Haha, right? The title is a trap! You already thought about death!
My favorite magazine, The Sun, delivers the most thought provoking, timely interviews every month. (Also excellent, prose, poetry, fiction and photographs.) And every month I have at least one major epiphany. Usually a nexus of seemingly unrelated things swirling about in my head come together.*
The magazine has a monthly theme too, and this month it is Death. The interview is with Sheldon Solomon, and his research and theories really fill in a gap on why fascism endures, and why we often respond inappropriately to life- altering change.
This Mortal Coil | Deborah Golden Alecson | Issue 544 | The Sun Magazine
You’re probably not even cognizant that death is on your mind. We know that death reminders have consequential effects on a panoply of everyday behaviors. Most people who are reminded that they’re going to die eat more chocolate-chip cookies, for example. People who consume alcohol are more likely to buy a drink after a death reminder. People who smoke cigarettes not only smoke more but inhale more vigorously.
If you tell people who find tanning attractive — and whose self-esteem is based on their physical appearance — that being out in the sun causes skin cancer, and then you ask, “How long are you going to stay out in the sun, and how much sunscreen are you going to use?” they say they will stay out a lot longer and use less sunscreen. What’s happening is that, when they’re reminded of death, they are unconsciously trying to boost their self-esteem, which is based on their appearance. Death reminders, in this case, foster behavior that may make you die sooner.
We get our values from our culture. If our culture emphasizes caring for children and old people, for example, then when we’re reminded of death, we should want to take care of children and old people more. But if we have a culture of narcissism, then when we’re reminded of our mortality, we turn into narcissists.
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Our very first study was conducted with twenty-two municipal-court judges in Tucson, Arizona. We reminded half the judges that they were going to die and used the other half as a control group, who received no reminder. Then we had all the judges pretend to set bond for an alleged prostitute. In the control group the judges set an average bond of about fifty dollars, which was the norm in Tucson at the time. The judges who’d been reminded of their mortality, however, set an average bond of $450. This is a remarkable difference. After the study, when we told the judges what we had done, they all said there was no way the questionnaire could have altered their judgments in the case. Here were people trained to adjudicate the law in a rational and uniform fashion, yet just a subtle reminder of death was like putting a giant fist on the proverbial scales of justice.
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I guess what has surprised us most is finding that death denial touches every aspect of our lives. For example, how come people can’t get along with others who don’t share their beliefs? Becker’s view is that accepting someone else’s beliefs undermines my confidence in my own. Therefore, he predicted, when we run into people with different beliefs, we will try to convince them to adopt ours, and if that doesn’t work, we will denigrate them or even kill them.
Sure enough, in our studies, we have found that when we remind Christians they’re going to die, they like Christians more and Jewish people less. When Germans are reminded that they’re going to die, they sit closer to people who look German and farther from people who look like immigrants. Iranians reminded that they’re going to die are more supportive of suicide bombers. Americans reminded they’re going to die are more supportive of using chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons against countries that do not in any way threaten us.
So the biggest surprise is really the consistency and robustness of the effects. They have been replicated in a variety of settings, in around twenty-five countries on five continents, and in children as young as ten and adults as old as their eighties.
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So the best thing to do, Solomon advises, is embrace the fact that you are going to die, and that it could happen at any time. All you have are the choices you make in this moment. Decide what is important and focus on it.
I agree. But I am also glad to finally understand the whole Hitler/Trump thing. (Read the rest of the interview for more.)
Blessings, peeps, I hope you are enjoying this beautiful Spring weather!!!
* Like species 010 for 3.2 seconds as 7 of 9 observes it in ST:V episode "The Omega Directive".
