How Death Drives the Anthropocene | Sheldon Solomon
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- Опубліковано 27 чер 2024
- Are you afraid of dying?
Sheldon Solomon has been researching death anxiety and its impact on our behaviour for decades, finding that unmitigated death awareness drives mindless consumption, political polarisation and more disordered behaviour. In short, our fear of death could be driving the climate crisis.
We discuss the link between death awareness and self-awareness, how cultural beliefs are used to anesthetize death anxiety, how Western culture has the ironic effect of exacerbating that very anxiety that it's trying to solve, and why the solutions lie with imagination and creativity.
Sheldon Solomon is Professor of Psychology at Skidmore College. His studies of the effects of the uniquely human awareness of death on behaviour were featured in the award winning documentary film Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality. He is co-author of In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror and The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life.
00:00 intro
03:29 The community of people working on the crisis
09:13 The psychology of the crisis
19:30 The role of imagination
21:44 The existential crisis
29:47 Learning to die
36:30 Death anxiety and individualism
43:33 The impact of individualism
54:43 Resurrecting humanity
01:06:40 The war on "woke"
01:14:49 Who would you like to platform?
🔴 Sheldon Solomon: www.skidmore.edu/psychology/f...
🔴 The Worm at the Core: www.amazon.co.uk/Worm-Core-Ro...
🔴 Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality: www.amazon.com/Flight-Death-I...
🌎 Support Planet: Critical: / planetcritical
🌎 Website: www.planetcritical.com/
🌎 Twitter: / planetcritical
#politicalcrisis #climatecrisis #socialcrisis #deathanxiety #anthropocene
I LOVE SHELDON SOLOMON
The acceptance of death is one thing, but an informed awareness that the human species and much of all life on Earth is seriously jeopardized by human intervention is a very big pill to swallow.
Isn’t it all intertwined with our own individual death anxiety though? What does one care whether life continues on this planet when one is dead? It seems to me that we are having the biggest mirror placed in front of us and we don’t like what we see (for those who are willing to look).
P.S. It is indeed a big pill to swallow, but the universe will continue on regardless. I imagine a similar situation has played out across countless worlds throughout time
The awareness of the awesome mystery and beauty of "life" in all of its manifestations is a double-edged sword. The simultaneous dread and angst that arises from the simultaneous awareness that we, as species, are in the midst of destroying that magical mystery tour is too much to handle.
I agree. It sucks :/
Love the expressions "respiring pieces of defecating meat" and "cold cuts with an attitude." 😂
2 curses of humans. One, awareness of our own death and two, a reluctance to acknowledge their own animal nature.
Dangerous is the strong force to the need to belong to a group over developing and thinking of the self
Another great interview! Can't wait to see how your interview with Bill Rees turns out.
Such a great show. The fact that you in real time process what you’re hearing, sometimes thirty minutes before, in such a way as to push your always deeply relevant guests for more relevant answers to the horror show at hand is something wholly unique to your ability. So grateful.
'vv0😊😊😊😊
What a great guest. I have listened to him over and over again (sync out his insights with those of Stephen Jenkinson) - a double decker sandwich that will transform your outlook - but not with pessimism, rather sober desire ... grief begets love. Could really relate with your facial expression, widening eyes, and gutteral grunt at minute 52:40-52:50. - this kind of perspective slaps you in the face. Thank you for sharing this profound discussion. You are an excellent host, and you are an engaging interviewer - you have the gift! Subscribed some time ago. One caution: it is a "red-flag" when someone is forced into a corner of their defense and succumbs to the use of the word "belief." It would be an interesting discussion exploring the difference between "belief" and "faith" (see Alan Watts lecture) .... Thanks again!!
To keep your humanity in the world of matieral that extracts your truth with some time stepping back from the edge of life still breathig as aware of being as I ever will.
Love Sheldon! Thank you!
Sheldon Solomon is an incredible intellectual! I love it!
He's a marathon talker, that's for sure!
@@johnbanach3875 He has no equal.
What an interesting discussion! Existential distress does not necessarily lead to substance, power and money abuse, but it can lead to fear that we have wasted our lives and to a last-minute attempt to salvage some of it. It can also free us from attachment to the physical world, allowing us to let go of all the things that were previously troubling us.
Sheldon is amazing at portraying serious topics in a comical way, such as here: 52:35
Great talk
Sheldon rides a 26" steel frame old-school MTB.
Lotta good points, I didn't expect as many, I also willingly clicked, lol. Trying to appropriate some "culture" 😬😃😅
At 43:00 mins in the concept of the "solitary primate". Solomon mentioned the last non social primate was 60 millions years ago in lumers. I understand that orangutangs generally lead solitary lives.
conversations like this can help to make sense of what can feel like overwhelming complexity - it seems we've created systems that bring out and supercharge the worst elements of the human condition, greedy self and vested interest and shortermism. The planet, the greater good, seeing ourselves as part of a whole etc. This has been eradicated and replaced with the individual homo economicus.
I could not find the book Denial by Barkey Sheldon mentioned.
Big takeaway: Don't remind people of death
man this guy can talk i like him. but I have to take a pee break
Sheldon overlooks the role of fossil fuels in his philosophy and thoughts.
He talks 'apples' and 'properties' but ignores that fact that fossil fuels have been traded under the doctrine of what's called 'supply and demand', not on the basis the stuff is finite - as if a Communism-disguised-Capitalism system.
Sheldon et al - are a mind-set, old guard and culture of the outgoing era - when humans thought they can manufacture Energy - and they enjoyed the claim - to addiction.
The Magna Carta requires now overhauling - adding to it the right for humans to understand what Energy really is;
"In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most.
Time taken in stocking energy to build an energy system, adding to it the time taken in building the system will always be longer than the entire useful lifetime of the system.
No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores.
No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it.
This universal truth applies to all systems.
Energy, like time, flows from past to future".
I love Fredrich Nietzsche And Alan Watts
What is your opinion of Robert Ardrey's concept of "Territorial imperative" ?
Does this guy know that ghosts are real? I do! That's how I finished my master's degree - doing intensive meditation training from qigong master chunyi lin - through University of Minnesota.
He's not averted to stretching the facts sometimes ,the most egregious one was the one about a third of US children going to bed hungry.
The real fact being 13.6% of households with children report food insecurity at some point during the year.
household isn't the same as children
I often faced hunger as a child. But my father was much too proud to have ever admitted or reported this to anyone. I always thought it was normal. I look back at photos and see that I was skinny as a rail and suffered real health consequences from it.
@@DavidMarcotte-xx1nw That's true but it works as a useful enough proxy.
@@yukonnoka I have been trough what you have been trough as a child as well,I moved to an insanely wealthy country as an 8 year old and was priveleged enough to be able to choose education (which pretty much is free in this country) to choosing not just one field but to be lucky enough to become a generalist/polymath who tried my hand in various fields some of which was very rewarding both financially and in a human way.
I served in the military, and saw again how miserable the existence in much of the rest of the world is.
They deserve and indeed need to be able to industrialize too instead of simply dying on the altar of our notions of bettering the world by denying them cheap and abundant energy,thereby dooming them to famines and other evils.
Especially when a lot of this is based on wishful thinking like magical batteries which incidentally involves digging up their countries for minerals and designating them "sacrifice zones".
It's sometimes seem to me inescapable how deeply anti human the radical wing of the climate movement are.
Even these people are not grounded, how can you say; go out and join a soccer club or some other club. What if you work 2 jobs or have a family, where is the time?
That is a reality which is not sustainable. Downsizing has the benefit of giving us more time. Do this and you help the environment as well as find a more fulfilling life.
Money. I believe that money represents embodied energy. Money is energy IOUs. Economics comes down to energy.
About enough food. Solomon did not receive the memo that food production is falling globally, not just from the Ukrainian war or climate change, although they exacerbate a ad situation, but because crude oil production is declining. #PeakOil occurred in November 2018. What is modern agriculture? Modern agriculture is the use of land to turn petrochemical products into food. There will be less fertiliser in the years and decades ahead. Noticed the empty supermarket selves? We also have less arable land because of soil degradation. The high food prices today and empty supermarket selves will only grow worse. The old food paradigm of increasing food production is over and has been for a few years. From now on we will have a cruel game of musical chairs.
I agree. I think most of the BS the last few years has been a response to almost peak-everything. The 21st century will continue to be a geopolitical fight for the remaining scraps on the table. As Sheldon said in his interview with Sam: it’s probably going to be Mad Max not kumbayah
Cyclical universe offers possibilities in this respect - adherents of these belief systems have much lower levels of intercommunal violence, like the Harrapans for example.
Unfortunately modern astrophysics has discovered times arrow, the direction of time as following the increase in entropy and that the universe itself will have a heat death. This makes a cyclical universe impossible. Universe is approx. 10^10 years old. The time until even the largest galactic black holes have evaporated by way of Hawking Radiation is approx. 10^100 years. So the universe is young, very young. The life sustaining stage of the universe called the stelliferous will last until somewhere between 10^12 to 10^14 years.
@@coweatsman Nope, refer to Penrose. And there is an absolute measure of time in fact, an ongoing sequence of cycles.
@@matthewdolan5831 Entropy says arrow of time. You can't turn back entropy.
I'd be cautious about making an absolute statement about consciousness. It may be a simplistic way to justify the use and abuse of other lifeforms on this planet.
I wish Sheldon, who is one of my intellectual heroes, had an adequate microphone and video camera The distorted voice and horrible video of him make this a valuable video best listened to rather than watched. But Sheldon, if you are listening, you really have a bad habit of going on and on and on and on, for pages -- yes pages -- when you have a point to make or respond to -- way beyond anyone else. Anyone else. And your very slow speech makes it even worse. It is a big big turnoff. Monotony. Deny it if you will, but gather together the youtube podcasts you are on, and visit a professional speech teacher for an evaluation. You and the public will benefit. This podcast is best listened to at 1.5 speed.
Why doesn't planet critical have on 1 normal person and ask them what is going on and what is there reality?
I think I’ve been acutely affected by this anxiety ever since I realized that religion is bullshit. I’m sure taking mushrooms at a ripe young age didn’t help either 😅
Momento mori!
Another Solomon said "We are chasing after the wind"
Memento mori
@@countryblues55 I always do that! Messing up vowels is my own spelling hellscape.😞
Saint Joseph de Copertino would vomit when he just smelled meat.
Just a first comment ....... never use the word 'enviro..ent'
Lost me at being grateful for being alive. It sucks, but death sucks more, so by and large we don't kill ourselves. But being born is not really a good thing, is it now? We're trapped here and no one asked us whether we wanted to.
If life is "an unprofitable episode disturbing the blesed calm of nonexistence", why propagate it?
I think this feeling of wonder is not enough to justify the cost, nothing is really.
How duplicitous would you have to be, Mr. Sheldon, to affirm an existence whose main feature is terror? I'm sorry, but such a thing is beyond reason, profoundly insane.
I admire you greatly, but life is unaffirmable by its own merits, take away the fear of death and mass voluntary human extinction would ensue.
TMT resonates extremely well with philosophical pessimism and not well at all with the vile deluded intellectual poison of optimism, which is just more death denial.
I don't mean to be offensive, I think you know very well what I'm talking about.
I would love to see you have a talk with Benatar :)
Let him talk before he blows up 🤣
Materialism over spirituality. Nihilists. 🤷🏻♀️
It's all in Marx and Engels, hence their perpetual demonisation.
Age of a desirable female in a male's mind. Surely this is not cultural but biological. The male, at an unconscious level, wants to reproduce and that is more likely if she is young. Younger females are more likely to activate the protective mode in the male and are more neotenious in facial looks. This is overclocked into dysfunctionality in child abusers when the attraction is for females who can not reproduce. The fecundity signal is at work even in men who have no conscious desire to reproduce but the most important motivators of our behaviour are not conscious though but unconscious instincts. Why do consciously childfree people still have sex? Because the unconscious instinct to reproduce is just below the surface, even if reproductive organs have been sterilised.
This is insane. Changing the background, keeping lip sync, using a split scene with a photo... insane. A total dishonour to Solomon. Unwatchable.
I don't think is worth citing locked, because he is an ideologo, nothing else and he's given an importance for nothing.
ideas are always welcomed, at least to me. It's ok if you don't agree, really. What do you got? I'm open to ideas.
It's curious how ecologists like to talk about life in the same breath with abortion.
Monotheism monogamist relationships monotony/depression are all manifestations of death anxiety -mr sheldon forgot to mention
Yeah, no. To most people it gives life meaning.
@@MommaLousKitchen and it is only a self delusion
@@elekkr yuck
@@MommaLousKitchen these are weak people , who crave authority and have also low self esteem , i find em rather pathetic
It's curious how ecologists like to talk about life in the same breath with abortion.
Probably depends on you time frame. Short time frame - abortion "bad"
Long time frame - abortion "good"
@@annibjrkmann8464 aborting Whites: always bad.
Otherwise: keep going.
Your Religion Based Attitude Toward Abortion Is Culturally Constructed & Death Denying. This Is Not About Abortion. Go Read About Or Listen To Something About How Wonderful & Superior You Are Are A Christian & How Evil The Infidels Are. Have A Happy Forever In Heaven With All The Aborted Fetuses Since They Are Without Sin Which Is More Than Can Be Said About You.
SUCH A MORONIC COMMENT
Access to abortion can be a matter of life and death for many women. Just look at the United States. You have a baby without money and you are not only neglected by the profit driven culture, you are literally assaulted by it. America has declared war on poor women.