Death Denial Leads To Tyranny - Death Literacy Can Help

When tyrants exhibit this fear, we all pay the price.

In The Atlantic podcast about Peter Thiel, his death denial was on full display. Thiel sounded like Logan Roy, the powerful head of the Roy family in the HBO drama series Succession. If you watched the final season, you know that Logan Roy also exhibited fear and denial around death.

Some journalists wonder about Trump in the context of terror management theory.

In real life or fiction, these dudes and their followers are scared to death of death.

Fear of Death Among The Powerful

Denying what we fear is a universal human experience, and it affects individuals regardless of their social or political standing. For example, comedy podcasts like WTF with Marc Maron and movies like Barbie show how different people struggle with death denial.

Many work through it with humor and art.

However, when right-wing men in positions of power fear death, especially authoritarians, it makes life worse for all of us. This is especially true if they subscribe to extremist religious views or align themselves…