A short course guide to the book, "The Human Manifesto: A General Plan For Human Survival."

1. The Human Manifesto A General Plan For Human Survival

2. Being a Proposal For the Implementation of the Genuine Hero System as the Motivational Force For Mankind.

3. The Human Manifesto The Self-Help Book For Humanity Change Your Illusion, Save the World! Buy the Book– Only $11.99: http://www.thehumanmanifestosite.com

4. Death = Li(f)e

5. DEATH = LI(F)E Death is the motivational force behind all human behavior!

6. Ernest Becker The Denial of Death (1973) The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity - designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man....

10. Intelligence = Consciousness Mankind has survived and gained dominion over the earth due to the evolutionary trait of superior intelligence . However, that very intelligence has made us aware of the realities that we exist and we die. Consciousness is our gift and our curse!

11. Consciousness =Death Anxiety Death Awareness causes anxiety We dread and deny the fact that we are creatures who devour other creatures, defecate, urinate, and eventually and inevitably die. We fear that there is no after-life. “The fall into self-consciousness, the emergence from comfortable ignorance in nature, had one great penalty for man: it gave him dread, or anxiety.” – Ernest Becker (DD).

12. Otto Rank Becker’s theory is based in large measure on his interpretation of the works of Otto Rank. Rank said: “Every human being is…equally unfree, that is, we…create out of freedom, a prison…” “For only by living in close union with a god-ideal that has been erected outside one’s own ego is one able to live at all.”

13. Otto Rank

14. Summary The stark reality of death causes in each of us the death/meaninglessness anxiety – that is, a recognition, both conscious and unconscious, that life has no meaning faced with the ultimate oblivion of death.

15. DEATH = LI(F)E The fear of death causes the individual to construct an illusion of meaning. Death compels the individual to construct a Life Immortality Elusion, or LIE, to hide or repress the stark reality of death. Thus, Death = LI(F)E

16. The Life Immortality Elusion (LIE) Elusion “The act or an instance of eluding or escaping.”

17. Cultural Hero Systems Symbolic devices that counteract the death/meaninglessness anxiety.

18. Cultural Hero Systems Human cultural groups develop action methods, or hero systems, based upon their religious, political, and socio-economic beliefs, to deny the reality of death. Such action methods infuse life with illusory meaning, and provide the promise of personal immortality. Cultural Hero Systems Based upon beliefs common to the group Provide methods for individual self-esteem Provide methods for personal immortality

19. Becker defines culture as: “…humanly constructed beliefs about the nature of reality that are shared by people in groups in order to minimize the anxiety engendered by the uniquely human awareness of death.”

20. The Personal LIE The Person uses action methods drawn from his culture’s hero system to repress or overcome the death/meaninglessness anxiety by infusing his life with an illusion of meaning; Life is an I(e)lusion constructed from the action methods offered by one’s cultural hero belief system to avoid or deny the reality of death!

21. The LIE Provides: Personal Self-Esteem Personal Immortality in a cosmology of some kind based upon religious or secular myths.

22. Becker: “…everything that man does in his symbolic world is an attempt to deny and overcome his grotesque fate. He literally drives himself into a blind obliviousness with social games, psychological tricks, personal preoccupations so far removed from the reality of his situation that they are forms of madness – agreed madness, shared madness, disguised and dignified madness, but madness all the same.”

23. More Becker: “The irony of man’s condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink form being fully alive.”

24. Cultural Hero Systems Formed By A Culture’s Beliefs: Religious Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. Political Economic Social Artistic

25. LIE Construction Methods Religious Faith and Ritual Romantic Love & Sexual Lust Warfare Spectator-ism Materialism Work-alcoholism Celebrity worship Entertainment – TV, Movies, etc. Artistic/Creative Cultism

26. Becker: The social hero-system into which we are born marks out our paths for our heroism, paths to which we conform, to which we shape ourselves so that we can please others, become what they expect us to be. And instead of working our inner secret we gradually cover it over and forget it, while we become purely external men, playing successfully the standardized hero game into which we happen to fall by accident, by family connection, by reflex patriotism, or by the simple need to eat and the urge to procreate.

27. Donald Carveth: “Society offers a range of possibilities for heroism in which death is denied and an illusion of immortality constructed. ”

28. The Socialization Process Members of human cultural groups are socialized, or programmed, to adopt the beliefs of their cultures as genuine and true, and then to use those beliefs to motivated their actions in achieving self-esteem and the promise of personal immortality. The “Socialization Process” consists of the information or teaching imparted to cultural members by their parents, siblings, and peers, and by the culture at large through priests, teachers, media sources, etc., from which individuals construct their LIEs.

29. Becker: “…people need a ‘beyond,’ but they reach first for the nearest one; this gives them the fulfillment they need but at the same time limits and enslaves them. You can look at the whole problem of a human life in this way. You can ask the question: What kind of beyond does this person try to expand in; and how much individuation does he achieve in it?

30. Summary Human Intelligence = Awareness of Death Awareness of Death = Death/Meaninglessness Anxiety Death/Meaninglessness Anxiety = Cultural Hero Systems Cultural Hero Systems = Construction of LIE for individual self-esteem and personal immortality via socialization process

31. The Human Problem Cultures have offered ineffective, trivial or destructive methods of heroism from which their members construct their LIEs. As a result, human history has been a sorry story of war, ignorance, cruelty, destruction. As a result, humanity has failed to reach its spiritual, intellectual and technological potential.

32. THE HUMAN INDICTMENTLife vs. Humanity Charge One: Failure To Ensure the Quality of Life for All Human Beings From its evolutionary manifestation between 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, until the present date, Humanity has failed to devise, develop or implement an organizational system, culture, or government, which ensures that all human beings are given a genuine and complete opportunity to pursue life, liberty and happiness. This failure has led to many obvious ills – abject poverty, hunger, the unnecessary spread of disease, ignorance and illiteracy.

33. Charge Two: Failure to Avoid and Prevent Wasteful Conflict and Warfare From its evolutionary manifestation between 50,000 to 100,000 years ago until the present date, Humanity has failed to devise, develop or implement an organizational system, culture, or government, which prevents groups of individuals from engaging in acts of conflict and supreme violence, known as warfare, against other groups of individuals. This failure has resulted in the death of millions upon million of human beings and in the destruction of entire civilizations and their infrastructure; moreover, in both the waging of, and preparation for, warfare and defense against warfare, the species has wasted incalculable economic, intellectual and scientific resources.

34. Charge Three Failure to Properly Seek the Comprehension of God and Nature From its evolutionary manifestation between 50,000 to 100,000 years ago until the present date, Humanity has failed to devise, develop or implement an organizational system, culture, or government, enabling it to suitably engage in the spiritual, intellectual and scientific study, examination and research so as to develop, over time, a more complete, if not complete, understanding and comprehension of the nature of God and the Cosmos.

35. Charge Four Failure to Ensure the Survivability of the Human Species From its evolutionary manifestation between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago until the present date, Humanity has failed to devise, develop or implement an organizational system, culture, or government, capable of ensuring the survival of the human species from possible natural or man-made cataclysm, such that it is certain, at the present level of technological achievement of the species, that mankind is doomed to extinction.

36. The Indictment in Pictures

42. Why Hero Systems Fail Past and Present Cultural Hero Systems have failed to provide their members with heroic methods that: Satisfy the need for personal self-esteem; and, Satisfy the promise of personal immortality.

43. Becker: “The fact is that self-transcendence via culture does not give man a simple and straight-forward solution to the problem of death; the terror of death still rumbles underneath the cultural repression.”

44. Past and Present Hero Systems have not offered humanity with genuine self-esteem and a true sense of connection with immortality: Self-esteem is gained from trivial activities or those which are destructive or inimical to human progress and survival The promise of personal immortality is based on false cosmologies devised by religions

45. What Is Your LIE? Identify Your Beliefs: Religious Political Economic Social Romantic Sexual Artistic

46. Methods for Self-Esteem Creation Motivated By Beliefs: Religious Actions (Rituals) Attend Church; prayer; suicide bombers Political Actions Run for office; support candidates; vote Economic Actions Work; spend (consumerism/materialism) Social Actions Romantic Actions

47. Are You An Automatic Man or An Authentic Man Becker: “…Most people play it safe: they choose the beyond of standard transference objects like parents, the boss, or the leader; they accept he cultural definition of heroism and try to be a ‘good provider’ or a ‘solid’ citizen. In this way they earn their species immortality as part of a social group of some kind…”

48. “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if Mankind is to survive.” – Albert Einstein

49. The Solution The Genuine Hero System

50. The Genuine Hero System Based upon a belief in Humanity as another possibly sacred advance of Life toward a comprehension of God and the Cosmos. Based upon a belief in the sacred dignity and rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by each human being. Based upon a belief in the possible existence of a Supreme or controlling force behind cosmic existence.

51. Self-esteem is gained by action methods designed to improve each individual’s quality of life; Self-esteem is gained by action methods designed to advance and enhance the survivability of the species; and, Personal immortality is gained by embarking on a personal and collective quest to comprehend the God Concept and the Cosmos through scientific examination and study, and spiritual and intellectual contemplation.

52. Implementation of GHS Individual acknowledgement that methods for attaining self-esteem and the promise of personal immortality offered by present cultural hero systems are false and ineffective, and do not advance humanity to its highest potential. Rejection of those present methods. Adoption of GHS methods for self-esteem construction.

53. Spreading the Word Socialization Process Education Parental Influences Friends and Family Media Memes and Ideaviruses A meme is a postulated unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. (Wikipedia)(See, Malcolm Gladwell, “The Tipping Point.” The ideas of Becker and The Human Manifesto must be spread like viruses to others through such things as book sales and The Foundation For Human Survival. Word of mouth.