“The neurotic opts out of life because he is having trouble maintaining his illusions about it, which proves nothing less than that life is possible only with illusions.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
“The neurotic opts out of life because he is having trouble maintaining his illusions about it, which proves nothing less than that life is possible only with illusions.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
I’ve had some interesting discussions lately about my departure from making photographs. I suppose it was a bit surprising for the people who don’t know me very well to see me posting paintings and not photographic prints. I’d say for the ones that know me better, it's not so surprising.
How and why did I move in this direction? I have to start out by saying this wasn’t an accident, not in the traditional sense anyway. I’ve been (slowly) moving in this direction for at least two years, even longer if I step back farther. Also, when winter hits here in the mountains, my darkroom and studio are shut down (off-the-grid). I decided to paint and write this winter, and that’s what I’ve been doing.
After decades in photography, I needed to explore something more personal and expressive. I would even say painting is more liberating in a lot of ways than photography. I love photography; I will always make photographs, but this project, as well as my need for deeper, more personal creativity, needed something different and something beyond photography (realism or straight representational work).
What is abstract art? I define it as something in the real world that is reduced to it’s minimal parts. Usually bright or non-traditional colors and even distorted shapes. I’ve talked about non-objective or non-representational abstract work before; this is the same idea only using shapes, lines, and colors that are not representational of anything in the real world. I’m interested in both. The interesting rock formations I live near or even the cracks in the dirt paths and roads I travel on—all things that exist in the real world—can inspire me at times. And other times, I’m more interested in non-objective or non-representational work. I call it “psychological abstracts.” Paintings that come from the unconscious or subconscious mind. The unconscious and subconscious are two different phenomena. The unconscious is a process that happens automatically and is not available for introspection. The subconscious is part of our consciousness process that is not actively in focal awareness. These areas are where Becker focused his attention and his theories about existential terror. I’m a bit preoccupied with these ideas and like to see how painting reveals them. Something photography can’t really do.
My latest project, “In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil,” led me to break out the paint and brushes. It was not only the physical attributes but, moreover, the psychological impact of making paintings about our subconscious in relation to existential dread or terror. That’s probably the biggest reason for the direction I’m working in now. I find it both fascinating and powerful to create art from a place that most of us rarely think about. I like to experience a painting reveal itself to me with every brush stroke, mark, or application of paint. It is very empowering and satisfying for me.
After almost 40 years of making photographs and working in all of the mediums, variants, and formats, I simply wanted to explore something more personal. less mechanical and intimate. Painting answered that desire in a profound way. I can say with some certainty that painting will always be involved in my creative process. I really like the combination of the representational idea of photography and abstract painting.
This is a really good article that was published on Psychology Today by Jodi Wellman, MAPP. It's worth the read.
How We Manage Our Fears of Death
Terror Management Theory and Mortality Salience.
KEY POINTS
When we contemplate our mortality, conditions are ripe for terror and dread to potentially fill the void.
Faced with "mortality salience," we find comfort in worldviews and bolstered self-esteem.
Death reflection is a productive, experiential way to reflect on our impermanence.
Terror management theory (TMT) is a prominent theory within death studies and is born out of the belief that, as humans, we are wired with a drive for continued existence and enduring value (George & Park, 2014). When juxtaposed against our understanding that we won’t exist forever, conditions are ripe for terror and dread to potentially fill the void (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986).
We manage this disconcerting anxiety in two ways: we subscribe to a particular cultural worldview—a set of shared beliefs and values within an ingroup that provides order and meaning to us—and we also bolster our self-esteem, which is contingent on how well we believe we’ve adhered to the cultural worldviews we’ve adopted (George & Park, 2014).
Terror management theory allows us to suspend the disbelief of death and buy into the notion that some valued part of us will live on forever, even after we die. We might believe that we’ll literally carry on in an afterlife like heaven, symbolically seek to create a legacy through our children, or make a meaningful dent in the world in some way that will continue to exist beyond our time (Burke, Martens & Faucher, 2010).
Mortality Salience
Mortality salience—the level of awareness we possess that we’re vulnerable to inevitable death (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994)—evolved out of TMT to help conceptualize our behavior while we try to overcome our fears of mortality in the face of a deep need to stay alive (Mikulincer, & Florian, 2000). Studies consistently show that the act of pondering our demise causes us to cling more fiercely to our worldviews—whatever they might be—because they are the very constructs that help keep the terror of death at bay (Castano et al., 2011).
When the idea of death is made salient, study participants “double down” on their beliefs and value behaviors that align with their worldviews, while often disparaging others for presenting views that don’t match what they believe to be true (Castano et al., 2011).
Judges reminded of their mortality set an average bond of $455 in a hypothetical prostitution case, for example, compared to an average bond of $50 for the judges in a control group; by punishing others who violated their worldview beliefs, they reinforced their own worldviews to alleviate the tension caused by death priming (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997).
Flashing the word "death" on a computer screen to American research participants, for mere fractions of a second, turned them against an author who criticized the U.S. (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2015).
Individuals interviewed in front of a funeral home had a more supportive of view charities than people who weren’t as interested in making donations interviewed a few blocks out of the range of the mortality prompt (Jonas, Schimel, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2002).
Subtle reminders of death—like seeing an ambulance drive by, watching someone die onscreen, or even seeing wrinkles in the mirror—cause us to distance ourselves from our physicality (avoiding sex and other bodily activities that on some deep level signal that we’re so susceptibly perishable) and we turn up the dial on our symbolic value, like making our achievements, intellect and virtues shine (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2015).
Buffering the fear of death
Interestingly, there are ways to buffer ourselves from the angst of mortality salience. Heightened self-esteem reduces one’s worldview defense and has a protective quality against death concerns, as does the feeling of being powerful (Belmi & Pfeffer, 2016). Additionally, Juhl and Routledge’s (2016) research shows that people with high perceptions of meaning in life and people who define themselves as socially connected find themselves exempt from mortality salience anxieties, with no changes to their well-being (as measured by satisfaction with life and subjective vitality).
Encouraging individuals to reflect on their mortality awareness with openness, mindfulness and curiosity has also been shown to have a mediating effect on the guard they put up (Boyd, Morris & Goldenberg, 2017).
Experiencing mortality salience in the right context can ignite moral benefits like increasing tolerance of others and increasing one’s desire to be their best self (Oren, Shani & Poria, 2019); studies show that people (predominantly women) act in more prosocial ways in the week following death prompts (Belmi & Pfeffer, 2016).
Being primed with thoughts of death made study participants more likely to donate money into the future– a powerful demonstration of how inclined we are to want to leave a legacy that lets us live beyond the boundaries of our lifespans (Wade-Benzoni, Tost, Hernandez, & Larrick, 2012).
Reflecting on one’s own death also enhanced the levels of gratitude in study participants, as well as their appreciation of the simple pleasures in life (Frias, Watkins, Webber, & Froh, 2011).
Death reflection
Cozzolino (2006) notes that the typical mortality salience manipulations subjected to research participants represent death in a subliminal, generic, and abstract fashion—many steps removed from a true experience that might actually mimic a near-death experience. An alternative to mortality salience for death priming is a practice called death reflection, which has been found to be a more powerful and experiential way to get people in touch with their own death (Cozzolino, 2006).
Imagining oneself in the midst of an apartment fire—in vivid, graphic detail—elicits different death reactions than playing morbid word games or visiting funeral homes.
The implications of how we are primed to think about death are weighty: Research reveals that when we are exposed to our mortality as an abstract concept (as through traditional mortality salience experiments), we seek support in abstract ways—like bolstering our worldviews and religious and social affiliations. When we are exposed to our mortality in a specific and personal fashion (via death reflection) we derive support from internal resources—like construing goals, finding ways to meet our own needs, and seeking intrinsic growth (Cozzolino, 2006).
Furthering this logic, we’re motivated in different ways depending on whether we’ve triggered our abstract (traditional mortality salience) or specific (death reflection) information processing systems; under the auspice that we take action on things that have the potential to make our goals a reality (Carver & Scheier, 1990), we act in rather constrained ways that succumb to the norms of society when prompted by the abstraction of mortality salience (like driving by the cemetery), and we act in intrinsic, self-determined (Deci & Ryan, 1985) ways when prompted by existentially specific information, like forming plans that draw on our strengths and talents to achieve the goals we want for ourselves—not what our external worldview requires of us to fit in (Cozzolino, 2006).
Death reflection leads to unselfish, intrinsic behaviors (Cozzolino, Staples, Meyers, & Samboceti, 2004). These insights help put TMT and mortality salience research in perspective, and help shape future interventions intended to help people grow from reflecting on the inevitability of death.
References
Belmi, P., & Pfeffer, J. (2016). Power and death: Mortality salience increases power seeking while feeling powerful reduces death anxiety. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(5), 702-720. doi:10.1037/apl0000076
Burke, B. L., Martens, A., & Faucher, E. H. (2010). Two decades of terror management theory: A meta-analysis of mortality salience research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(2), 155-195. doi: 10.1177/1088868309352321
Carver, C., & Scheier, M. (1990). Origins and function of positive and affect: A control-process view. Psychological Review, 97, 19-35. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.97.1.19
Castano, E., Leidner, B., Bonacossa, A., Nikkah, J., Perrulli, R., Spencer, B., & Humphrey, N. (2011). Ideology, fear of death, and death anxiety. Political Psychology, 32(4), 601–621. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2011.00822.x
Cozzolino, P. (2006). Death contemplation, growth, and defense: Converging evidence of dual-existential systems? Psychological Inquiry, 17(4), 278–287. doi:10.1080/10478400701366944
Cozzolino, P., Staples, A. D., Meyers, L. S. and Samboceti, J. (2004). Greed, death, and values: From terror management to “transcendence management” theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 278–292. doi:10.1177/0146167203260716
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum Press.
Frias, A., Watkins, P., Webber, A., & Froh, J. (2011). Death and gratitude: Death reflection enhances gratitude. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(2), 154–162. doi:10.1080/17439760.2011.558848
George L.S., & Park C.L. (2014). Existential mattering: Bringing attention to a neglected but central aspect of meaning? In A. Batthyany & P. Russo-Netzer (Eds.), Meaning in positive and existential psychology (pp. 39-51). New York, NY: Springer.
Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of the need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Public self and private self (pp. 189-212). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Pyszczynski, T. (1997). Terror management theory and research: Empirical assessments and conceptual refinements. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 29, pp. 61-139). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. doi: 10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60016-7
Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Simon, L., & Breus, M. (1994). Role of consciousness and accessibility of death-related thoughts in mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(4), 627–637. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.627
Jonas, E., Schimel, J., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2002). The Scrooge effect: Evidence that mortality salience increases prosocial attitudes and behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(10), 1342–1353. doi:10.1177/014616702236834
Mikulincer, M., & Florian, V. (2000). Exploring individual differences in reactions to mortality salience: Does attachment style regulate terror management mechanisms? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(2), 260–273. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.79.2.260
Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. A. (2015). The worm at the core: On the role of death in life. New York, NY: Random House.
Wade-Benzoni, K. A., Tost, L. P., Hernandez, M., & Larrick, R. P. (2012). It’s only a matter of time: Death, legacies, and intergenerational decisions. Psychological Science, 23(7), 704–709. doi:10.1177/0956797612443967
I’ve written a lot about existential terror. I often forget that there are a lot of people who don’t know what that means. I want to reiterate what this is and why it matters, specifically as it relates to making art.
Another way to express this idea is through terror management theory (TMT). TMT deals with how humans cope with the awareness of their own deaths. That is the crux of the question. How do you cope with the reality of your impending death? If you answered, “I don’t think about it,” you would be in the majority of the population. This is the common answer or response.
Here’s why: We (humans) rely on cultural constructs to buffer our fear of death, which we all know is coming, and we never know when or how it will happen. These cultural constructs are as simple as having a spouse (significant other) or children, belonging to a religion or political group, making money, writing books, or even making art. These groups and activities give us a shield, a distraction, or, as Becker calls it, an illusion that allows us to bury (psychologically speaking) the terror of existing and knowing we are going to die. Remember, the fear of death isn’t a concern about the actual dying part; it’s central concern is being forgotten and regretting not living a meaningful life—impermanence and insignificance—that’s the dread or fear we feel.
Thanatophobia is related to death anxiety but reflects this fear in a different way. Thanatophobia is an intense fear of death or the dying process. For some people, death anxiety disrupts life in a very serious way. It can manifest as depression, anxiety, harmful behavior, etc.
What role does art play? For me, it’s significant in two ways. The first is that it provides meaning in my life. I feel that I have purpose when making art. I’m addressing issues that bother me (death anxiety, injustice, etc.) or interest me, and it provides significance for me. The second is that I know psychologically that my work will live on beyond my physical death. That is a form of symbolic immortality, and it plays a significant role, psychologically speaking, in enduring and buffering the knowledge of my mortality. Every human being needs to have meaning and significance in their life. They are powerful death anxiety buffers.
When you make art, you're buffering your death anxiety, whether you know it or not. And most don’t know it. We’ve evolved to disguise these activities so they seem meaningful, and we never recognize their real psychological purpose. This absolutely fascinates me and is the core of the work I’m doing.
It’s amazing what you can do with this reversal process. I love the effects, the limitless ways you can create a feeling or emotion, just with light and color. Kind of like painting.
“Seven Rolling Stones,” 5” x 3.75” acrylic and charcoal on paper.
Intentionalism is the idea that an artist's intentions determine the meaning of a work of art, not necessarily the content or subject of the work (sometimes it is or can be relevant). It can also refer to the theory that all mental states are intentional, meaning they are about something. This theory is also known as "representationalism." In psychology, intentionalism is a synonym for act psychology.
What does all of this mean in relation to abstract art? For me, it means that art created with intention and with some direction is difficult to make successfully. And it is even more difficult to communicate those ideas to an audience. There’s a book called "Why Your Five-Year-Old Could Not Have Done That: Modern Art Explained" by Susie Hodge. I thought it might be a good read on the topic, but it turns out that she doesn't really defend "intentionalism" very well. There are no deep explanations for the theory and ideas behind modern abstract work. It was a bit disappointing to me and doesn’t really do justice to abstract art, or even art in general.
Addressing this topic poses significant challenges as it is filled with subjective opinions, preferences, and various perspectives. It stands in stark contrast to the objective nature of science, which is one reason I love science as much as art. Many contemporary artworks are challenging to advocate for (or defend), with a majority being seen as unoriginal, lacking depth, and artificial in their conception. We have become very shallow in a lot of ways in our culture; this includes making art. I suppose what I’m saying is that a lot of work done today lacks intention.
I have a deep appreciation for painting because it provides a unique avenue for expressing my intentions within a picture, whether implicitly or explicitly. While photography allows for a degree of expression, it doesn't offer the same level of freedom that painting does. This artistic medium has been a source of liberation for me over the past few years. Painting has unlocked numerous avenues for conveying my thoughts and theories in ways that photography couldn't achieve. I believe that combining paintings and photographs will create a compelling and lucid exploration of where I discover the most impactful expressions related to existential terror.
How does one make “original and interesting work”? Can it even be done? I’m making paintings every day—no master pieces, that’s for sure—but it makes me wonder about all of the people doing the same thing that I am. And even more photographers are making photographs every day. It drives me mad sometimes to think about these things, but at the same time, I’m fascinated by the question. How many “artists” can really defend their work in an honest and authentic way? Moreover, how much work out there is interesting or intriguing? For me, not much. Some would say that includes my own work. That’s okay; I get it, but I can defend what I’m doing; whether or not the viewer understands or likes my intention is another question all together.
The answer to the question, at least for me, is that it doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant to me because I’m not trying to sell anything, I’m not trying to gain fame or popularity, and I’m not after exhibitions and gallery representation. Take all of those things away, and you’re left with a personal drive for expression. That’s my goal, or objective.
One thing I do desire and would like to have come from my work is a better understanding of the theories I’m working on: death anxiety, the denial of death, and terror management theory. That would be my main goal for the photographs, paintings, and writing. If someone could come to the work and walk away with some understanding of the importance of how humans cope with the awareness of their own death, that would be a wonderful reward for my efforts. Far better than money, fame, recognition, awards, etc.
I’ve been thinking about book banning as it relates to death anxiety and terror management theory. It’s such a perfect example of how our fear of death drives these ideas. I found an interesting article published by psychiatrictimes.com. Here’s the gist of the article.
Human history is replete with instances of book banning and burning. A few examples:
In 1242, King Louis IX of France (“Saint Louis”) ordered the burning of 24 cartloads of priceless Hebrew manuscripts, including the Talmud, which he regarded as an insult to Christianity.
In 1497–1498, the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) instigated the infamous “bonfires of the vanities,” which destroyed books and paintings by some of Florence’s greatest artists. Ironically, Savonarola himself, along with all his writings, was burned on the cross in 1498.
In 1933, a series of massive bonfires in Nazi Germany burned thousands of books written by Jews, communists, and such luminaries as Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Mann.
It appears that the most frequently challenged books tend to have the following themes:
LGBTQ topics or characters.
Sex, abortion, teen pregnancy, or puberty.
Race and racism, or protagonists of color.
The history of black people.
In their 1994 book, “Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance,” Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda identified five defining elements of “moral panic”:
A heightened level of concern over the behavior of a so-called “deviant” group and its potential for negative effects on society.
An increased level of hostility toward the identified “deviants,” who are then designated “the enemy” of respectable society. This leads to the creation of “folk devils.”
There is a substantial consensus among the accusing segments of society that the “folk devils” represent a real and serious threat to society.
The perceived harm of the “deviant” group is out of proportion to the objective data, leading to disproportionate reactions by the accusing groups.
Moral panics are highly volatile and usually tend to disappear quickly as public interest wanes and the media shift to some other narrative.
In short, as Kane and Huang put it: “…moral panic draws up a line between upstanding citizens defending the social order, and the nebulous folk devils who threaten it. The folk devil is exaggerated into an existential threat that, left unchecked, will raze society and completely reshape it in a dystopian mold.”
Sheldon Solomon et al. point out that this kind of panic is directly related to our mortality. It’s a classic case of “in-group” and "out-group"—making the argument for absolute truth for one side. “My worldview” sees the truth clearly, and “yours” doesn’t. This leads to hatred, “othering,” isolation, and even harm or death.
Book banning and many other forms of “you are offending my worldview” are on the rise. We lean so heavily on cultural constructs (in this case, mostly religious beliefs) that these books are “sinful” or wrong and need to be destroyed. These worldviews allow us to buffer our death anxiety. They give us purpose and meaning (even misguided meaning). There is no way to reason with this; the psychology is so strong that we simply have to recognize it and try to help people understand why it’s happening. This is terror management theory, death anxiety, and the denial of death in a nutshell.