?Death: why we should be thankful

Death gets a bad press. Invariably uninvited guest who comes too soon. Her fear and hate. "The last enemy" - this speaks of her Bible.
However, poets and philosophers have repeatedly said that without death we would not be who we are. Bleak prospect makes us get up in the morning and inspires great things. Every form is finite, the philosophers say, and something can only arise due to the shape. This choir has recently began to join the social psychologists.It all begins with awareness of our mortality. Like all living things, we are fighting for survival. However, in contrast to other things (as far as we know), we live with the knowledge that this fight we have to lose. Our mighty brain, brilliantly building syllogisms, tells us that the worst will happen. We all live in the shadow of personal apocalypse.
It's hard. Indeed, this is a terrible idea that can paralyze. That's why we are working hard to push it as far as possible, or cancel them completely. This mad confrontation with the inevitable charge of our greatest achievements.
Perhaps the most obvious result - is material progress. For example, farming came to give us food, and the food needed to live. Clothing and buildings warm us, weapons allows you to hunt and defend medicine treats when we are sick. In short, the vast majority of discoveries prolong our lives.
Even science is motivated by fear of death. Francis Bacon, the father of empiricism considers achieving eternal life the noblest goal of the philosopher. For this he sacrificed his life, having been ill with pneumonia during the experiments on cryopreservation. Science - the lot of mortal gods are hardly economic hardship in biochemistry.
Despite all efforts, the terrible prospect of still there. Many thinkers, from Hegel to Heidegger believed that the actual material civilization and culture - it is a way to assure ourselves that we will be living after the death of the body. The same subject in 1973, raised the anthropologist Ernest Becker, whose book "Denial of Death" won the Pulitzer Prize. It is this work of social psychologists look inspired empirical evidence to support the speculation of philosophers.
These researchers were Jeff Greenberg of the University of Arizona, Sheldon Solomon of Skidmore College and Tom Pischinsky University of Colorado. They invented terror management theory, which postulates that the majority of our actions and beliefs due to fear of death. They suggested that we develop these views of the world that allow us to cope with the knowledge of his own mortality.
Most clearly manifested in the religion, so scientists reasoned, in the face of death, people often have to apply to the faith. Indeed, something like this be found. In one experiment, a group of Christian students were asked to rate the personality of the two people. These people are in all respects were very similar, except that one was a Christian, and the other - a Jew. Control subjects reacted favorably to both, and those students who have previously completed a questionnaire about their attitudes toward death, the more positively judged the Christian and negative - of Judea.
Religion, this effect is not limited to this. On the example of more than 400 studies, psychologists have shown that almost all aspects of our world are motivated by an attempt to come to terms with death. Nationalism, for example, allows us to believe that we will live forever as part of a larger whole: Mr. Greenberg and his colleagues found that American students who were reminded of their mortality, with particular fervor criticized anti-American writer. Next, Holly McGregor of the University of Arizona (USA) showed that students who were forced to think about death, not only do not approve of those who challenge their views of the world, but also ready to violence. In the experiment, it was expressed in the form of excessive servings of hot sauce.
These preliminary studies have confirmed suspicions Becker that the denial of death - the cause of all evil. That's what leads to the division of people into "us" and "not ours" promotes prejudice and aggression, war and terrorism feeds. For example, people who show the planes crash into the New York skyscrapers, most supported the invasion of Iraq. But then the terror management theorists were detected and the bright side of the fear of death.
For example, one of the most powerful factors in human culture - the desire to leave something behind. Hence, psychologists say, including the greatest works of art. On something like Socrates has said, noting that while the men are desperate to perpetuate his name, women are more simply - have children. Indeed, in one study of the Germans when they were reminded of death, expressed a desire to have more children, and the Chinese - a willingness to oppose the rule of one child.
Recently Kenneth Vale University of Missouri (USA) and his colleagues have made a catalog of things that we bestowed consciousness of mortality. For example, the desire for a healthy lifestyle. The researchers also identified a fine line between conscious and unconscious reminder of death. In the latter case we start mindlessly clinging to traditional social values. And well, if the number of these values ​​do not include the imposition of their aggressive neighbors with cannons and machine guns.
A conscious reminder of death, on the other hand, promotes more informed views on the re-evaluation of life. The more we contemplate their own mortality, the more actively reject externally imposed values ​​like wealth and fame, with a focus on personal development.
And judging by what is happening around, we think of death not much ...
Prepared according to NewScientist.