The basic premise of
The Denial of Death is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality, which in turn acts as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic
survival mechanism. Becker argues that a basic duality in human life exists between the physical world of objects and a symbolic world of human meaning. Thus, since humanity has a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, we are able to transcend the
dilemma of mortality through
heroism, a concept involving our symbolic halves. By embarking on what Becker refers to as an "
immortality project" (or
causa sui), in which a people create or become part of something which they feel will last forever; people feel they have "become" heroic and, henceforth, part of something eternal; something that will never die, compared to their physical body that will one day die. This, in turn, gives people the feeling that their lives have meaning, a purpose, significance in the grand scheme of things.
From this premise, mental illness is most insightfully extrapolated as a bogging down in one's hero system(s). When someone is experiencing
depression, their
causa sui (or heroism project) is failing, and they are being consistently reminded of their mortality and insignificance as a result.
Schizophrenia is a step further than depression in which one's causa sui is falling apart, making it impossible to engender sufficient defense mechanisms against their mortality; henceforth, the schizophrenic has to create their own reality or "world" in which they are better heroes. Becker argues that the conflict between
immortality projects which contradict each other (particularly in religion) is the wellspring for the destruction and misery in our world caused by
wars,
bigotry,
genocide,
racism,
nationalism, and so forth, since an immortality project which contradicts others indirectly suggests that the others are wrong.
Another theme running throughout the book is that humanity's traditional "hero-systems" i.e.
religion, are no longer convincing in the
age of reason; science is attempting to solve the problem of humanity, something that Becker feels it can never do. The book states that we need new convincing "illusions" that enable us to feel heroic in the grand scheme of things, i.e. immortal. Becker, however, does not provide any definitive answer, mainly because he believes that there is no perfect solution. Instead, he hopes that gradual realization of humanity's innate motivations, namely death, can help to bring about a better world.
