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Symbolic Immortality and Social Theory:

The Relevance of an Underutilized Concept
By
Lee Garth Vigilant
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice
Minnesota State University Moorhead
Moorhead, MN 56563
and
John B. Williamson
Department of Sociology
Boton College
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
To be published in Handbook of Thanatology: Essays on the Social Study of Death,
edited by Clifton D. Bryant, Newbury Park, CA: Sage, (forthcoming).
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INTRODUCTION
The study of symbolic immortality begins with the seminal contributions of the
social psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton (1974, 1976, and 1979), whose ideas have had a notable
impact on the psychological literature on identity formation in life, and the
thanatological literature on the continuity of identity beyond (Mathews and Mister 1987;
Shneidman 1973). According to Lifton, healthy individuals seek a sense of life
continuity, or immortality, through symbolic means. When lacking a sense of
continuity, people experience psychic numbing and profound emotional difficulty, as
Lifton (1968) revealed in his analysis of the survivors of the first atomic attack.
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Overall,
Liftons studies have demonstrated how and why the attainment of a sense of symbolic
immortality is an essential requisite for mental health and the realization of a vital and
enduring self.
Unfortunately, Liftons insights have been largely neglected by sociologists,
resulting in an important gap in the literature on identity construction and its
continuation after death. In this essay we seek to fill this gap, particularly by
highlighting the central features of Liftons theory of symbolic immortality, its
application in sociological research, and its relevance for sociological theories of identity
construction.
WHEN DEATHS ENTICING ECHO MOCKS
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: THE WORK OF SYMBOLIC
IMMORTALITY
Robert J. Lifton coined the concept symbolic immortality to refer to the universal
human quest to achieve a sense of continuity in the face of the incontrovertible evidence
that we will die. According to Lifton (1979, 1974), the knowledge that we will die forces
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us to confront and transcend our fears of finitude in symbolic ways, particularly through
relying upon various modes of symbolic immortality. These modes connect us to the
past and present, linking us to those who have gone before us and to those who will live
on after us and remember our contributions (Lifton 1979). Most Importantly, Lifton
asserts that the pursuit of symbolic immortality gives meaning to our existence by
preserving our connection to others in material ways in this life, while ensuring our
continued symbolic connection to others once the mortal coil is severed.
Lifton proposes that we do this through drawing upon five modes of symbolic
connectedness or immortality, which he identifies as (1) biological, (2) creative,
transcendental, (4) natural, and (5) experiential transcendence.
The first mode of achieving a sense of symbolic immortality, the biological, is
perhaps the most ubiquitous means of ensuring our connection to the future.
At the genetic level, this mode connects us to the past through our family of orientation
and to the present and future through our family of procreation both in its biologic and
social manifestations (significant others, children, friends, and kin). For Lifton (1979), a
chain of continuos biological and social attachments mark this type of symbolic
immortality mode, as in the sense of living through our children, their children, and our
culture. Moreover, at the biosocial level, this mode includes our connectedness to our
species-beings
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by way of friendships, culture, imagined communities
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, and the norms
and values that give us a sense of collective social identity.
The second mode of achieving symbolic immortality is through creative acts.
Lifton observes that the creative expression of symbolic immortality is most commonly
associated with art, literature, and music where the works of the artist lives on after her
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demise. Lifton also points to the scientific enterprise and the building of cumulative
knowledge, where the work of one researcher might be carried forward by someone
else, as another expression of creative immortality. In addition, Lifton (1979: 22) directs
special attention to deep interpersonal relationships where the bonds of the
communicative act are long lasting and profound such as, for example, in the
relationships between parent and child, or psychotherapist and patient, or teacher and
student. These deep interpersonal relationships embody the potential for creative
immortality.
The third mode of achieving a sense of symbolic immortality, for Lifton (1979)
the expression of theological or religious imagery, is grounded in the idea of life power,
that is, the ability to overcome death through the power of religion or spirituality. Lifton
posits that all of the great worldly religions have this one thing in common: the quest to
get beyond the inevitability of death. Lifton remarks (1979: 20): Whatever the imagery,
there is at the heart of religion a sense of spiritual power. That power may be
understood in a number of ways dedication, capacity to love, moral energy but its
final meaning is life-power and power over death. And eschatology beliefs in a
kingdom to come and that death is not the end- is the cornerstone of all worldly
religions.
The fourth mode of achieving a sense of symbolic immortality is through natural
means. By natural means, Lifton (1979) is referring to our connectedness to the natural
world around us the sense that after our mortal demise, the world itself, with its trees,
its oceans and clouds, and all that constitutes the earth, will remain.
The fifth and final mode of experiencing a sense of immortality is the most
important for Lifton, and is referred to as the experience of transcendence. It is a mode
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entirely different from the other four in that it is grounded on a psychic state one so
intense and all-encompassing that time and death disappear (1979: 24). As a
psychological state, the mode of experiential transcendence involves moving beyond or
transcending the mundane and profane, and can be experienced in all of the
aforementioned four modes. Thus, one might experience a sense of transcendence
through a deep spiritual experience such as a baptism and being born again in the
Christian sense, or being in a mystical trance -a signature feature of many worldly
religions. Other methods of achieving transcendence is through an epiphanic
experience such as giving birth, or a rapturous encounter such as the use of psychedelic
substances, LSD and the like, or other kinds of drugs that produce a mundane-
transcending sensation. This mode also includes the ecstatic transcendence that is
derived from orgasm. Here, according to Lifton (1979: 26), the self feels uniquely alive
connected, in movement, integrated which is why we can say that this state provides at
least a temporary sense of eliminating time and death. What is unique about
experiential transcendence is that when in the experience, be it orgasmic ecstasy, drug-
induced euphoria, or spiritual rapture, one feels as if one has overcome death because of
the immediacy and intensity of the event.
Lifton proposes that these five modes constitutes the mechanism whereby
humans are able to reduce death-anxieties by achieving a sense of mastery over
mortality, and this mastery is essential for psychological wellness. Additionally, the five
death transcending strategies play an important role in countering what Lifton (1979)
refers to as death equivalent experiences which are the antecedents of some of the most
common psychological and social disorders grounded in feelings of stasis, separation, and
disintegration. By stasis, Lifton is referring to a life without a sense of purpose -the
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experience of going nowhere fast- which, for example, forms the basis of mid-life
crises.
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By separation, Lifton (1979) means the loss of connectedness to a larger
community or the loss of the love-connection to other human beings, and this death
equivalent along with stasis- can be the basis for certain types of depression
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, a state of
both physical and psychic stasis (1979: 182). Finally there is disintegration, which Lifton
(1979: 101) describes as the absence of those ethical principles used to organize -or
ground- human experience within a historical-cultural context. In the absence of those
unifying and organizing principles, be they religiously based or ideologically
grounded
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, disintegration is likely to occur, and for sociologists, social disintegration, or
anomie, is the antecedent for societal pathologies
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. So then, the work of death-
transcending strategies is also inextricably linked to the need to reduce these death
equivalents and maintain psychic health in giving a sense of purpose to our individual
existences.
The five modes of death transcendence that Lifton identifies are not the only
paths to achieving a sense of symbolic immortality. Several analysts have proposed
other possible methods preserving the self after death. Edwin B. Shneidmans (1995,
1973) work on the development of the postself is particularly noteworthy. For
Shneidman, the postself concerns a persons reputation and continued influence after
death. Shneidman delineates five ways that the self can live on after death. The postself,
according to Shneidman (1995), can live on in (1) the memory of those who are still
living, (2) the interactions others will have with your creative works (art, music, books,
etc.), (3) the bodies of others as in the case of organ transplants, (4) the genes of your
progeny, and finally, (5) the cosmos. As a central difference between the postself and the
symbolically immortalized self, it is important to keep in mind that the postself often
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assumes an identity of its own an identity completely unplanned for, or one wholly
unexpected by the self when it was alive.
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However, as intriguing as discussions on the
postself are, the focus of this essay is on the work of symbolically immortalizing the self
in life and not on post-mortal identity.
SOME PREVIOUS RESEARCH ON SYMBOLIC IMMORTALITY
The empirical literature on symbolic immortality, although relatively small, has
examined many of the theoretical assumptions of Liftons work. These empirical studies
span the range of inquiry, from studies on the biological means of achieving
immortality, to meditations on the quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality
through the vocation of teaching. Many of the earlier studies were done to explore the
thesis that symbolic immortality is a requisite for healthy psychological development
(Kastenbaum 1974; Mathews et al 1987; Schmitt 1982). Other work on this concept,
however, focuses on the available avenues of symbolic immortality to different groups
of people (Moremen and Cradduck 1998; Schmitt 1982).
In concert with Liftons biological mode of achieving symbolic immortality, an
earlier study by Robert Kastenbaum (1974) sought to examine whether the fear death
compels us to reproduce in order to ensure our continuity. In the Kastenbaum (1974)
study, 90% of respondents agreed with the sentiment people who have children and
grandchildren can face death more easily than people who have no descendents to carry
on. While certainly not an index of fear as an impetus for procreation, this rate of
response certainly speaks to the importance of the biological mode of achieving a sense
of immortality. Moreover, Kastenbaums findings are consistent with other empirical
and historical evidences on the important role that progeny plays in achieving a sense
on symbolic immortality.
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Providing further support for Kastenbaums work,
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Rubinsteins (1996) lineal emptiness, a phenomenon that was observed in many of the
childless women in his study of 160 women at a Philadelphia geriatric center, speaks
volumes to the importance of the biological mode in achieving a sense of immortality.
For the women in the Rubinstein study, having an offspring was viewed as one way to
leave a legacy and support future generations a quest that was propelled by both
egotistic and altruistic motives. In another study, Drolet (1990) found that the sense of
symbolic immortality becomes stronger with age, and that achieving that sense can help
to decrease the fear of death in established adults, and thus possibly can contribute to
the enhancement of life for the individual, as well as for society at large (Drolet 1990:
159).
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Other studies have examined the attainment of a sense of symbolic immortality
through creative activities (Blacker 1997; Cortese 1997; Goodman 1996; Lifton, Kato, and
Reich 1979; Schmitt and Leonard 1986; Talamini 1989). Two studies on sports as a
creative route to achieving symbolic immortality are noteworthy. Organized sports,
especially on university and professional levels, offer a unique arena to study the work
of immortalizing the self. Organized professional sports offer a public arena where
athletes can make history through extraordinary plays or by breaking longstanding
records. It is this unique opportunity to leave ones mark that makes the study of
symbolic immortality in sports so profound. According to Schmitt and Leonard (1986),
organized sports provide unique death-transcending opportunities through (1) role-
support, (2) engrossment through participation and communication, (3) comparison
through measurement and records, and (4) recognition through awards and
commemorative devices (Schmitt and Leonard 1986: 1093). By role-support, Schmitt
and Leonard (1986) refer to the support that others, including teammates, fans, and
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society in general, give to the athlete that enables them to maintain their status in life
and beyond. Moreover, role-support enables greater sociality in athletes interactions
with fans, and their communications with the media, in print, television, and now cyber-
vision. As Schmitt and Leonard (1986) note, comparisons of records are still another way
that ensures immortality because new athletes, commentators, and fans use the
achievements of others as a measuring rod for current performance. Comparison,
through previous records and current performances, ensure that retired or dead athletes
will be remembered long after their playing days are over. And of course, the role of
commemorative halls (the Basketball and Football Halls of Fame for instance), and the
trophies that line the walls of most high school and university gymnasiums speak to the
enduring immortality of the previous generation.
In another study using sports as a creative mode of achieving a sense of symbolic
immortality, Cortese (1997) applied Schmitt and Leonards model to the experiences of
amateur intracollegiate boxing athletes. Corteses (1997) found that the same
opportunities for a sense of symbolic immortality existed in the amateur ranks through
(1) role support, (2) participation and communication, (3) comparisons of records, and
(4) commemorative awards. Cortese (1997) also found that although the manifest
function of these bouts were for charity fundraising, the athletes themselves were made
keenly aware of the opportunities for symbolic immortality through titles, awards, and
commemorative ceremonies. Moreover, the role of commemorative devices, such as
championship trophies for the winner and Notre Dame boxing jackets for all finalists,
played a crucial role for the participants, both as a catalyst for their participation in the
charity bouts and for immortalizing their post-selves in the memories of others. Finally,
symbolic immortality is ensured in another way since all of the bouts are immortalized
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in the print media which, according to Cortese (1997: 360), publishes tidbits of the
personal histories of each fighter, often pointing to academic and personal
achievements.
The quest for symbolic immortality in other creative activities, such as ones
vocation, is another arena that has drawn some attention albeit scant- from the
scholarly literature on death-transcending strategies. In her meditation on the profession
of medicine as route to achieving a sense of symbolic immortality, Palgi (1996: 229)
observed that, The most appealing feature of the medical professional self is that it has
the potentiality of connecting with something that immortalizes, a life outside of the
physicians own, a life that may outlive the healer. In a sense, doctors live on in the
lives and memories of their patients, and this form of creative immortality, according to
Palgi (1996), is one of the peripheral benefits of medicine. Thankfully, the vocational
path to symbolic immortality is not limited to healers, for other studies point to the same
potential to live on in the memories of others (Blacker 1997; 1998).
In his analysis of pedagogy as a route to immortality, David Blacker (1997: 61)
reasoned that, the ultimate payoff of education lies in the human interconnectedness it
mends, nurtures, and gives birth to; its enduring value consists in its ability to live in
those particular Others who are so connected, to make the extension any genuine ethic
requires: beyond our narrower and more immediate projects and toward the Other.
Lessons taught, skills learned, and the in-class interlocutions continue long after the
pedagogy stops. The work of education, according to Blacker (1997; 1998), assures the
teacher that her pedagogical efforts will be transferred to other generations of pupils in
the great chain of knowledge and leaning. As the popular aphorism, each-one-teach-
one, implies, education connects students and teachers in a cycle that is perpetual,
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where the memories of both the teacher and the lesson are conjoined. Teaching, much
like the work of healing, bestows on its practitioner a creative sense of surpassing death
a feeling that the ultimate payoff of this work are the eternal connections that both
student and teacher have to the ideas that are explicated, interrogated, and modified in
pedagogic praxis.
Within the larger context of achieving a sense of symbolic immortality, a small
body of research extends the discourse by considering the idea of identity preservation.
The work of David Unruh (1983), on strategies of identity preservation between dying
individuals and their loved ones, is of particular import here. Unruhs (1983) study of
the quest to preserve ones identity beyond the grave bears particular interest for
sociologists because he describes the process as one that is grounded in interaction
between dying individuals and their survivors. Unruh (1983) identifies three strategies
that the dying employ to preserve their identities after death. These include (1) attempts
to solidify identity, where the dying record, in memos, journals, and letters, aspects of
their identities that they would like to preserve
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; (2) accumulating artifacts, where dying
persons collect artifacts and mementos that come to stand as symbols of their personal
histories
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; and finally, (3) distributing artifacts, typically to close friends and family
members through wills and testaments, that attest to the identity of the deceased and
assist survivors in their reminiscences of the life of the deceased. Moreover, Unruhs
(1983) strategic steps to identity preservation outlines four ways that survivors might act
to preserve the identities of their deceased loved ones. Survivors, according to Unruh
(1983), might preserve the identities of their loved ones by (1) reinterpreting the mundane,
or giving new meaning to memories of ordinary past experiences with the deceased; (2)
redefining the negative, by idealizing less desirable aspects of the deceased personality or
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lived experience; (3) continued bonding, or doing certain activities that stimulate
reminiscence about the deceased; and (4) the use of sanctifying symbols or artifacts, that
come to stand as a sacred representation of the deceased. As a significant departure
from the quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality, this model of preserving a
postself identity beyond the grave is an interactional one that requires certain actions of
the dying or deceased, and responses to those actions from the living a relational
requisite between the deceased and her survivors that is not explicit in Liftons work.
The quests to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality and to preserve the self in
the face of death have been documented in a few sociological analyses among the
chronically ill and dying (Charmaz 1991; Marshall 1986, 1975a, 1975b; Sandstrom 1998).
In his work among men who were living with AIDS, Sandstrom (1998) found that the
quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality was omnipresent. Many of
Sandstroms respondents grounded their postmortal selves in their occupations and
artistic endeavors, while others secured their immortalized selves in eschatological
hopes and spiritual beliefs. Similarly, Charmaz (1991) found that concerns about
immortality were heightened among her population of sufferers of chronic pain,
especially when death seemed imminent. Charmaz (1991) observed that achieving a
sense of immorality offered meaning and purpose to the lives of her respondents.
Our review of the literature on symbolic immortality suggests that an
understanding of the individuals quest for symbolic immortality might enrich the
knowledge of identity formation and maintenance in life, and the quest for identity
continuity after death. Unfortunately, the relevance of this quest to core themes in
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sociological theory remains underdeveloped. In order to facilitate this understanding,
the next section links symbolic immortality to some key concepts in social theory.
SYMBOLIC IMMORTALITY WITHIN SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY: USE-VALUE
The quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality is a deeply sociological one,
and this section links this pursuit to some key concepts in the major streams of
sociological thought: structuration, symbolic interactionism, and phenomenology.
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Our
attempt here is to broaden the existing literature on symbolic immortality by linking it to
some key identity concepts in sociology.
The Immortal Self in Structuration Theory
Anthony Giddens, the founder of the structuration perspective, has done
more than any other sociologist in recent decades to bridge the chasm between agency
and structure that has marked the science since its inception. Giddens (1984: 2) asserts
that, The basic domain of study of the social sciences, according to the theory of
structuration, is neither the experience of the individual actor, nor the existence of any
form of societal totality, but social practices ordered across space and time. These social
practices, mediated both by individual choice and societal influence, have profound
sway over the development of the self in late modernity, and the development of the self
in late modernity is for Giddens (1991) a reflexive project where the individual is
continuously adjusting aspects of her biography to dynamic social changes. Giddens
(1991) believes that the self in late modernity is one that is marked by existential
anxieties. These anxieties emerge from the globalizing tendencies of economies of signs
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that continue to erode those primordial and gemeinschaften caring structures that
historically functioned to build trust and inoculate against existential uneasiness.
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Modernity, as noted by Giddens (1991: 32), introduces an elemental dynamism into
human affairs, associated with changes in trust mechanisms and in risk environments.
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Consequently, it is reflexivity, or the self-monitoring aspect of self-identity, that is
principally responsible for reducing those anxieties inherent to the late modern period.
But more than this, it, reflexivity, is the mechanism by which the late modern self is
constructed, for as Giddens (1991: 75) notes, We are, not what we are, but what we
make of ourselves. Thus, a structuration perspective (Giddens 1991) might well
interpret the quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality as part of the reflexive
project of the self in late modernity: a project that works to reduce existential anxiety
through (1) attempts at colonizing the future by strategic life planning, (2)
addressing existential questions, and finally, (3) creating a sense of ontological security
in the protective cocoon that achieving a sense of symbolic immortality offers.
The quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality through creative, biologic,
religious, natural, or transcendental means can be understood as an attempt to colonize
the future through strategic life-planning. The work of colonizing the future, defined by
Giddens as the creation of territories of future possibilities (1991: 242), is itself
embodied in the quest for a sense of symbolic immortality because, as previously noted,
symbolic immortality is about gaining the assurance that ones identity will continue on
long after ones corporeal demise. Symbolic immortality, as a death-transcending
apparatus, colonizes the future by assuring that ones self-identity will remain an active
part of the future, whether through an aesthetic act, a religious quest for an eternal soul,
or by biologic means through progeny. But more than providing a mere assurance of
transcending death, the quest for a sense of symbolic immortality might also reduce the
fears and uncertainties inherent to life in the late-modern age. By forcing us to confront
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deaths inevitability and certainty, the quest to continue-on necessarily embodies some
important existential questions around human connectedness.
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Moreover, existential
questions, which according to Giddens (1991: 55) are questions concerning the (1) nature
of ones existence and being, (2) the finite and sentient nature of human life, (3) the
existence of others, and (4) the continuity of self identity, lie at the very heart of the
quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality. Answers to these existential questions
play a significant role not only in assuaging death anxiety (see Lifton 1974), but also in
building a sense of ontological security (Laing 1965; Giddens 1991). The strategic life
planning involved in procuring ones continuation after death creates a sense of mastery
over the usual anxieties of severing ones connectedness to the human community.
The Immortal Self in Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic interactionism, as a branch of social psychology, is expressly concerned
with the self: principally, how the self is created through social interactions, how it
interprets those interactions, and how the self manipulates symbols to form those
interpretations (Mead 1934).
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As the progenitor of the term, Herbert Blumer (1962: 180)
reasoned that human interaction is, [M]ediated by the use of symbols, by
interpretation, or by ascertaining the meaning of one anothers actions. This mediation is
equivalent to inserting a process of interpretation between stimulus and response in the
case of human behavior. Within the confines of Blumers definition of symbolic
interaction, the work to immortalize the self thus becomes the work of manipulating
symbols and signs in social interaction for the purpose of continuing the self after death
-a self, that according to George Herbert Mead, is a social structure that arises in social
interaction (Mead 1934: 140). Consequently, the work involved in achieving a sense of
symbolic immortality whether it is the labor involved in creative activity, the time and
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care spent in giving moral guidance to ones progeny, or the hours spent cultivating the
soul in spiritual mediation- is a work that is deeply social, and one that involves the
manipulation of language, symbols, and signs, in communicative praxis with others, to
engender a sense of achieving that immortal identity for the self. In essence, the
immortalized self cannot exist outside the confines of the symbolic interactions that will
ensure its continued existence. Harkening back to Unruhs (1983) analyses of identity
preservation, we find that if and how one will be remembered are questions that are
essentially grounded in strategic encounters and planning, which are the processes of
symbolic interactions. Thus, the achievement of a sense of symbolic immortality, under
the terms of symbolic interactionism, is contingent upon a generalized other (Mead
1934: 154), whomever or whatever the generalized other is.
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In effect, it is the
generalized other, defined by Mead (1934: 154) as the reference group that gives to a
person her unity of self, that ensures that one will achieve a sense of symbolic
immortality. It is only through social interaction, where meanings, ideas, and emotions
about death and the continuity of the self are internalized and sought out, that an
individual is ensured a sense of symbolic immortality and the continuation of the
postself identity. Consequently, the very quest to arrive at this sense of immortality is
one that is deeply social and entrenched in symbolic interaction.
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The quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality also involves a great deal of
self-interaction. By self-interaction, Mead (1934: 134) is referring to a reflexive process of
the turning-back of the experience of the individual upon himself through internal
conversations, whereby an individuals biography is examined to give value and
meaning to her life. Internal conversations concerning ones postself identity and
memory in the minds of generalized others are an essential aspect of the quest to achieve
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a sense of symbolic immortality. The question how will I be remembered? and the
negotiation with others to ensure that memory, begin with an internal conversation on
the postself identity. This interactional quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality
is linked to the most innate and natural of all human needs: our desire for meaningful
social interactions within -and beyond- the confines of the corporeal. As noted by Mead
(1938: 477):
Human society is not at home in the world because it is trying to change that world and
change itself; and, so long as it has failed to so change itself and change its world, it is not
at home in it as the physiological and physical mechanism is. There is a need for
salvation not the salvation of the individual but the salvation of the self as a social
beingApart from the instinctive love of life, is that demand for immortality any more
than an assertion of the continuous character of the social value which the individual as a
social being can embody in himself?
The salvation of the self the social self- is exactly what the quest to achieve a sense of
symbolic immortality is all about. And Mead (1938) connects this instinctive quest for
immortality to our most basic need for social interaction in this life and beyond.
The quest to preserve the self by achieving a sense of symbolic immortality might
also be interpreted as a form of biographical labor. In particular, it embodies the works
of legitimizing biography (Hewitt 1989), life-review (Butler 1963), and self-objectification
(Marshall 1986). Marshall (1986) posits that the work of legitimizing ones biography,
related to what he calls an awareness of finitude (1986:139), is an attempt to rewrite
aspects of biography and personal history so as to arrive at a final meaning, or a closing
chapter, to life. Moreover, Marshall (1986) notes that legitimation of biography
intensifies with age, and this process reaches its peak when individuals conclude that
they only have a few more years to live. The work to achieve a sense of symbolic
immortality and, by necessity, the biographical legitimizations that occur, might well be
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understood as status passage control, what Marshall (1980: 124) posits as peoples
attempts to seek not only to make sense of themselves as dying but also to gain
whatever control they can over the dying process, death itself, and in some cases, the
afterlife. Similarly, Robert Butlers (1963) notion of life review, or attempts by
individuals who are dying, or who are close to death, to make sense of their past lives
and choices, is another type of biographical work designed to find meaning and purpose
to a past life, while reducing death anxiety. All of these practices are means by which
the self experiences objectification: practices that offer a sense of continuity to personal
experience (Hewitt 1989: 185).
Finally, the work of symbolic immortality, in as much as it incorporates the tools
of impression management (Goffman 1958, 1955) in building a positive postself identity,
personifies a type of biographical work (Gubrium and Buckholdt 1977) wherein
individuals, through mindful reflexiveness, take into account the perceptions that other
people have of them, accept, modify, or change those perceptions through the conscious
manipulation of interactional props, and, in so doing, negotiate new public biographies
(Gubrium and Buckholdt 1977) of themselves for interactions in the present, and for the
future encounters that others will have with their post-selves.
The Immortal Self in Phenomenology
Phenomenological sociology, which traces its roots to the German social
philosopher Edmund Husserl, is principally concerned with describing the world as
seen through the consciousness of individuals. In Collected Papers, Vol. 1, Alfred Schutz
(1962) reasoned that the phenomenological task was that of describing the life-worlds
or consciousness of individuals. Schutz (1962: 120) argued that, our problem, however,
is not what occurs to man as a psychophysiological unit, but the attitude he adopts
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toward these occurrences briefly, the subjective meaning man bestows upon certain
experiences of his own spontaneous life. In essence, Schutz believed that the goal of
phenomenology was to understand the meanings or typifications that people attributed
to their experiences. Phenomenology places a premium on discovering how an
individual constructs and interprets the social world in her mind. While only a depth-
phenomenology can uncover the meaning behind the work to achieve a sense of
symbolic immortality for an individual, for instance the catalyzing motives that drives
an individual to acquire this sense, phenomenology does propose some essential terms
that underscore this drive.
In purely phenomenological terms, the work to achieve a sense of symbolic
immortality is seen as a byproduct of an individuals symbolic universe, or those
symbols that an individual uses to refer to realities other than those of everyday
experience (Berger and Luckmann 1966 95). This universe, in addition to containing the
entire biography and social history of the individual, helps her to make sense of, and
order, biographical experiences in the process of meaning making. And, it is the
meaning-making function of this universe that is important to the quest to achieve a
sense of symbolic immortality. For Berger and Luckmann (1966), achieving a sense of
symbolic immortality is certainly under the purview of a persons symbolic universe
because the primary role of the symbolic universe is to assuage death-anxiety a latent
benefit that the achievement of symbolic immortality certainly provides. Commenting
on the foremost function of the symbolic universe, Berger and Luckmann (1966: 101)
posited:
The legitimation of death is, consequently, one of the most important fruits of symbolic
universesAll legitimations of death must carry out the same essential task they must
20
enable the individual to go on living in society after the death of significant others and to
anticipate his own death with, at the very least, terror sufficiently mitigated so as to not
paralyze the continued performance of everyday lifeIt is in the legitimation of death
that the transcending potency of symbolic universes manifests itself most clearly, and the
fundamental terror-assuaging character of the ultimate legitimations of the paramount
reality of everyday life is revealed.
If applied to the work of achieving a sense of symbolic immortality, an individuals
symbolic universe, according to Berger and Luckmann (1966), is principally responsible
for situating the death phenomenon within the biographical complex transforming it
from a taken-for-granted reality to an active indeed omnipresent- aspect of biography
and sociality that the individual must contend with. And, the quest to achieve a sense of
symbolic immortality, whether through biologic, creative, religious, natural, or
experiential transcendence means, is the mechanism that the symbolic universe employs
in dealing with death-apprehension.
Finally, one wonders, from a phenomenological perspective, if the quest to
achieve a sense of symbolic immortality is a distinctly modern phenomenon linked to
the need, whether real or perceived, to preserve our individualism. Georg Simmel, in an
essay entitled Individual and Society in Eighteenth and Nineteenth- Century Views of Life,
was the first sociologist to distinguish the new individualism that was birthed in the
Industrial Revolution. Simmel (1950: 81) argued that, The new individualism might be
called qualitative, in contrast with the quantitative individualism of the eighteenth
century. Or it might be called the individualism of uniqueness [Einzigkeit] as against
that of singleness [Einzelheit]. For Simmel, there was something unique about the
Industrial personality a personality where an individual measured his individualism
not through comparison with social others for sameness, but rather by contrasting his
21
personal uniqueness to that of others for difference. This new individualism was one
that defined the self through peculiarities and singleness (Simmel 1950: 82). This simple
observation on the new personality that emerged in industrial societies raises a
profound implication for the quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality. Namely,
is the quest to acquire a sense of symbolic immortality merely the personalitys reaction
against deaths erosion of that unique identity the qualitative personality? The
existential phenomenology of Jean-Paul Sartre proposes an answer to this quandary.
In an incisive essay entitled My Death, Sartre (1956: 693) proposed that the
distinctive feature of the dead life is how it strips the once vibrant or qualitative-
personality of its uniqueness and singularity. The peculiar feature of the dead life is the
homogeneity it represents: You can live your life as you like and express your unique
individuality at will, but upon death, your agency that qualitative individualism- is lost
forever. For Sartre, the dead life marks the erosion of ones personality in order to be re-
constituted with the whole dead collective. While Sartre does recognize the possibility of
living on in the memories of others as a reconstituted life, the inevitable fate for most
personalities is a homologation into the quantitative, dead life identity (Sartre 1956: 693).
And it is this that might impel many individuals to seek a sense of symbolic immortality
for their unique, qualitative personalities to defeat the anxieties of what the dead life
personifies: to be forgotten! Accordingly, Sartre noted (1956: 659-696):
Thus the very existence of death alienates us wholly in our own life to the advantage of
the Other. To be dead is to be prey for the living. This means therefore that the one who
tries to grasp the meaning of his future must discover himself as the future prey of
othersIn this sense, to die is to be condemned no matter what ephemeral victory one
has won over the Other ; even if one has made use of the Other to sculpture ones own
statue, to die is to exist only through the Other, and to owe him ones meaning and the
very meaning of ones victory.
22
The individuals quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality might well be a
reactionary stance against the problems posed by the dead life. Why become prey for
the living when you can sculpt your own immortalized postself through one, or all, of
the five death transcending paths? Why lose your unique qualitative personality in
death by becoming one of the dead masses? In essence, from a phenomenological point
of view, the pursuit of a sense of symbolic immortality is one grounded in the need to
preserve ones unique consciousness and individual singleness, and to be remembered
as one wishes.
CONCLUSION
We have argued that the quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality is one
that has a great deal of importance to sociology, and an area that is easily applicable to
some core ideas in social theory. Our treatment of the quest to achieve a sense of
symbolic immortality in various sociological traditions shows the relevance of this
underutilized concept to theories on the development of the self in late modernity. The
work to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality is one that is deeply sociological and
one that bears profound implications on our understanding of the development of the
social self, both in this life and beyond. Thus, as long as individuals are actively working
to procure a sense of immortality for their postmortal selves, their identities do not cease
to exist after their corporeal demise. Moreover, their corporeal demise does not
preclude postmortal interactions with loved ones left behind. Sociological theories on
the development of the self do have an important contribution to make in our
understanding of the quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality.
Finally, in analyzing the relevance of this concept to sociological theory, we
encountered questions to which a sociological inquiry should attend. One of the gifts of
23
sociology is the attention it pays to issues of social inequality by posing both critical and
reflexive questions on the roles of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and other such social
identities. The sociology of the quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality should,
naturally, consider the impact that the aforementioned social identities are having on
actualizing that goal. It is not surprising, then, that sociologys failure to seriously
consider the immortalized postself has left open and unexplored questions around
access barriers to a sense of symbolic immortality by race, ethnicity, social class, and
gender. Nowhere is this omission as prominent as in the current scholarly literature on
symbolic immortality. This gap in the literature suggests that inequality issues are
irrelevant to the quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality.
21
And yet, as death
notices in newspapers suggest, social inequalities particularly by gender- tend to
persist even after death (Kastenbaum et al 1977; Moremen and Cradduck 1998/99; Spilka
et al 1979). Still, only scant attention is paid to these critical issues. Thus, the sociology of
the quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality might also make a substantial
contribution here. Some possible questions for future research are:
1. Do we find the same drive to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality across
all human societies, or are there differences by nationality, culture, or
subculture? For instance, do individuals in postindustrial societies express
different motives and drives for their quest to achieve a sense of symbolic
immortality as compared to individuals in industrial and/or agrarian
societies?
2. How are the variables race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and others possibly
affecting the pursuit to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality?
3. What happens when the pathways to a sense of symbolic immortality are
unavailable to large groups of people by certain social identities (race,
ethnicity, class, gender, disability, sexuality, etc.)?
24
4. The work to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality is one that is described
as an individuals quest for self-preservation beyond life. From a sociological
point of view, the question arises: Is the need to achieve a sense of symbolic
immortality ever expressed as a collective or an institutional one? And if so,
how is the collective quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality
different from, or similar to, the ways individuals pursue this goal?
Moreover, are the motivations to achieve as sense of symbolic immortality
similar at the collective (groups and institutions) and the individual levels?
22

These are but a few questions that remain unexplored areas that have been the
historical purview of sociological inquiry. Thus, herein lies the goal of a sociological
theory on the quest to achieve a sense of symbolic immortality: That we might better
understand the need of -and the work towards- identity preservation in this life and
beyond, and the many social impediments that individuals and groups encounter as
they strive to achieve this end
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Endnotes
28

1
Lifton (1974: 683) noted that psychic numbness is an adaptive strategy employed under
extreme social conditions such genocide, mass deaths, or situations of incredible
violence. Lifton defines psychic numbness as a form of de-sensitizationan incapacity
to feel or to confront certain kinds of experience, due to the blocking or absence of inner
forms or imagery that can connect with such experience (p.683).
2
Subtitle adopted from a line in W.H. Audens poem Deaths Echo.
3
In Marxian terms, species-being refers to our connection to the human community.
4
See Benedict Andersons (1983) Imagined Communities for a discussion of nationalism
as an expression of a type of symbolic family.
5
For Lifton (1979: 87) a midlife crisis, as related to the static feeling of going nowhere
fast, is a crisis in ultimate life projectsMen and women break away from marriage
and families, seeking to take advantage of a last chance for loving and caring
relationships previously denied them.
6
It is interesting that Lifton (1979: 182), a social psychiatrist, and David Karp (1996), a
sociologist, both come to define depression as a disease of disconnection.
7
For Lifton (1979: 110) both ideology and religion are organizing principles for humans
that essentially serve the same function: satisfying our quest for utopian perfection.
8
See Durkheims classic meditation Suicide for an example of this condition.
9
This is often the case with celebrities who die young such as James Dean, Jimmy
Hendrix, John Lennon, etc., and whose postself-identities are more popular in death than
in life.
10
See Lauwearts (1994) study of the historical significance of childbirth as a mechanism
of achieving a sense of symbolic immortality in China.
29

11
See Mathews and Mister (1987-88) for a study that uses a different instrument to
measure the same need for symbolic immortality.
12
Attempts at solidifying identity (Unruh 1983) for postself preservation might well be
interpreted as a type of face-work or impression management within the micro
interactionist tradition of Erving Goffman (1958, 1955). It seems to me that the dual labor
of impression management and maintaining face, whether through journals, letters,
personal artifacts, and other such devices, are signature features of the quest to preserve
the post self identity and achieve a sense of symbolic immortality.
13
Sandstrom (1998), in his work among male AIDS sufferers, also pointed to the
importance of signifying artifacts in efforts to preserve the vital and valued self in the
face of death. Accordingly, Sandstrom (1998: 365) notes that the dying may dedicate
themselves to collecting artifacts or to writing journals that will be passed on to friends
and family, or the wider public. They hope that this will allow their experiences or
stores to live on in the memories of others.
14
These theoretical traditions are certainly not the only links to the symbolic immortality
concept. See Raymond L. Schmitt and Wilbert M. Leonard II (1986: 1089) for other
possible connections of the symbolic immortality concept to sociological theory.
15
For another important analysis of the self in late modernity see Scott Lash and John
Urrys Economies of Signs & Space (CA: Sage, 1994). Economies of signs, as defined
by Lash and Urry (1994), are post-industrial economies where symbols, images,
information, and desires are the primary exchange commodities.
16
See Robert J. Liftons The Protean Self: Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation
(BasicBooks, 1993) for a similar meditation on the self in late modernity.
30

17
Giddens (1991: 55) defines existential questions as those concerning the basic
parameters of human life, and are answered by everyone who goes on in the contexts
of social activity.
18
See Joel M. Charons Symbolic Interactionism: An Introduction, An Interpretation, An
Integration for one of the best explications of this branch of social psychology.
19
In the previous example of education and pedagogy as a creative route to achieving a
sense of symbolic immortality, the generalized other might be the teachers pupils.
Similarly, in using the theological route to achieving a sense of symbolic immortality, the
generalized other could very well become ones religious community itself, or ones
cleric.
20
By symbolic interaction, it is important to mention that although individuals might
share common symbols, their interpretations, or definition of the situation (Thomas
1923; 1928), might vary considerably. The middle-aged professor might well interpret
his pedagogic praxis as a route to achieving a sense of symbolic immortality, while his
unresponsive students might interpret the same interaction merely as a route to a good
paying job.
21
A recent article by Reuters, dated September 11
th
2001 (Novel Auction Offers Chance
to Buy Immortality), reported on the opportunity that many individuals have ceased upon
to buy literary immortality by paying for the privilege to have a best-selling author
name a character in a forth-coming novel after themselves. Some bidders, according to
the article, have paid in excess of $9,000 for this privilege to achieve a sense of symbolic
immortality. As trite as this example may appear, it does illustrate how social class
inequities might act as a barrier to achieving a sense of symbolic immortality. Stated
31

otherwise, there are some routes to achieving a sense of symbolic immortality that are
simply unavailable to the masses.
22
Professor Kent Sandstrom, who reviewed several versions of this article, brought this
question to our attention.