Flight from Death

On my college campus, I attended the screening of a documentary called "Flight From Death - The Quest for Immortality" . It was directed by Patrick Shen. I thought the movie was very well done and thought-provoking. It was based on the views in the book The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, which is an amazing book. It had commentary from Robert J. Lifton, and Merlyn Mowrey (a professor at CMU, my college) among others. The narration by Gabriel Byrne was perfect.

The documentary described the relationship of violence around the world to death anxiety. It made the point that pretty much all of it is subconsciously influenced and that it occurs in every culture - no matter how "civilized" or how primitive. The film said that death anxiety is a root cause of religion and culture. Culture and religion are to make people feel like valued members of a group, something that is essential to having self esteem and to go on living.

I think the most fascinating part of the movie was the experiments done on people. The researchers picked half of a group and made them think about death and then had them "solve" problems that would cause them to them ruin national (the American flag) or religious (a crucifix) symbols. It showed the half who had been asked questions involving their mortality were more hesitant to cause harm to the symbols that gave meaning to their lives. I thought it was interesting how they could gauge how others became hostile towards others that held different beliefs when forced to ponder their impending death. This makes a lot of sense when you look at why humans are always fighting over religion and beliefs or discriminating against others who are dissimilar to them.

The end of the film gives you something to think about. It says that since we know that death is inevitable, we should really be worrying about how to live. It questioned why the only animal on earth who have great knowledge and thirst to live often squander the time they are given.