Better guilt than the terrible burden of freedom and responsibility.
Ernest BeckerRead
What is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality; one honest enough to follow its own commandments: I mean, not to kill, not to take the lives of others to justify itself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The ideal for mental health involves maintaining a compelling yet truthful perspective on life and reality, while adhering to moral principles.
Ernest Becker suggests that mental health is not about escaping reality, but rather about creating a meaningful illusion that is honest in its representation of life and death. This ideal demands that individuals uphold moral values, such as respecting life, while navigating the complexities of existence. It emphasizes the need for a balanced view of reality that acknowledges both the positives and the negatives without resorting to harmful actions or justifications.
Themes
Mental HealthRealityMoral ValuesIllusionLifeDeath
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a mental health seminar to discuss the importance of creating a meaningful perspective on life.
More from Ernest Becker
All quotes →The artist takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it, he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art.
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When you confuse personal love and cosmic heroism you are bound to fail in both spheres. The impossibility of the heroism undermines the love, even if it is real. This double failure is what produces the sense of utter despair that we see in modern man... Love, then, is seen a religious problem
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All power is in essence power to deny mortality.
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If the love object is divine perfection, then one's own self is elevated by joining one's destiny to it... All our guilt, fear, and even our mortality itself can be purged in a perfect consummation with perfection itself.
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Each society is a hero system which promises victory over evil and death.
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