Our cultures teach us the “script” of violence as a way of waging a conflict. Ernest Becker, in his book The Denial of Death (Boston: The Free Press, 1973), maintains that what ultimately drives our use of violence is our fear of death. By definition, we as mortal beings are going to die, and this reality pervades our life. It is such a contradiction that we can be so creatively alive, and yet we are destined to lose our lives. The fear of death, the fear of losing our very self, grounds all of our other fears.

Becker says that, in response, we devise many ways to deny this most basic reality. One of the most pervasive ways of creating the illusion of invulnerability is to inflict death on others. We believe, writes Becker, that we can somehow forestall our own death by killing others. We come to believe that there is an enormous power in meting out extinction, because we ourselves are not extinguished. Every act of violence — emotional, verbal or physical — intimates or symbolizes this infliction of death on our opponent. Confronting our violence ultimately means confronting our fears, including this most wrenching fear of our own mortality.