Sources of Significance

<i>Sources of Significance</i> confronts consumer capitalism and religious fundamentalism as symptoms of death denial and degenerated cultural heroisms. Advancing and synthesizing the ideas of Ernest Becker Kenneth Burke Hans Jonas Erving Goffman Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Epictetus this multidisciplinary work offers a sustained response and corrective. It outlines heroisms worth wanting and reveals the forms of gratitude courage and purpose that emerge as people come to terms with the meaning of mortality. Corey Anton opens a contemporary dialogue spanning theism atheism agnosticism and spiritualist humanism by re-examining basic topics such as language self-esteem ambiguity guilt ritual sacrifice and transcendence. Acknowledging the growing need for theologies that are compatible with modern science Anton shows how today's consumerist lifestyles distort and trivialize the need for self-worth and he argues that each person faces the genuinely heroic tasks of contributing to the world's beauty harmony and resources; of forgiving the cosmos for self-conscious finitude; and of gratefully accepting the ambiguity of life's gifts.