Published in 2024, by Information Age Publishing, I highly recommend this book, some of my best writing on fear(lessness) and education. Here's a mere excerpt from the Table of Contents, to excite your neurons:
education (29)
This 2024 conversation is brought to you by the Apocatastasis Institute for the Humanities (APOC); note: Michael Benner is an entrepreneur and not directly affiliated with APOC nor speaks for APOC.
https://rumble.com/v4ipndl-fearless-intelligence-a-conversation-with-michael-benner-198.html
Lots to think about in this conversation, and I'll say more after I digest it's contents further. I also am a member of APOC. For the last year, I have brought The Fearology Institute into APOC as an adjunct learning site. I encourage you to look up what it offers, and especially as an alternative education site for alternative teens and young college students.
To ORDER, go to: https://new.peterlang.com/book/isbn/9781636674803
With current surging polarities of perspectives, dangerous culture wars and immanent threats to the human social and ecological fabric, it is a good time to rediscover the true meaning of fear through the eyes of a creative and endearingly outrageous educator who taught ‘Fear is not the enemy.’ Through a combination of fiction and non-fiction, this book offers a first documentation of the philosophy and story of Samuel Nathan Gillian Jr. (1939-2006), an African-American educator-activist from the Bronx, New York.
Fisher takes readers on a journey of growth and development with a protagonist named Deana, a sophomore college student, as she comes to understand the radical importance of her Uncle Sammy’s life and work. Embellished with the intellectual rigor of a biography of a wise man, Fisher tracks his own relationship and those who knew and loved Samuel as the tension grows to a pitch in the story. Yet, the real brilliance lies in the psychological, philosophical and spiritual twists Sam Gillian brought forward in two stunning books on fear (2002, 2005) that this book revives.
Fisher [educator-fearologist], who has studied fear systematically since 1989, has never met a unique thinker like Sam Gillian. Through Fisher’s eyes, the special significance of Gillian’s work is brought to the general and well-educated reading public. An essential book for post-secondary education on fear management, a resource guide for school teachers, parents, psychologists, policy makers and anyone who seeks to help humanity establish a sustainable, moral and healthy relationship with fear.
Professor of Culture and Education and Media Studies, Henry A. Giroux has for over 50 years been critically analyzing "Education" and "Culture" and "Politics" --and the underlying worldview and values that shape the learning and teaching of citizens. Recently he has written an article on "Gangster Capitalism" and argues where we are going, and how even neoliberalism (as 'mainstream' economic ideology) has been failing so badly in some ways, that it needs to now engulf and perpetuate neofascism to survive--meaning, to spread the culture of fear even more virally. Not good.
[Extract]
Gangster Capitalism and the Politics of Fascist Education
Capitalism has always been constructed on the basis of organized violence. Wedded to a political and economic system that consolidates power in the hands of a financial, cultural social elite, it construes profit making as the essence of democracy and consuming as the only obligation of citizenship. Matters of ethics, social responsibility, the welfare state, and the social contract are viewed as enemies of the market, thus legitimating the subordination of human needs to a relentless drive for accumulating profits at the expense of vital social needs and the larger public.[1] Driven by a ruthless emphasis on privatization, deregulation, commodification, a sclerotic individualism and ruthless model of competition—neoliberal capitalism has morphed into a machinery of death—an unabashed form of gangster capitalism.
No longer able to live up to its promises of equality, improved social conditions, and rising social mobility, it now suffers from a legitimation crisis. No longer able to defend an agenda that has produced staggering levels of inequality, decimated labour rights, provided massive tax breaks to the financial elite, bailouts to big capital, and waged an incessant war on the welfare state, neoliberalism needed a new ideology to sustain itself politically.[2]
As Prabhat Patnaik, observes, the most radical fix to the potential collapse of neoliberalism “came in the form of neofascism.”[3] Neoliberalism’s failure has resulted in its aligning itself with appeals to overt racism, white supremacy, white Christian nationalism, a politics of disposability, and a hatred of those deemed other. As an unapologetic form of gangster capitalism, violence is wielded as an honourable political discourse and education as a cultural politics has become both divisive and injurious. The flattening of culture, elevated to new extremes through the social media and the normalization of manufactured ignorance, has become a major educational weapon in the annihilation of the civic imagination, politics, and any sense of shared citizenship.
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I have long been interested in the fate of children in our societies and their enmeshment in cultures of fear--that is, being scared to death, being made to feel so fragile, and being unable to find a resiliency to meet the demanding (often oppressive) challenges of the day and their future. The 21st century is not going to likely be a pretty one, not for a long time that is. How can the path of Fearlessness help? How can we on the FM ning help? Let's have more discussion about children here and the nature and role of fear and fearlessness in their lives.
One cultural critic has a good short summary of some of the issues Gen Z especially is facing... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvrMNDv6iYU
Not that I agree with everything Johnathan Haidt says about society, but he has some good points to consider.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=552u7yqT-YM
I have followed the sociologist Dr. Frank Furedi's writings (mostly his fear writing) since 1997. I like a good deal of his critiques. Yet, I strongly am not in agreement, for a lot of reasons, with a lot of it--including, and in particular, his biased ideological (materialist = secularist = exclusionist = traditionalist-modernist) leanings of interpreting the relational, social-cultural and political world. He gets quite reductionist, hyperbolic and extremist at times.
I haven't listened to this particular talk per se by him, but it is always worth a listen. He researches his topics well. He thinks independently and he challenges the stataus quo.
For the record, I cite his work often in my publications. Sadly, over the years, he has chosen not to cite my work or dialogue with me on the fear topic or education topic (which he also critiques Education often in ways I find stereotypying if not fearmongering itself).
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Note and Questioning: I am thinking of how a Fearlessness Paradigm is so different in many ways from the Fear Paradigm that Furedi works with in his perspective on society and what is going on. His corrective to the Fear Problem? He is a libertarian (politically and ideologically) as far as I can tell, though I do not think he actually says this explicitly anywhere. He is definitely not in favor of government or any authority body taking over the parent's role with their children on certain interior and moral aspects of their development. He is kind of conservative that way, as an educational thinker. That said, I wonder if the very language of calling a phenomenon life excessive fear, or "culture of fear" (as he also writes about) a "Fear Epidemic" is actually useful and to what end and who does it serve?
In a Fearlessness Paradigm there is more depth and breadth to conceptualizing the Fear Problem than Furedi wants to make out. And, although that is a much larger topic and critique, suffice it to say here in this blog response that maybe we would benefit more as a culture if we called what he is referring to as a "Timidity Epidemic" or a similar term even less flattering a "Cowardice Epidemic." From within the core of the Fearlessness Paradigm of critical analysis and intervention, the role of the Rebel, and Sacred Warrior (and Magician) archetypes is important in my theorizing of 'what humans need to recover'--and the warrior-spirit is a sacred notion that is able to overcome the cowardice dynamics of a "culture of fear" in ways that I think bring about true emancipatory implications. The latter, I do not see in Furedi's philosophy, theories, historical understanding and in his diagnoses and general interventions of how to improve society.
The early developmental years are crucial for children when it comes to their relationship with fear/anxiety and other aspects of their innate and conditioned life-orientation to: Is Life Trustable or Is Life Untrustable? [1] There are more people now a days starting to ask questions about what the impact of COVID-19 pandemic (shock and awe and isolation) had on this new crop of COVID children (and their care-givers)? I have not done research on this but I have heard more than one person in the field of education and daycare field talking about this connection. Are the young children especially (but not only) really impacted more negatively by COVID-19 than we can even imagine as adults? Are these a more disregulated and mistrustful, and anxious group of children now who are going to grow up and create a whole lot more problems (and costs) for society, from within families, daycares, schools and beyond? I'm calling this the COVID-Fear-Bubble phenomenon. OF course, it is just speculation at this point.
On the recovery and rehabilitation side of things, however, there are some good stories of pro-active interventions into children's well being in relationship to fear, for e.g., John Coleman, of the Apocatastasis Institute just published his summary of an article recently published on offering various nature interventions with children to help them overcome some of their fear of nature (and of life itself, perhaps)--see the BEE BRAVE presentation he gives: https://www.bitchute.com/video/P5YqcYT5niyU/
Let's keep the conversation going about fear/anxiety [2] its positive and negative sides, including the impacts of COVID-19 especially and how can we teach not just about being braver, but being more courageous, being more fearless. I have a great deal of experience and research and thoughts about this connection of a spectrum of means in how to live life in a better relationship to fear than being so paralyzed and harmed by its excesses, individually and collectively. So, also check out The Fearology Institute happenings.
Note:
1. Life-orientation education, as I am calling it, has many levels of evidence and reality, but there's at least an important one in Erik Erikson's emotional/affect development research and model puts "Trust vs. Mistrust" (or Love vs. Fear) at the foundational base of child development as universal. My colleague Four Arrows (Dr. Don T. Jacobs) has more or less offered an analogous conceptualization with overlapping meanings and implications in his worldview education distinction. My other fearwork for decades has played with these ideas but only very recently am I seeing how important this is in bringing a universal ethical basis to education--and, philosophically, arguably it is a telos of education..
2. For a good video on fear/anxiety in the individual and coping strategies and the way society conditions us, especially in parenting, and by offering children distractions and other means of "isolation"--there are chronic problems that accrue, especially with the "attachment" bonding ecology, and this is where fear/anxiety will grow, and even panic patterning that will affect people for life--see talk on this by Dr. Gabor Mate' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39RyGEVRbWk
I'm delighted to share the first advertisement for the book my partner and I just completed. It is our second book together on the use of spontaneous creation-making process (we label a "fear vaccine"), in which our first book on our experiences of using this method and the guide for how to do it came out in "Opening Doors: A Guide to Spontaneous Creation-Making" (pubished by In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute). Many years later, in this new book we reflect on the process in greater detail, and offer readers a look at how we applied this method to the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown around most of the world, and for a year we invited a group of people to share this experience creating online and building a community of care. Hope you can take a look at this work, as it also provides a guide of how to use it in any communal setting. -rmf
A Talk By R. M. Fisher, @ Meditative Inquiry Conference, Aug. 18, 2022
The link here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2H8yByGFYw&list=PLfVjDB_dQhEomgiYYmBJKj1nvD1oGBwaf&index=14
gives access to a Talk I did on the Fearlessness Worldview and its critique of Meditative Inquiry as is being promoted by several people, especially in E. Canada and the field of Education. This is part of a movement of spiritual education and its branches of holistic education, transpersonal education, contemplative education, mindfulness education, peace education, love education, etc. I critique the bias of perspective of all these movements that like to focus and collectivize their "corrective" for the world around virtues signalling and aims of hope. The Fearlessness Worldview, a liberation praxis itself and education process, takes another route, one that is arguably less fear-based, more integral-holistic and wiser than the fault of running after the next fix of 'escape' from fear and suffering and a world so enmeshed in the making of its own crises--at every level and especially at the level of the institutions that fall within the Dominant Worldview and its self-deception and corruption.
After a brief meditation I offer at the beginning (photo above), I am 2nd to speak on the panel and I start with critical commentary about the problems I see in the book "Meditative Inquiry" based on the conference leader's work. IF you only want to see my teachings go to 25:38 on the video for a 20 min. rather improvisational lecture. And go to 1:10:45 for picking up on comments (Q and A) at the end of the panel session, in which you will hear one philosophy professor from India makes comments on my talk and concludes fervently "we need to be fearful and fearless" --then, I come on and comment on his comment and take the discussion further based on a question someone asked in the panel "define fearlessness." Of course, of which I didn't in a nice clean linear way! I give some reasons for why that is so, and the problem of my topic and this question in the context of having one or two minutes at most to engage it. I really find these rushed-time conference presentations as a format a horrid way to actually do serious scholarly work or dialogue. Oh, well... take this for what it's worth....
Of course, in only a 20 min. talk on a panel, it is near impossible to set up my arguments for a Fearlessness Worldview and
Dr. Cal Newport's TED-X talk "Quit Social Media" is a must see video (13 min.), where he makes 3 arguments of why to stay off social media--and, he emphasizes in the 3rd one of those arguments that the worst is the rise in "anxiety disorders" (diagnosed or not diagnosed) that come with such use of this technology--a technology that is not essential to "deep work" and value and success in the society.
go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E7hkPZ-HTk
As a fearologist and educator, I am equally concerned with the breeding of fear in a culture of fear embedded in social media platforms AS IF they are the only way to be involved in the world. I have never joined such social media platforms like FB, TWITTER, Instagram, etc. Only a modest participation in the FM ning community and posting on my Youtube channel is what I see as actually useful. I particularly know many of the truths that Dr. Cal Newport shares, as I have always believed children from the get go need to develop skills of "deep work" (concentration capacities and existential resilence)--boh of these skills are fast being eroded by social media and it hits the children earlier and earlier. My educational philosophy is one of getting children and youth unhooked from this 'sick' technology that is more harmful than not. Watch the video and make up your own mind. Spread the word...
[The following article is reprinted with permission from X. Yuan.]
Fearless Conversations in Curriculum as a Wayfinding Amid Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Xuechen Yuan
Lakehead University
JCACS Musings, Apr. 19/22
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGpGwhzxzJsLzfBCcldNQRhjpdD
I fear many things amid the crisis in Ukraine when the immediate future is so unknown. Being immersed in mainstream news media makes me even more fearful. As a graduate student in Education, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the uncertainties of global consequences makes me very pessimistic about curriculum reform these days. At a time when collective trauma and fear coexist within the bodies of the world’s citizens, stories symbolizing backwardness are constantly told, and voices of hope for global justice are silenced. With the current nuclear terror in Europe, information warfare, the deteriorated NATO-Russian relationships, and the Taiwan Strait Crisis, news media induces a global mass hysteria of World War III. While people around the world stand in solidarity with Ukraine and others who are affected by Putin’s tyranny, I fear that humanity is headed for a more nuclearized, militarized, competitive, and backward situation. While looking at history, I realize that many of the decisions that led the world to being in an arms-race situation could have been avoided long ago. Decades of mistrust between the U.S. and Russia destroyed any hope for turning Russia into an ally and for democratic reform in Russia. Russian civilians’ distrust of the hypocrisy of democracy and freedom of speech has been reinforced since it does nothing to prevent millions of children from being malnourished, starving and dying.
To be fair, I’m writing this post out of fear. As someone born in an authoritarian state like China, I have always been discouraged to raise adverse opinions of sensitive issues on any platform. Especially in the face of the invasion, Chinese leaders have been siding with the aggressor, and have mass media intensifying toxic nationalism against the West. After an in-depth discussion with renowned fear scholar R. Michael Fisher, I realize that we could explore opportunities in fear. In Chinese, we often say Weiji (危机) — opportunity in crisis. I like how this transforms the relationship to fear rather than assuming a reductive and functional view that defines fear and supposes that it’s the best way to make sense of things (Fisher, 2010). We must understand fear, not run from it. The mainstream news media coverage of the current crisis in Europe has left us with a victim-type of fear, building curriculum that does not endow or inspire any practices of fearlessness. The American imperialism of news outlets has been inducing mass hysteria of nuclearization and Russophobia across the globe. It is not the future that haunts us but the fear of the future. But isn’t that what we fear every day? We fear what we are not prepared for (that we lack agency and readiness), but isn’t that the point of curriculum, to prepare us to face those fearful uncertainties during our apprenticeships, rather than spoon-feeding our ways out of fear?
Economic and political competition might seem like a ‘game of thrones’ for many conventional wisdom holders, and to many who view history as an objective truth. But I think of curriculum as being ‘agentic,’ a way-finding that can shift the narratives we tell of the past. A lot of us might be let down by the injustice in the world today, but we need to continue to find our ways amid fear, acknowledge and feel the fear inside of us, and then become courageous to face the fear. During this invasion, countless netizens, activists, and civilians around the world rose against Putin’s brutal actions. The borders between nations are no longer defined geopolitically, but agentically by conversations. In an internationalized and democratic world, conversations enable us to readjust and destabilize the conventional, now ever-changing borders (Pinar, 2004). The next step of curriculum for us is to define borders ideologically with depth imagery. An authentic conversation requires “going beyond the surface to take into account ‘unspoken’ and ‘taken-for-granted’ assumptions, including ‘ideology’ […and] must be guided by an interest in understanding more fully what is not said by going beyond what is said’’ (Aoki, as cited in Pinar, 2004, p. 159). So far, our democratic discourse/conversations have been based on denouncing Putin’s behaviour, which can be done intuitively and without much effort to engage in deeper conversations. Many who are sceptical of the ideal of democracy perceive it from the frame of reference of cognitive imperialism — ‘fast-food-like’ pedagogy embedded in empty words that lead people into a fallacy that they are endowed with greater freedom than institutions actually allow. Cognitive imperialism largely obscures the construction of conjunctive ‘inter-space’ in conversations while diverting public attention to shallowness of conversations — freedom of expression and individual liberty. What is beyond the unsaid, however, requires a curriculum of critical literacy in which people work together to co-create reciprocal and complex conversations. Our curriculum needs to create democratic agents, not agents in a democratic political structure. Conversation represents a relationship between spaces (not just ‘spaces’), where people engage in mutuality rather than dichotomous struggles of viewpoints. Therefore, when world crises happen, we do not just condemn the aggressor with empty words but act ahead to prevent it. This is how our curriculum can truly be agentic rather than being reactive (to fear).
From the emergence of COVID-19 to the humanitarian crisis in eastern Europe, it has become more necessary than ever for curriculum changes to address how the trauma of war, the separation, and the isolation of life, have lived in and affected our bodies, so we can hold each other’s hands and find our way out of the hardships collectively, rather than kill each other. Ironically, we can learn a lot from coronaviruses; even viruses know how to converse with each other and change according to different situations to achieve their survival goals (Chambers, 2022). I don’t know what the curriculum will look like in the future, but I do know that our curriculum should inspire people to share difficult knowledge, memories, stories, and to explore and confront their fears, not run from them. The purpose of this post is to find ways to encourage people to lift the veil of these unspoken fears, to engage in deep (as opposed to dichotomous) conversations with each other, and to prevent hatred, phobia, and mistrust toward others. To end this post with an excerpt from an interview done with University of Lethbridge professor Cynthia Chambers (2022), “The truth about maps is they’re only useful when you’ve already been somewhere, they’re not really helpful when you’ve never been anywhere [… We have to] find our way collectively and to learn together [under difficult circumstances], rather than looking to authorities for the final answer or being angry that nobody knows” (26:44).
Rise up, Ukraine. We stand with you!
References
Fisher, R. M. (2010). The world’s fearlessness teachings: A critical integral approach to fear management/education for the 21st Century. University Press of America.
JCACS Curriculum Without Borders. (2022, February 23). JCACS interviews Cynthia Chambers: Curriculum as wayfinding. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNAxSJbdBPo
Pinar, W. F. (2004). What is curriculum theory? Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
This excerpt (first draft only) is a small piece to give you a sense of what I am 'onto' these days, especially in writing this tenth book (to be published later this year by Information Age Publishing, in their Philosophy of Education Series, Ed. Dr. John Petrovic) [1]. I have been working months and months, and it has been quite a ploughing the soil. Hard going at times. This Chapter Five took weeks to complete, as I just did this morning. Wow! It is by far the largest chapter in the book (coming in at a heavty 25,000 words itself, without the references). Yikes.
A number of fresh insights came from the writing that I could put into it, so that was good. It is never a boring writing because I risk all the time, on the edge of not knowing what I am doing and not creating chapter outlines. I just start writing.
As always, I trust this bit of expository on fear will intrigue you to critique, to commnent, here on the FM ning. And/or you can always email me directly:
r.michaelfisher52@gmail.com
Notes
1. Excerpt from Fisher, R. M. (in progress). The Fear Problematique: Role of Philosophy of Education in Speaking Truths to Power in a Culture of Fear.
This is the inside back cover of the Bio. for Samuel Nathan Gillian (1939-2015). I had a friendly (email relationship) with Sam since May 2004 until March 2005. And recently with one of his nieces (thankfully) contacting me--now I am in conversation with his wife Bernice, and there is a new project on my plate to write an intellectual biography on SNG. Just wanted to let you all know that. He has written two amazing books on fear (and education) [1], and I know of no one who has done that, and especially with him being an African-American black man, again, I know of no black person who has written two major books on fear; this combination puts his work out as an important historical record in Fear Studies. Intellectually, he developed some close links at one point with the Ernest Becker Foundation and he absorbed the writings of Ernest Becker. Sam was likely an existential thinker. Bernice says, with a great "zest for life." He also puts his own spin on fear and how best to relate to it, based on his life's experience and being one who loved children and teaching. In 2020 I wrote a technical paper on my initial connections with Sam and why he and I had our overlapping same interests and our differences about fear and fearlessness [2].
IF ANYONE has further information, of any kind, about SNG, please contact me: r.michaelfisher52@gmail.com
FYI: I just posted May 10/22 on "Cornel West" (see FM ning)-- as it is truly West's liberal-radical philosophy that in many ways (not all) is very much akin to Gillian's philosophy.
Notes:
1. Gillian, S. N. (2002). The Beauty of Fear: How to Positively Enjoy Being Afraid. Phemore Press, Inc.; Gillian, S. N. (2005). Terrified by Education: Teaching Children to Fear Learning. Phemore Press, Inc.
2. Fisher, R. M. (2020). Samuel N. Gillian's Beckerian Educational Philosophy of Fear/Terror. Technical Paper No. 102. In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.
The eminent early 20th century
American philosopher John Dewey...
In this above quote, he is on his grand project (to restore "experience" to philosophy)--to debunk all binaries, so it seems. E.g., Life vs. Education, is a good place to start that deconstruction.
Then he goes on, in a passage analogously, where he critiques those that derogate the "lower" aspects of reality (so-called) vs. the "higher" aspects of reality (so-called) that have become so common by the 20 th century in philosophy, and education philosophy and psychology. He wrote of these sensory aspects:
"Since sense-organs with their connected apparatus are the means of participation [with reality, with Life, with living organisms], any and every derogation of them, whether practical or theoretical, is at once effect and cause of a narrowed and dulled life-experience. Oppositions [i.e., binaries] of mind and body, soul and matter, spirit and flesh all have their origin, fundamentally, in fear of what life may--bring forth. They are marks of contraction and withdrawal [i.e., fear-based]." (Dewey, 1934, pp. 22-3).
This is not the only passage I have been reading from Dewey, in my recent study of his writing, where I am reading into and between the lines, and sometimes reading explicit calling out of fear in our knowledge and knowing systems--like it is a massive weight on us and life-forces, it is like he is speaking a language of fearlessness. I'll be writing a chapter on his philosophy (fearlessness) and education for my new book The Fear Problematique (2022)... more to come.
[NOTE: for another of my FM blogs on Dewey and fear and fearlessness go to: https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/blog/holy-rant-john-s-dewey-s-fearlessness-project]
Reference
Dewey, J. (1934/2005). Art as Experience. Penguin Group.
Four Arrows (Wahinkpe Topa) aka Dr. Don T. Jacobs (a longtime member of FM ning and cultural warrior), gives a really useful interview (video) on his work, which I see as part of fearlessness path and its connection to re-visionist (corrective) Education today and the survival of this planet's ecosystems. He says, "I want to be human"... and he defines that in a very unique way in regard to the relationship with "hope" for change of this world and its hegemonic Dominant worldview--as he offers a 'reading' of a universal Indigenous worldview (sometimes called Kinship worldview)-- as a solution to our current crises on mass scales. The Indigenous worldview is based not on a fear-based cosmology and value-system--and, that's really important to note. He talks about decolonization and Indigenization as processes of re-socialization and re-education on a mass scale and how 'turning' things around from the current status quo is near impossible but that doesn't mean we ought not do what we can to "be human" in the midst of this tragedy and rather 'hope-less' situation in terms of actual outcomes of our work to liberate ourselves and come to our Natural-based (place-based) intelligence--or what he has called "primal awareness." He also says so interesting things on hypnosis and de-hypnosis in this regard of bringing change and transformation about.
Note: at the 1:04:00 mark in the interview. Four Arrows is talking about the "mysteriousing" of existence, rather than a noun for "god"--the former being the Indigenous way. He says, it is this in touchness with the mysteriousing that is "getting in touch with that fearlessness around death" and he concludes: "I have never met a traditional Indigenous person who has a fear of death...[or] fear of life."
For a concise write up on Four Arrows' Indigenous-based worldview on fear and fearlessness, go to:
https://coachesevolve.com/moving-from-fear-to-fearlessness-by-four-arrows/
This latest video out on the "mass psychosis" of an entire population, what is also being called here "menticide" has an opening quite appropriate to concerns of the FM ning community and myself as a fearologist. The video image above has the narration of: "Priming a population for the crime of menticide, begins with the sowing of fear." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lctpOxSR-FE
See my own video talks (4 videos) on "mass psychosis" as well, beginning with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBl735zqTco
Note: this video is published by Academy of Ideas: Free Minds for a Free Society
Check out my new video on my new book "sketch" and possibilities and how I am influenced in thinking about educational philosophy in a new key--from many new perspectives (transdsciplinary) etc. See my teaching video just put up now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6H6rpQlZ60
The "DIRECTION" to head in... is all important, if we want to liberate ourselves and truly re-build a healthy, sane and sustainable world (and Education System)...
When you get to be my age (69), and having thought critically about "Education" as a field and as a "project" overall on this planet (for nearly 50 yrs), and in terms of how to analyze it and improve it, this is what happens at 6 am in the morning when I awoke and had the idea kernel "I DON'T WANT TO..." on my mind as the center piece of this map and then I began to sort territories ("Positive Description") on the Left and sort of a 'middle-ground' then "Negative Description") on the Right. As an educator, designer of curriculum and pedagogy, I tend to near completely side to the Negative philosophical orientation in terms of how to best approach "Education" and deconstruct it and then reconstruct it (moving more to the Positive philosophy eventually.
The direction of going to the Left and then the Right is precisely what I call an "Integral Turn" --and, in no way is that direction of flow only about "politics" (and parties, etc.). I am rather quite non-partisan in that sense, but what really comes through in the mapping is that I am "existentialist" in orientation and "conflict theorist" in orientation primarily, but I also don't see that one-side is all right (Good) and one side is all wrong (Bad)--mostly, I'm concerned as a critic that the left-side of the "Positive" (Virtues) side is a huge cover-up these days for some of the worst 'evil' going on--and, of course, those who are on that "Positive" side want to make us all thing they are virtuous, good, correct, and the only way to go. They tend to loathe the analysis and offerings of the 'other' side (the right-side).
So, if you look within the map you'll also see LOVE, FEAR, and FEARLESSNESS ... as my own special area of interest in how that trialectic operates [1], although, that's a much more complex 'story' than this 'map' (theory) above can show in nuance. Oh, and the abbreviations that came out in orange circles, they are at the crux of my counter-education theorizing and curricular (r)evolutionizing: CME - conflict management/education (my invention), TMT - terror management theory (not my own invention), and FME -fear management/education (my invention). Other abbrev. worth noting: COC - culture of conflict and COF - culture of fear. The red ink "Contemplation" is there because of my reading a colleague, an educator, on "meditative inquiry" in research/education and the foregrounding there of contemplation in education--or spirituality in education. And, this spurred me on to think about my view of that initiative and so I woke up in the morning due to this prompting to situate "contemplation" and problematized it as well.
I am in color highlighter very intrigued with "Fear of Loss" (aka "Death") at the center along with my original idea-kernel of "I DON'T WANT TO..." and I am pretty certain now that strategically this is the focal pivotal point for any real educational transformation that will be emancipatory. If we educators miss this...well, the consequences of our current direction of global crisis/collapse will continue unabated. I have no doubt we are already in the Anthropocene era of collapse of all systems, and much destruction will be inevitable (aka death will be inevitable)--and it will continue for many years if not decades. The world will never be the same. However, in that collapse we have all the real potential of making these shifts that I have indicated in the mapping. I believe the whole process going on is best looked at as "sacred correction" (call it self-system regulation or healing, or whatever)--we can get through this as a collective of living organisms and putting all our intelligences together integrally--but IF humanism tries again to rule, using technologism and scientific arrogance alone--we'll likely do ourselves in and sufficiently destroy the carrying capacity for most Life on this planet for millenium.
Just some bright and not so bright words from the unconscious to the conscious of the morning air and light... let's breath, create and grow in 'a good way' (a fearlessness way).
Note
1. Fisher, R. M. (2017). Radical love—is it radical enough? International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 8(1), 261-81.
I have for decades attempted to educate the general public about fear. The other side of my work is to educate their leaders. Specficially I want to share an example of how to educate politicians.
Politics and Political Sphere
First, let me state that I have my issues with the whole political system of institutionalized "politics"--that is one thing. Yet, I have made a distinction that "politics" as institutionalized is only 1/2 of what democratic practice is about. The other 1/2 where I hang out the most is what I call the "political sphere." The latter is what we all are involved in as citizens and no politics or politician who earns their livelihood from politics ought to ever dominate the political sphere. Nowadays, the later is often talked about, in part, as "cultural politics." But that's another topic.
How To Educate a Politician
I am not one to try to constantly put down people who become politicians. I could equally say, I am not one to put down people who become physicians, ministers, or school teachers, police officers, etc. They are people pursuing a career. I respect them as people first and foremost, even if I disagree vehemently with their practices and the system they belong to. I once, long ago, was a professional school teacher. I know that for many good teachers they will eventually become corrupted by the System of the State and Education as an institutions. Not all of the best professionals will leave the System. I did after two years.
This blog is not about that decision to stay in or leave the institutions, that has ethical implications of course. I would ask anyone who is a politician to do the best you can and be as ethical as possible in an imperfect system they work in. And, by imperfect, unfortunately, there is an edge which is crossed often in which the System is actually oppressive. Now, if the System will admit it is oppressive, then I have sympathy. If it is in denial, then I have little sympathy for its justifications and rationale and its continuance to practice oppression of one kind or another. That's when I will go after such institutions as an activist-educator.
I have learned how slow and hard it is to change a System that remains in denial. Sometimes one can have small positive inputs that someone inside the System listens to, but mostly they are defensive to hearing anything about their oppressive aspects as a System. 'They are bought and sold' into keeping the operation going, no matter what. That's a crude way of putting it. I also have seen and know that still 'good people' are inside those systems, even if sometimes in small numbers. Some do see the corruption and want to change it from the inside. I respect that.
So, to be short here, I'll share a recent experience of a simple way to make the fearlessness voice heard and how to challenge the System, and its leaders (e.g., politicians) to not fall prey to fear-based ways of perceiving, thinking, strategizing and doing their job. I know that's a high calling. There's no other option however, from the Fearlessness Paradigm perspective (which is arguably the only sane way to proceed). I listened with my partner to a live government debate in Alberta on coal-strip mining where the leader of the opposition party (Rachel Notley) made a first case for a private members bill to a committee. If the bill would pass that committee it could go to the larger legislature and have a hearing and vote there. The bill would stop all current exploration and new lease developments that have to do with coal strip mining in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains in our province. I'm all for that. However, in the debates I noticed something and decided to write it up as a Letter to the Editor in the local newspaper and also sent to Rachel Notley office. Here's what I wrote for public media, as that's one way to get a much larger audience (if the newspaper publishes it of course):
ALBERTA EAST SLOPES TALK: POLITICIANS CARBONOPHOBIC
Congratulations to all who made private member bill (petitioned by Rachel Notley) of April 13 get through the first committee so that it can go to a full hearing and vote in the legislature. After watching the live performance of the debate on how best to protect the Alberta East Slopes from coal mining especially, I couldn't help but be saddened hearing the politicians reasons to slow and/or stop new coal mining permits. Even Notley and the NDP members who spoke to this bill were afraid to toalk about rationale in terms of transitioning out of a non-renewable economy, Global Warming, responsibility to worldwide Carbon Budgets and fulfilling a commitment to future sanity for our children's sake. No, what we heard was carbonophobic small-talk rational all about Albertans. I love the East Slopes too, but we have to face our fears folks; or we'll be tweaking our society and economic policies while the floor of the building crumbles. Global Warming is real. Notley should know better. -R. Michael Fisher, Calgary
[note: Apr. 15th this was published, albeit gutted and words changed in places without my permission: go to: https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/letters/your-letters-for-april-15-2]
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So, in a very short missive like this, our job as fearworkers of the Fearlessness Movement is (at least) to carefully observe and point out (without shaming people and damning their character and careers) when fear is ruling in their work and practices and thinking. I found a way to do that in this instance. It is not that I think my example above is flawless either. I was writing specifically for a newspaper. I know Editors of said newspapers typically don't take articles unless they have some emotional juices and so I wrote more emotionally than I typically prefer to. It's a compromise to some extent.
I encourage you all on the FM ning to point out fear-based ways wherever you see them and let's help educate and support our leaders (especially politicians) to change and re-think about how they engage and (mis-)use fear in their jobs.
Ernest Becker, cultural anthropologist, 1924-74. Won a Pulitzer Prize at the end of his life for his book The Denial of Death.
I have recently been studying his work and writing about his important thinking for today, especially his contribution to Fear Studies, and specifically to terror management as an extreme existentialist form of fear management.
The following Tech. Paper No. 99 I devoted to analyzing a bit of what Ernest Becker's work has to do with Education as a field and as a reality of socialization, and then summarized the ways various educators (not that there are many) have engaged Becker's work and what potential biases there are in their ways of interpreting his work. I then propose some alternatives and encourage a good deal more study of Becker for learning and teaching, curriculum development and for handling the kind of terrifying world that is here and coming as cascading global crises are inevitable. His work has much to offer us.
See Tech. Paper No. 99: "Ernest Becker's Educational Legacy: A Critical Reflection". https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/112381
See also Tech. Paper No. 108: "A Review of "Immortality Project" Concept: Mis-interpretation by Terror Management Theory" https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/112499?show=full
