The Rawness

In Part 1 of this series, I proposed that what I previously called the two basic human drives, the drive to survive and the drive to reproduce, are actually parts of one larger drive that controls almost everything we do: the drive to achieve immortality in any form we can:

The Immortality Drive plays itself out through three urges: (1) the urge to achieve immortality by extending your physical life and its impact on the world as much as you can, (2) the urge to distract yourself from thinking about the fact you are physically going to die and may not have a spiritual afterlife or reincarnation awaiting you, and (3) the urge to ensure spiritual immortality after physical expiration.

In Part 2, I showed how the quest for fame complies with the immortality drive.

In this part, I’m going to talk about a related concept, immortality by proxy. Immortality by proxy is what people usually refer whether they know it or not when they tell you about the importance of being part of something “bigger than yourself.”

Immortality by proxy has to do when people try to gain immortality by being a part of something bigger and closer to immortality than themselves, like a person, event, or movement.

Proxy Immortality Through People

Proxy immortality through a person involves either helping someone else reach immortality or becoming someone’s follower because they promise to be your gateway to personal immortality. Cult leaders and religious figures derive much of their power over followers via this phenomenon. They promise to be the middleman in your relationship with God, the person who will relay God’s messages to you and let you know what you must do to gain access to spiritual afterlife. You are basically entrusting this person with your very soul. Think of the power that gives a person. The most reputable churches as well as the most dangerous and loyal cult followings were the ones surrounding a charismatic leader who convinced his flock he could give them access to eternal life.

There also is a certain joy that people feel when they help someone else achieve a level of immortality that they themselves will never be able to reach. It’s pretty cool to meet a famous person, but it’s even cooler when you’re able to help someone rise and get that much closer to immortality, especially if you yourself usually feel powerless and voiceless. This usually accounts for the nameless, faceless masses that get incredibly obsessed and personally involved with helping another person rise to power. Think of those young, broke and eager college students who go crazy to get a grassroots politician elected or the masses of peasants through history that rallied behind charismatic revolutionaries. This is especially true when the person can be considered “one of your own,” like someone from your own hometown, socioeconomic level or race. Helping someone very similar achieve immortality affirms to a person, even on a subconscious level, that immortality may be also possible for him or his children one day as well.

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Then of course there is celebrity worship, probably the most obvious form of this phenomenon.

It doesn’t have to just involve following one individual, though. The same concept can involve a group of individuals, an organization. Sports fans who define themselves by their obsessive support of their favorite team fall into this category for example. I’m not talking about fans who are really into the strategy involved and the teamwork and the quality of the play. I mean the fans who primarily want to root for a uniform and team, regardless of who the team members are in a particular season or if they are any good. Suspend your disbelief and imagine, for example, right before the Boston Red Sox went on the field to play the Yankees some miracle last-minute trade happened where both teams exchanged every last one of their members so that all the players who were just Yankees were now Red Sox and vice versa. The Red Sox fans who were filled with hatred toward the Yankees players all season will suddenly start rooting for them and loving them the moment they switch uniforms. It’s the uniforms and what they represent that they’re cheering. It’s the immortal organization they love more than anything. Same goes for people who identify themselves throughout their lives by their participation in the military; they enjoy having been a part of an immortal organization that existed before they were born and will exist long after their physical bodies expire. No matter what happens to their bodies, no one will ever be able to take away the role they played in such an organization, however small it may be.

At the largest scale, this type of proxy immortality manifests itself as nationalism or cultural pride.

Proxy Immortality Through Event Participation

People love being part of an event that will live on forever in the minds of future generations. By taking part in such an immortal event, they feel a little more immortal themselves. Every time someone celebrates that event, in a small way the participant feels like they’re being celebrated too, even if not explicitly. Take for example the WWII generation, and the pride they have in being called that. They are basically defined by their participation in an immortal event.

I think this is another big reason why the Obama phenomenon was so powerful and cultlike. It was not only proxy immortality through a person but it was also proxy immortality through event participation, and in this case it was the historical event of the election of the first black US President, which made the power of his candidacy even more potent. For the rest of their lives, people alive during 2008 can tell the story of where they were when the first black US President was elected. And if they voted for him or volunteered to help his campaign, they have even more of a tie to the immortal event.

Proxy Immortality Through Participation in Scenes/Movements

Ever notice how people who were in on the ground floor of an important immortalized movement always try to remind people of their involvement in that movement throughout their lives. There are many Baby Boomers who still take pride in having been hippies and try to make sure the movement is remembered and lionized by future generations. The same goes for people who marched in the civil rights movement, people who went to CBGB’s to see the first NY punk bands play before they became famous, ex-Black Panthers and people who partied at Studio 54 in its disco heyday (a hedonistic movement). People who were part of a major movement always try their hardest to keep the memory of said movement alive, since the more famous, and in turn immortal, they can make the movement become, the more immortal they will feel for having partaken in it. This of course often leads to a lot of self-aggrandizement and exaggeration about the impact and profundity of said movement, but I digress.

The Wrap-Up

The thing to note about proxy immortality: people who tend to accomplish much with themselves in their lifetime and achieve a lot of social mobility are less likely to engage in it, because they’re actively chasing their own individual immortality and don’t feel the need to get it through association. For example an average joe may take a lot of pride in having been a part of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity in college and may brag about it until the end of his life, but to Bill Cosby, who hasaccomplished so much and is world-famous, his membership in that exact same fraternity is probably little more than an afterthought. When you are unable to take much pride in what you have personally accomplished or made of your life as far as elevating your class status and importance, you’re more likely to develop an intense pride in who you are, as in the politicians you support, the movements you’ve been involved in, the country you’re from, the events you participated in, the accomplishments of your ancestors and the social scenes you took part in growing up.

Next: Immortality, Self-Awareness and Woody Allen

In Part 1, I discussed the theory that all things tie into how the fear of death and urge for any type of immortality shapes just about everything we do. Previously I’ve said humans are ruled by two drives, the drive to survive and the drive to reproduce, but I think the drive for immortality is an umbrella concept that successfully covers both the drive to reproduce and the drive to survive, and it also explains other strange aspects of human nature. In the next few installments I’ll give some examples. In this installment, we’ll talk about fame.

Fame

The urge to be famous has always been a part of human nature. But it’s become worse than ever in our modern society? Why?

I think the first reason fame obsession has gotten worse has to do with how secular our society has become. As each generation become less religious, the sincere belief in an afterlife also probably decreases, meaning that people have to focus on alternative ways of satisfying their drive for immortality. This causes us to focus more of our energy on wealth accumulation, power, status and of course fame. Fame is an easy way to at least ensure your name and image will endure forever, even if your body won’t.

Another reason for the increased fame obsession is the advancement of technology. Imagine the days before there was an international media. Before the invention of the telegraph, information could not travel faster or farther than people. And before the invention of the railroad and steam engine, people had severe limitations in how far and fast they could travel. What technology has done is increase the speed with which information travels and the geographic range that information can reach. Fame was much harder for the average person to achieve. You had to do something grand, good or bad, and you had to have some sort of talent. You had to be a war hero, a conqueror, a great politician, an infamous serial killer, etc. Now with television, radio, the 24 hour news cycle, reality shows, the internet and viral videos, 15 minutes of fame is easier than ever to achieve for the average person.

Take acting for example. No matter how charismatic an actor was in the days before modern technology, his impact was severely limited. Only people in his immediate community could see him. He could perhaps travel with his production, but there were severe limitations to how far they could go and how fast they could travel in the days before trains and cars were created. And he only had an impact when he was physically acting. He couldn’t be visually or orally recorded for later viewing or listening by people who didn’t see his performance in person. He performance couldn’t be broadcast to other places. He couldn’t even be photographed. The writer was more likely to achieve immortality through fame because his words were captured in writing. More eyes through the ages would be exposed to his written word than to the actors performing his works. This is why actors in Shakespeare’s day were considered extremely low status.

Modern technology, especially in the form of moving pictures, suddenly made the actor the most visible and transmitted part of a performed story. Out of everyone involved in the collaborative moviemaking process, actors were now the ones most likely to achieve enduring fame, thereby making them the closest to achieving immortality. These technological advances have turned acting from one of the lowest status jobs to one of the highest status jobs, as it became the best gateway for a human being to achieve immortality through fame.

And it’s not just people aspiring to be actors, models and writers that try to be famous. Think of the philanthropists, endowment donors and powerful people who like to name things after themselves, like the wing of a university or hospital, or the way Donald Trump names buildings after himself and tries to become a star. This is a way to make their name and image memorable even though their body will expire.

What all these traditional routes to fame have in common, though, is that they require some natural gifts, guts, wealth or talent. Conqueror, politician, matinee idol, tycoon…all of these are out of the realm of possibility for most people. But now with Youtube, personal blogs and reality shows, fame now seems more attainable to the masses than ever before. Talent, good looks, guts, money, none of that is a prerequisite anymore to fame. All you need is an exhibitionist streak and a total lack of shame. Delusions of becoming famous are as old as time, except now it doesn’t seem quite as delusional as it did before given current technology and media options.

The third reason for this increased fame obsession is the rising narcissism that comes from our modern culture’s self-esteem focused style of parenting. No one wants to disillusion or discourage children at all, no matter how unrealistic their goals or how much talent they lack. Everyone gets a gold star, everyone is equal, no one is a loser and everyone is a winner, everyone is a special, unique snowflake. Take a look at the American Idol audition process, where we see legions of untalented people deluded about their own abilities because no one in their lives ever wanted to criticize them and hurt their self-esteem.

Consider this passage from the book Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America’s Favorite Addiction:

In her book, [Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before] (2006), Twenge argues that this rise in self-esteem is the direct result of programs in our school systems, which have increasingly promoted the idea that kids need to feel good about themselves in order to reach their potential. During the 1970s and 1980s, she notes, the number of articles about self-esteem psychology and education journals doubled, and during the 1990s thatr number rose by another 50 percent or so. Eventually scores of children’s books on self-esteem made their way into classrooms. According to Twenge, once classic in this genre is The Loveables in the Kingdom of Self-Esteem (1991). It begins: “I AM LOVEABLE. Hi, loveable friend! My name is Mona Monkey. I live in the Kingdom of Self-Esteem along with my friends the Loveable Team.” A page or so later kids learn that they can enter the kingdom only if they “say these words three times with pride: I’m loveable! I’m loveable! I’m loveable!” Over time, Twenge says, our commitment to teaching self-esteem in the schools has been institutionalized in programs and entire curricula. One popular program, called Magic Circle, requires that one child a day be given a badge reading, “I’m great.” The other children take turns praising the “great” child, and their compliments are written up and given to the child to keep. The ritual comes to an end when the chosen child is asked to say something good about himself or herself to the group.

Twenge concludes that our efforts to boost self-esteem in the classroom have fueled an epidemic of self-importance and narcissism…

There is other evidence that narcissism is growing among young people. The psychologist Harrison Gough, for example, found that college students in the 1990s were far more likely than those in the 1960s to support narcissistic statements like “I have often met people who were supposed to be experts who were no better than I.” Twenge has done a study on narcissism, too. In 2002 she and two other researchers analyzed the results from 3,445 people who had completed the Narcissism Personality Inventory (NPI). The NPI asks subjects to rate the accuracy of statements such as “I can live my life anyway I want to” and “If I ruled the world it would be a better place.” Unfortunately, the NPI has been in use only since 1988, so Twenge and her colleagues were unable to compare their results with much earlier ones. They did find, however, that narcissism scores were significantly higher among people thirty-five or younger. This led Twenge to two conclusions: that younger people are probably more narcissistic, and that everyone born after 1970 has been thoroughly indoctrinated by the self-esteem curricula of thw 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. In Generation Me, Twenge theorizes that American schools are essentially “training an army of little narcissists instead of raising kids’ self-esteem.”

If, in fact, our school systems are inadvertently bolstering narcissism, aren’t they also inadvertently encouraging kids to seek the accolades of fame?

In summation, the immortality drive is the major driving force behind human nature. Fame is the most enduring and potent form of immortality humans can actually achieve, but because it used to be so hard for the average person to achieve people channeled their energy into satisfying the drive for immortality in other ways. But now, thanks to increased secularism, improvements in technology and media choices, less barriers to fame and a stark rise in narcissism, fame seems more achievable than ever to the average joe, which has driven our obsession with it to new heights.

Next installment, Immortality by Proxy.

Recommended Reading:

One example of inductive reasoning is this post I did, where I came to the conclusion that all the problems that plague people invariably fall into the categories of either a deficiency in vision or a deficiency in discipline.

Another example is this post where I talk about how all of our motivations and actions boil down to trying to satisfy two drives, the for survival and the drive to reproduce. Survival and reproduction directly and indirectly explain our motivations for doing just about everything we’re driven to do. I was satisfied with this for a while, but something felt incomplete about this analysis, and it gnawed at me. I felt the analysis could be taken one step further. I felt that I could generalize further to create a single, broad umbrella category, one all-encompassing drive of which the drives to survive and reproduce were subcategories. And then it hit me: immortality. The drives to survive and reproduce are subcategories of the drive for immortality. Everything we do is to satisfy our drive for immortality.

The beauty of the broader Immortality Model is that it helps explain some aspects of human nature that don’t neatly fit into the survival and reproduction catergories, such as the need for religion and the drive to be famous. Religion offers immortality in the form of an afterlife. Fame offers immortality in the form of having your name and image and exploits live on long after your physical body expires. This is why all the logic and reasoning in the world will never be able to eliminate organized religion from humanity. It’s humanity’s last ditch-effort to achieve immortality, especially the closer one gets to the expiration of their physical body as they age.

The Immortality Drive plays itself out through three urges: (1) the urge to achieve immortality by extending your physical life and its impact on the world as much as you can, (2) the urge to distract yourself from thinking about the fact you are physically going to die and may not have a spiritual afterlife or reincarnation awaiting you, and (3) the urge to ensure spiritual immortality after physical expiration. People usually live life balancing these three urges as follows:

(1) distracting themselves from thinking about the inevitable reality of physical death with the possibility of no afterlife while

(2) maximizing their physical impact on the world by trying to keep their bodies alive as long as possible while spreading their genes into the next generation and chasing status, power and fame, all to ensure that their name and genes survive their physical expiration, and finally

(3) engaging in some sort of religious belief to hedge their bets just in case and to give themselves hope that spiritual immortality actually is achievable.

An excess of one urge in a person or society though can lead to a deficit of the other urges, or vice versa. For example, secular and athiestic people and societies have little to no faith in the existence of immortality through an afterlife or reincarnation, so instead they channel all their energy into the urge to distract themselves from death with no afterlife, often through excessive hedonism, substance abuse or chasing as much power, status, sex and fame as they can during their lifetimes. Since this physical life is all they have, they need to maximize it. At the other end of the spectrum, the extremely religious are so confident of the existence of an afterlife that they don’t feel the same need to engage in hedonism, substance abuse and materialism as others. For these people, there is no possibility of no afterlife, so these distractions are unnecessary. Look at suicide bombers to see this dynamic taken to even scarier extremes. Suicide bombers have so satisfied urge (3), the need to believe that a spiritual afterlife is achievable, that they are able to totally disregard the first urge of physical self-preservation and largely disregard the second urge of status-seeking.

To Be Continued…