I am Somebody!

If I decide that I am not somebody I break down like a 48 Chevy. When that great newsreel always running in my head feeds me with constant negative images of myself, I give up. To lose self-esteem is to lose the nourishment that provides the energy needed by a hero. I am a hero because I make a vital contribution to world-life.

Why do many youth in the inner-cities commit violent and criminal acts?--that is one way, perhaps the only way, to be a hero. Why do many youth walk boldly into enemy fire?—to be a hero. Why does a youth strap on explosives and blow up her self and everyone around her?—heroism once again.

Why does a parent delight in the accomplishments of their offspring—such is the parents’ means for being heroes. Why does a CEO demand an income of ten million dollars from her corporation—so everyone will recognize what a great hero she is. Perhaps corporations need to be heroes also and giving their CEO more money is the corporation’s means for self-esteem.

The most important thing a culture can provide to its citizens is a means for becoming a hero in a way that benefits life (good) rather than death (evil). “Its [culture’s] task, in other words, is to provide the individual with the conviction that he is an object of primary value in a world of meaningful action.”

The ego must find a means to navigate the world of customs, rules, and ideas in such a way as to eliminate anxiety; to do this the individual must choose actions that her comrades praise instead of blame.

Quotes from “The Birth and Death of Meaning” by Ernest Becker

Questions for discussion

The books on human sciences I have been reading speak of good and life, and evil and death, as being synonymous. Do you find that characterization is satisfactory?

Do corporations seek self-esteem? Is ‘corporation is person’ an apt metaphor?

Yes

The books on human sciences I have been reading speak of good and life, and evil and death, as being synonymous. Do you find that characterization is satisfactory?


No.
To me, Life=Good/Death=Evil seem characteristic of some sort of particular indoctrination - tho' a specific example escapes me at the moment.
Something akin to the regard for death as a "great unknown" and/or unknowable. The ultimate uncertainty - resulting in the fact that no adequate description can be assigned to it, and hence no value assigned to it but as something "evil".
Death is merely a function of a biological process, envisioned as merely one step in a cyclical process in some cosmologies.



Do corporations seek self-esteem? Is ‘corporation is person’ an apt metaphor?
Perhaps.
I don't know if you've ever seen the TV commercials for oil companies which seem intended to convey the "fact" that they are not merely monstrous engines of profit generation acting with no regard for anything other than the almighty dollar.
Why would they produce such things if not out of a consideration for how they are viewed by the public ?
I'm not sure this is the best sort of example, as it doesn't seem to jive with the idea of self-esteem from the work you quoted.

I myself find it easier to regard a corporation as a sort of "entity" or "collective intelligence" than as a representation of one person, though.

Kiljoy

Water boarding is a good example of what we feel about death. Being sentenced to death for a crime is a good idea of what we think about the importance of death. The things people do to prolong their life one more day is a good example. We have been very successful about hiding these anxieties from our self that we have created an inferior culture in our pursuit after something that we do not allow our self to think about. Self deception is our greatest enemy.

I am claiming that the reaction we feel when water boarding or claustrophobia is that very fear of death. If someone asks me what is the fear of death I will say that if they can imagine the feeling of being water boarded they are feeling the fear of death. Our rather blaze attitude that we say we feel about dying is our self deception.


If someone asks me what the fear of death is I say if you can imagine the feeling of being water boarded you are feeling what the fear of death is.