When I look over a few prior blogs on this site that I have posted, there's the notion that we need a new philosophy of fearism to call out and analyze (as well as resolve) the unique human-fear relationship; which, I often call the Fear Problem. One doesn't want to necessarily be completely negative and cynical about the universal and pervasive role of fear in human existence, but some might not like that I tend to problematize fear ('fear') in that tone. It's a reasonable criticism of my bias. Desh Subba, however, founder of the philosophy of fearism [1], a Nepalese philosopher, novelist, poet, is not quite so negative sounding.
When Subba and Fisher join, there is a new dialogue and perhaps a more 'balanced' tone towards fear. That is our hope as co-authors in our new book [2] and ongoing collaboration. It creates a unique problem for me as I have to continually think through what do I agree with in Subba's work and what do I disagree with, and when is it appropriate to describe either in a piece of writing. So far, my emphasis is on sorting through, and it is not easy, what exactly Subba and I agree on to make this new E-W version of a philosophy of fearism. Currently, we are co-authoring an article on our work to be submitting to a magazine [3]. I want to use this blog to sort through my thinking about a similarity (agreement) Subba and I have in our work, and it revolves around a very powerful notion which Subba (2014) and (2016) [4] has called "dephilosophy" as one of the major (not only) components of applying a philosophy of fearism to other philosophies throughout history. Further, interesting, and somewhat complexifying, Subba (2016) wrote, "Fearism is a dephilosophy" (p. 8). Which means, many things, and I will only touch upon a few here.
What dephilosophy means for Subba, is a "deconstruction" [5] and "reconstruction" to follow--as a primary methodological approach in a philosophy of fearism (or fearism, for short). Fearism in Subba's mind (and I am becoming more convinced) is a new philosophy of the 21st century, unlike no other philosophy in world history before it. Now, that alone, raises questions as to why this new philosophy (term) arose, almost by emergent random expression, in 1999 in one of Subba's novels [6]. Obviously, Subba had been thinking about the nature and role of fear in human existence for a long time before "fearism" popped up. Like myself, Subba is incredibly serious and dedicated to better our knowledge about fear and its management. I've not met another human being with his conviction and clarity on the topic of fear and unfortunately for the West, it is going to take time and many English translation of his writing in Nepalese (his mother tongue) to absorb the profundity of his work. I feel still an amateur interpreter of Subba's fearism.
To focus on his fearism as dephilosophy, is to focus on a unique trend within the philosophy of fearism. To state it as simply as I can figure it out, it goes something like this:
A case can be made, using a philosophy of fearism and its fearist perspective on human life, that all other philosophies that have evolved talk about important topics but they usually only refer to fear as important (if they do) and do so inadequately in relation to empirically how central fear is in shaping human existence. Thus, one of the tasks of fearism as dephilosophy is to deconstruct all the other philosophies and point out to where they focus on certain aspects of human existence and societies, e.g., Marxism and its focus on "class struggle"-- such a philosophy can be deconstructed to show that what Marx was really talking about underneath "class struggle" (classism) as so important is something more important (and left mostly invisible)--that is, "fear struggle" (fearism). [7]
Although I had not come across Subba's work until late in 2014, I had been doing some similar fearanalysis work (as I call it) on all kinds of philosophers, and thinkers in general who wrote about fear, or were writing about some other major concept like "sex" (or sexism) but were not acknowledging that fear was much more important than they were recognizing--or, as in the case with "sex" they were not writing near enough about how sexism is really underpinned by fearism and when they wrote about sexuality, I kept thinking they could easily be writing about fearuality. By 2000 or so, I was seeing fearism as the underpinning of classism, sexism, racism, etc. I wanted the theorists and philosophers writing about the various 'isms' that impact humans to talk about the fear underneath them all. So, in that sense, I too was utilizing a dephilosophy approach, although much less systematic than Subba.
To keep this depiction of dephilosophy short in this blog, I think that is enough to give readers a sense of where Subba and I are coming from, and one of the major aspects of the work behind fearism as a critique (i.e., as a methodological practice of deconstruction and reconstruction). We believe that fearism can really help humanity free itself from excessive fear and suffering. This we completely agree with each other on.
I trust, if you are interested further to join us in this project, you'll get in touch with us. Reading our books and articles is a good way for you to gain a better background before you engage us more seriously. [fearism@gmail.com and r.michaelfisher52@gmail.com]
End Notes
1. Subba, D. (2014). Philosophy of fearism: Life is conducted, directed and controlled by the fear. Australia: Xlibris.
2. Fisher, R. M., and Subba, D. (2016). Philosophy of fearism: A first east-west dialogue. Australia: Xlibris.
3. We have been invited to submit a short piece to the semi-academic (more popular) Philosophy Now magazine.
4. Subba, D. (2016). Towards philosophy of fearism. Unpublished paper. Trans. Rajendra Subba.
5. Subba (2016) wrote, "Thoughts of deconstruction came into being in the western literature [e.g., Jacques Derrida]" (p. 8). There is no doubt that one can only appreciate the historical sensibility of why fearism arose in consciousness in an Eastern critical thinker (and burgeoning philosopher) like Subba, if one understands that Subba has first and foremost been an accomplished literary figure in Nepal (and beyond). Derrida's deconstruction methodology (if one wants to call it that), is quite unique overall in the history of philosophy, and it is often referred to as a postmodern philosophy--and/or it has greatly impacted postmodern philosophy--and, it's roots are in Derrida's passion to introduce the philosophy of deconstructionism into literary analysis, and literary criticism and theories. It took much longer before the field of philosophy took up Derrida's work and eventually gave it some merit, albeit, it also has received great criticism and dismissal in the field of philosophy. I say this, to add the context by which a philosophy of fearism as dephilosophy is also going to take a long-time to get acceptance anywhere (especially in the West). Fact is, fearism has taken off a lot more in the East (N.E. India to be precise) in literary criticism (see Subba, 2016, and Fisher and Subba, 2016).
6. It also appeared in my own unpublished work in 1997, as far as I can tell but I never pursued the term until much later. Subba, however, wrote it down and got excited about it as it was highlighted of interest by one or more reviewers of his novel draft in 1999. He is therefore, officially the founder of the term because he developed it systematically and has written the most extensive philosophical text on it (Subba, 2014).
7. Currently, Subba is working on a dephilosophy of Marxism and plans to work on "dephilosophy of philosophies through [a] fearist perspective" for a long time. His first article on dephilosophy [in Nepalese] was published on May 4, 2013 in Nagarik Dainik in Nepal (quotes from Subba, 2016, p. 9).
