[Ernest] Becker’s book is really an elaboration on the psychology of self-esteem; death is the final blow to that and this is why we deny it. It also relates very closely to the idea of the Right Man. As mentioned, the Right Man is an idea developed by the science-fiction writer A. E. van Vogt. It describes a type of person—there are Right Women too—who under no circumstances can accept that he is wrong. His need for self-esteem is so great and his grasp of it is so tenuous that the slightest contradiction sends him into a rage. His belief in the absolute correctness of all of his actions is so unshakable—like the pope, he enjoys infallibility—that he treats any question of it as a personal betrayal.
SNG: Rings a bell? P.S. My review of this book.
Most people believe the mind to be a mirror, more or less accurately reflecting the world outside them, not realizing on the contrary that the mind is itself the principal element of creation. --Rabindranath Tagore
As the definite article indicates in the French Revolution, historians do not proceed from the classificatory term toward the general law but from the classificatory term toward the explanation of differences.
And by reflecting on it we can perhaps detect one more characteristic which art must have, if it is to forgo both, entertainment-value and magical value, and draw a subject-matter from its audience themselves. It must be prophetic.
Real conversations require utter concentration, not texting on the side when you are in a café with someone. That is because travel is linear—it is about one place or singular perception or book at a time, each one etched deep into memory, so as to change your life forever.
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