Solomon on as a guest and we talked about all of this stuff. He co-authored a book called. “The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life”. It’s a book about Terror Management Theory (TMT). It’s basically Becker’s theories put to the test. In other words, Solomon and his colleagues test Becker’s theories in real life. Do we act differently toward people who are different when we are reminded of our mortality? What’s the driving force behind all human activity? Why do we start wars? Why do we commit genocide? Etcetera, etcetera.

This is what my project is slowly bringing forward. The more I think about these ideas and re-read the books I have, the more I move toward this as a main theme of the work.

I’ve studied Becker and Solomon for a few years. I first read, “The Denial of Death” by Ernest Becker a few years ago. In it, he argues that “the basic motivation for human behavior is our biological need to control our basic anxiety, to deny the terror of death.” (Keen 1973). Becker suggested that a significant function of culture is to provide successful ways to engage in death denial. Becker also noted that the root of evil lies in the selfishness of human beings seeking to protect their own existence in the face of their mortality, which he regarded as an essential aspect of human nature. Recognizing such evil within human beings gave Becker concern about the future of human society.

It had a big impact on me. It influenced my photography in major ways. I realized the question that I had been asking for over 30 years was, “Why do people do the things they do?” I was asking the question specifically as it applies to marginalized communities and how they are treated. Graduate school helped a lot but Becker put it all in perspective for me.

I quickly learned that the knowledge of our impending death is the reason we treat the “other” (anyone different from us in any way) the way we do. Anyone who threatens our “hero systems” either needs to conform to our belief system or be eliminated. Becker describes the human pursuit of “immortality projects” (or causa sui), in which we create or become part of something that we feel will outlast our time on earth. In doing so, we feel that we become heroic and part of something eternal that will never die, compared to the physical body that will eventually die. This gives human beings the belief that our lives have meaning, purpose, and significance in the grand scheme of things.

If our system that keeps death anxiety at bay is challenged (our hero systems), we lash out and can do horrible things. Ernest Becker said, “Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level.” Some of these “systems” are good, but most are bad. Becker argued that the conflict between contradictory immortality projects/hero systems (particularly in religion) is a wellspring for the violence and misery in the world caused by wars, genocide, racism, nationalism, and so forth, since immortality projects that contradicts one another threaten one’s core beliefs and sense of security.

As a vehicle for the masses to act out their urge for heroism, Becker went as far as to characterize society as a “codified hero system, which means that society everywhere is a living myth of the significance of human life, a defiant creation of meaning".

I feel like I have a good grasp of these concepts. I believe them to be true and accurate too. They answer questions (and ask) about the human condition in ways that I’ve never thought about. These are some of life’s very big questions. And these topics are dense and sometimes disturbing to deal with.

Currently, my project is dealing with the Ute, specifically, the Tabeguache band that lived on the land where I live now. It’s about my process of dealing with what I feel about living on stolen indigenous land. I’m trying to connect the landscape, rock formations, medicinal plants, and symbolic objects to the people that once occupied this land and were dispossessed of it. What I’m really dealing with is the question of death denial and death anxiety.

Ernest Becker said, “What man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance. Man wants to know that his life has somehow counted, if not for himself, then at least in a larger scheme of things, that it has left a trace, a trace that has meaning. And in order for anything once alive to have meaning, its effects must remain alive in eternity in some way. Or, if there is to be a ‘final’ tally of the scurrying of man on earth—a ‘judgment day’—then this trace of one's life must enter that tally and put on record who one was and that what one did was significant.”

My work isn’t about history. It’s not even about the Ute/Tabeguache. It’s about the denial of death, our immortality projects, and how we act these beliefs out.

This history is just one example of death anxiety. I could spend the day with you and show several small (or large) examples of this psychology playing out in our lives. This is what this work is really about. The questioning of human motivation, activity, and behavior; this history, this land, these places, and these objects, are simply ideas or metaphors to communicate those questions. I’ll continue to work on it.

“Meadow Barley” Plate #88. Whole Plate Palladiotype from a wet collodion negative.