Death and the politics of survival

Such truths are always scandalous. For one: That we shall simply endure as humans is not assured. Indeed, virtually every species that once walked or crawled on this increasingly broken planet has already become extinct.

By itself, education and enlightenment will have little productive bearing on the ultimate human prospect. Plainly, steadily expanding technologies of mega-destruction have done very little to make us more responsible stewards of the earth. Blithely — and with unhindered arrogance — entire nations and peoples continue to revel in every conceivable form of war, terror and genocide. This shameless bloodletting persists even while the most predatory of other animals live together in far less murderous habitats. There is also conspicuous killing among these “lower” animals, but it is usually survival-driven, not gratuitous.

As a species, whether openly or quietly, we often take exquisite delight in the pain and suffering of others. There is even a precise name for it. German scholars and writers originally called it “schadenfreude.”

What is wrong with us? What sort of species can tolerate or even venerate such hideous pleasure? “Our unconscious,” Freud wrote, “does not believe in its own death; it behaves as if it were immortal.” Yet an expanded awareness of personal mortality may prove to be the last, best chance we have to endure together.

Such awareness can come from personal encounters with death. All things move in the midst of death, but what does it feel like to “almost die?” What can we learn from experiencing “near death” and emerging, whole, to “live again?” Can we learn something here that might even benefit the greater human community, something that might move us well beyond Schadenfreude?

Death “happens” to us all, but our meaningful awareness of this expectation is usually blunted by delusion. “Normally” there is even a peculiar embarrassment felt by the living in the presence of the dying. It is as if dying were reserved only for others, as if it is an “affliction” that would never presume to darken our own eternal lives. This happens more broadly, as well: In the end, all national and international politics is epiphenomenal, a reflection of underlying human needs. The most compelling of such needs is immortality.

Some years back, I had a close encounter with my own death. Suffering massive internal bleeding, I entered “hemorrhagic shock.” While my blood pressure plummeted to 40/20 and my gastric cavity filled with blood, doctors failed repeatedly to staunch the bleed. Finally, however, persevering physicians were able to cauterize the wound by endoscopic means. This was, evidently, not yet “my time.”

Dying in a hospital emergency room represents an ugly and unheroic death. This remained on my mind until the very last moment of awareness, but an even more disturbing emotion can be recalled. This was a feeling of total, profound, and immutable helplessness. I understood for the first time not only that death could really happen to me, that death was imminent, but also that it would have to be kept away by others. For the first time I truly understood that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that I could do to save myself.

This was not a pleasing awareness, but — still — it was an important realization. Men and women can learn from such an awareness that we humans are not only very vulnerable, but also that we are entirely interdependent. We simply cannot go it alone on this imperiled planet. We must all understand how we die, in order to fully understand how we must live.

Almost no one will admit it, but we are all pretty much the same. This is already quite plain to scientists and physicians. Our most important similarity is that we all die. Whatever our very different views on what happens to us after death, this mortality that we share represents nothing less than the last best chance we still have to coexist. We can care for one another as humans, but only after we first acknowledge a genuinely common anguish.

Domestic politics are convenient summer entertainment, but — for matters of ultimate significance — they are pretty much beside the point. In the end, a keen awareness of our common human fate offers our only real “medicine” against war, terrorism and genocide. Only a person who feels deeply within himself or herself the broader humanity of which he or she is composed will ever be able to embrace true compassion. Without such an embrace, no politics can ever save us.

Louis Rene Beres GS ’71 is a professor of political science at Purdue University. He can be reachesd at lberes@purdue.edu.