This class provided a valuable experience for me to learn about three inextricably related topics of politics, ecology, and death and how I related to them. Using the readings to educate myself, the discussions to learn about others in the class, and the contemplative practices to sit with myself, all helped me to engage with the course. 

For me, the highlight was working on the action project. It was a tangible way of demonstrating our knowledge and impact on the community. I felt that our group was successfully able to navigate the challenges of the hybrid course and stay in consistent and fast communication throughout the quarter. For our action project, we were initially paired with the Good Grief Network to discuss the implications of the Terror Management Theory, with an emphasis on youth voices. Together, we drafted a series of questions designed to prompt people to think about how they think about climate change and death, as well as begin to build connections in their mind between those topics. 

I realized that we had been a little ambitious in the number of questions we asked and the number of people we interviewed. Unfortunately, this resulted in a lot of very thoughtful responses being cut in order to create a succinct five minute product. Regardless, I was very pleased to see the reception from our class being overwhelmingly positive. I am proud of our group for being able to take initiative and exercise our creativity with this action project. 

The interviews reinforced many of the class concepts we discussed in class. Almost everyone that we spoke to found significance in individual actions regarding climate change, yet placed a higher responsibility on corporations to address the issue. It seemed that people were moving away from religion as a cultural value and turning more toward the idea of community and family. Reflecting the sentiments from our class, most people seemed to accept their inevitable death. Being prompted to think about it encouraged them to live their lives with more conviction. 

My main takeaway from this class is to be able to live with uncomfortability and uncertainty. Being conscious and accepting of our temporary existence is something that must be mastered in order to truly affect change in the realm of politics and climate change.

Motz, C. (2020, March 18). 5 ways to build community amid a crisis (and why it matters). Wellington Experience. Retrieved December 17, 2021, from https://wellingtonexperience.com/5-ways-to-build-community-amid-a-crisis/

Never has the reminder of death been so omnipresent as it has been for my generation with the coronavirus pandemic. Death rates are recurrent in headlines and conversations, and losing loved ones has become a personal experience for millions more people around the world due to the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the pandemic has also highlighted the strong hold that the denial of death has on American culture, as we attempt to not contemplate death any more than is absolutely necessary. The terror management theory, proposed by Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski, explains how death, being the inevitable ending that we all strive to avoid, presents a psychological conflict in our minds that drives our actions.

As discussed in The Worm at the Core, one of the coping mechanisms that humans have relied upon to deal with our mortality comes through building a perception of ourselves as being superior to all others on the planet. This contributes to our actions being more inherently selfish and driven by the desire to get ourselves more than what we need. This is in contrast to animals who only consume for sustenance. The Anthropocene film explores some of the ecological harms that have come from re-engineering the planet to fit the desires of the wealthy, with little regard for other humans and living things. 

I believe that terror management theory helps us in the sense that it identifies why people turn to ways of creating or strengthening value in their lives, and how death anxiety can manifest itself through destructive tendencies. Identifying a root cause is essential for coming up with solutions. For example, in “Is a Fear of Death at the Heart of Capitalism?”, James Rowe proposes an increased focus on meditation and spirituality. 

With that being said, I don’t think that terror management theory is the most effective tool to address human’s harmful actions toward each other and the planet. Although it may be a crucial underlying factor, I believe that dismantling our capitalist systems is the most important step to reducing harms in the anthropocene. Economic factors play much more immediate roles in people’s lives. Once people feel more economically stable, they will then be able to prioritize meditative and spiritual practices. 

K, Manikanta. “Earth Day - Human Greed and Solution.” Medium, Medium, 14 May 2021, https://maniybm.medium.com/earth-day-human-greed-and-solution-b313b84c05f0.