Mortality Salience Quotes

...(W)hat is remarkable about the Greeks--even pre-philosophically--is that despite the salience of religious rituals in their lives, when it came to the question of what it is that makes an individual human life worth living they didn't look to the immortals but rather approached the question in mortal terms. Their approaching the question of human mattering in human terms is the singularity that creates the conditions for philosophy in ancient Greece, most especially as these conditions were realized in the city-state of Athens.

Every day, we’re exposed to graphic media coverage reminding us of our collapsing environment, increased threat of nuclear war, coming pandemics, genocide, the world’s endless atrocities. All of this triggers the brain’s terror management strategy to run in the background, at a low level—not yet in fight-or-flight mode, but…anticipating the worst. In essence, the more terrifying our world becomes, the more time we spend preparing subconsciously for death.” Nagel looked uncertain where all this was going. “Prepare for death…how?” “I think the answer to that will surprise you,” Katherine said. “It certainly did me. While researching mortality salience and the brain, I found that an increased fear of death produced a consistent array of behavioral responses—all of them selfish.” “I’m sorry?” “Fear makes us selfish,” Katherine said. “The more we fear death, the more we cling to ourselves, our belongings, our safe spaces…to that which is familiar. We exhibit increased nationalism, racism, and religious intolerance. We flout authority, ignore social mores, steal from others to provide for ourselves, and become more materialistic. We even abandon our feelings of environmental responsibility because we sense the planet is a lost cause and we’re all doomed anyway.” “That’s alarming,” Nagel said. “Those are precisely the behaviors that fuel global unrest, terrorism, cultural division, and war.” “Yes, and that make the CIA’s job so difficult. Unfortunately, it becomes a hall of mirrors. The worse things get, the worse we behave. And the worse we behave, the worse things get.

Terror management theory was utilized by military intelligence to predict a population’s reaction to certain threats. Its findings were well established. Human anxiety had countless sources—fear of nuclear war, terrorism, financial ruin, loneliness—and yet TMT had established that the predominant fear and strongest motivator behind human behavior was, undeniably…the fear of death. When a person was terrified that he or she might die, the brain employed extremely well-defined strategies to “manage” that terror. Under normal circumstances, our unpleasant knowledge that we will die—known as “mortality salience”—was managed through a wide range of strategies, including denial, spirituality, mindfulness practices, and various types of philosophical reflection.