\tEach of us, human beings that is, shares one important destination on the road of our lives. Death. Not dying, as the variety of means by which we die vary almost as much as we do ourselves. No, we will all, one day, be dead and gone. This may seem like a terrible morbid topic for a blog, but in the opinion of Martin Heidegger, facing and understanding this reality is the only way for human beings to truly live. Dying, which he refers to as an existing thing\u2019s \u201cGoing-out-of-the-world\u201d (Heidegger, 285), is not what he is discussing. Rather, he is discussing the inevitable fact that we will all die one day, and we refuse to understand this fact. He thinks that we are all so afraid, primordially afraid, of death that we turn our attention away from death desperately. One must anticipate death, in his view, to truly be authentic. This fear of death is universal and unshapable, unless we have the proper attitude of anticipation. A problem arises, however, with Heidegger\u2019s view when we take into account the Constructivist view that Lisa Barrett holds. How can we say the fear of death is something that everyone must overcome if all emotions are conceptual labels on physical sensations? Why not call it the anger of death? Why frame it in terms of emotion at all, if emotions are constructs? I argue that framing existence in the terms of the fear of death does do something important and unique to one\u2019s worldview.
\n\tSo, if Barrett thinks that emotions are not a matter of fact about us, but rather an interpretation of other physical states, then what difference does it make if I frame my physical state in terms of fear of death instead of fear of bear, for example? I will stipulate here that it does feel like a difference, a distinct and meaningful one, when I make the change, but I\u2019ll cover that later. Perhaps the answer lies in what Barrett thinks emotions do. She thinks that emotions have functions, which she lays out as follows; \u201cEmotion concepts make meaning [of physical states]\u201d (Barrett, 138), \u2018The second function [is] that concepts prescribe action. (Barrett, 138), and \u201cThe third function is related to a concept\u2019s ability to regulate your body budget. (Barrett, 139)\u201d. Emotions do things and labeling a sensation as an emotion would change the meaning we derive from it, intellectually, change how we act as a response to the physical sensation, and change how our hormones act in our bodies (Barrett uses cortisol as an example). So, if Heidegger is correct that the authentic way to live life is through anticipation of death, overcoming one\u2019s fear of it, then we can understand what makes this fear detrimental through Barrett\u2019s scheme and those three criteria. Experiencing what we call the unresolved fear of death would make one act inauthentically, which is definitely linked to function two, and perhaps functions one and three. There is no hard and fast description of what the fear of death is or how it functions to drive us into inauthenticity within Heidegger\u2019s writing, so I am going to have to apply Barrett\u2019s methodology and our own ideas of what it is to be emotionally healthy.
\n\tHeidegger believes that this fear of death is unknown and unconfronted by most people, which would fit quite neatly into Barrett\u2019s scheme as an uninterpreted set of physical sensations. This set cannot actually be fear or anything like that, just (at this point) meaningless sensation and action. Now, Heidegger is referring to a consistent experience of inauthenticity that drives inauthentic action. This still feels roughly parallel to Barrett\u2019s construct here, but she doesn\u2019t have any exact match for this phenomena. Perhaps Heidegger\u2019s view can be understood through how Barrett explains stress. Stress is pretty easily recognizable in our cultural lexicon by its footprints. Losing hair, \u2018stress\u2019 eating, lack of sleep, anxiety and depression: these are all symptoms of stress that can be seen easily, especially in a college environment. Barrett writes that \u201cStress is a population of diverse instances. It is a concept, just like \u201cHappiness\u201d or \u201cFear\u201d, that you apply to construct experiences from an imbalanced body budget. (Barrett, 203)\u201d. It\u2019s pretty easy to grasp how stress can drive one to be inauthentic, after all, it\u2019s often said that \u2018he\u2019s not really himself, he\u2019s really stressed\u2019. Stress can drive you to alcohol when you generally find no pleasure in drinking (Example A: Wake Forest\u2019s student body), which I think Heidegger could easily claim to be inauthentic behavior. It\u2019s important to note, however, that stress is just another filter\/construction, just like emotion. How could fear of death fit in if there is already a conceptual understanding at work here?
\n\tWhat I think that Heidegger is advocating for is a replacement of an interpretation of the body budget with the fear of death. Ever since I studied Heidegger a couple of years back, I\u2019ve tried this method, thinking about death as an inevitability. Oddly enough, this interpretation rarely came up in positive circumstance, but rather only in meditative moments of emptiness and times of stress and pain. Perhaps Heidegger\u2019s view can be used as a productive means of addressing a poorly balanced body budget. Strategic use of this method can, in Heidegger\u2019s view, make one more authentic, by altering the meaning of the experience, function 1, and by helping regulate the body budget, function 3. The presence of the third function here is only backed by my personal experiences, but I feel like it remains no less true for that.
\n\tOf course, I\u2019d be remiss in my discussion of Heidegger\u2019s view if I didn\u2019t catalogue my own experiences with anticipating death. I first did this when I was a sophomore of college, very socially anxious, both extremely certain and insecure at the same time. I took the words of Heidegger and said to myself, \u201cYou are going to die one day, and no action you take will change that. \u201c. A lot of thoughts came to me over the course of months, but chief among them was a wry sense of humor at my own distress. Whenever I felt afraid, stressed, or anxious about something, I ended up laughing at myself. What did it matter if I got an A on this test? I\u2019m going to die eventually, compared to that, the challenge in front of me is little. I still cared about the test, of course, but the perspective that anticipating death let me appreciate how little my anxiety was about the test. I was anxious that I wouldn\u2019t be the student I thought I was or that I was actually dumb, just skating by, at least these were the interpretations that I had been hanging on to before. These were little things, absurd things really, to be upset over. All of a sudden, I wasn\u2019t that scared anymore; I didn\u2019t stress. Fear is familiar to me and trying to combat the fear of death was almost enjoyable in its meaningfulness. I assume that results may vary, but I would recommend this attitude. Off of this, admittedly small, sample, it seems that adopting Heidegger\u2019s strategy is indeed beneficial, which would fit with Bennett\u2019s view of better and worse conceptual interpretive strategies.
\n\tLet\u2019s run through what has been said so far. This blog has examined the most essential obstacle that Barrett\u2019s view poses, what is the fear of death referring to? Fear doesn\u2019t exist, not as a matter of fact, but only as an interpretive concept. So, fear of death cannot just be fear of death. It has to be a conceptual filter that we choose to use to interpret our physical state. What else could it be and why would it be good for me to interpret my physical state in such a fashion? Assuming that stress drives inauthenticity, or at least that stress is one of the kinds of interpretation of an imbalanced body budget that creates inauthenticity, then substituting that filter with the fear of death would prove a better strategy. Fear is better than stress or anxiety, because fear is a challenge to be met. Fear of death is greater still, because it is inevitable, the end of our experience. It is the most useful fear, as its object is one we will all certainly face. In comparison to death, how scary is the world? Not very, I say. Death is easy, a stage exit. All of the hard part is done by then, all that is left is to bow with grace, tip the band, and give the crowd a smile. <\/p>\n
Bibliography:
\nBarrett, L. F. (2018). How Emotions Are Made. Pan Books Ltd.
\nHeidegger, M. (2013). Being and time. United States: Stellar Books.
\nWrathall, M. A. (2006). How to read Heidegger. New York: W.W. Norton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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