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John Coleman, Apocatastasis Institute,

My colleague John Coleman, founder of Apocatastasis: Institute for the Humanities, sent me this troubling but real article on truth of the growing problem of anxiety, fear and mistrust in the entire fabric of higher education these days. Gen Z, the digital-kids, are particularly plagued with (from an extract): 

"We are often right to be careful, cautious, watchful, wary, chary or circumspect. A certain level of cynicism can be healthy. Each of us has been browbeaten, manipulated, stage-managed, swayed and taken advantage of, and no one likes being conned, deceived, duped, hoodwinked, sweet-talked or taken in.

But distrust can also be toxic, fueling anxiety and suspicion. it is all too easy for a healthy skepticism to lapse into paranoia. Indeed, Wilkinson-Ryan’s theme is that “the ‘healthy’ skepticism we inevitably acquire as a result of experiencing fraud and living amongst bad actors may not be healthy at all and that our fear of being a fool causes us to be less generous, less kind and less compassionate than we truly want to be.” As a result, we’re less likely to give our students the benefit of the doubt." 

[for the full article, go to: https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/2023/06/02/trust-gap-higher-education

[apocatastasis - is a theological term for restoration of perfection once again]

 I/we have been preparing for your birth. I stand in awe and anticipation of this mystery that is unfolding. A spectrum of fear studies seems to be touching into the essence of the Fearlessness movement, I do believe.

wrote, Janet Sheppard, July 18, 2018 responding to TFI. 

Some of you may know, or not, that since 2018 I had founded The Fearology Institute (TFI) as another of my string of venture possibilities to get the fire lit beneath people to take seriously that we have to better figure out a relationship with Fear if we ever want to help this world get out of the ditch it has been riding and crashing in for many many years. Of course, some will say just add Love (some say, Courage) to the world and it will improve. Philosophically, that Love to be really effective has to be dialectically also based on not just good intentions but a really deep study and education in Fear. 

So, founding The Fearology Institute was one way, my latest venture, to attempt to offer a university grade education, for starters, in Fearology--which is the foundational basis of a systematic study of the nature and role of fear in human evolution. Fearology = the study of fear in relation to life. So, that's the simple definition but then things get really complex as one deep dives into that topic and takes seriously that fearology ought to be as familiar and prevalent in its impacts as biology, psychology or any other disciplined way of researching and understanding something about reality--about ourselves. For a quick overview of TFI program, see my latest talk on it in some detail at: Becoming a Fearologist

[Note: the 3 streams of TFI originally: (a) scholarly and research, (b) professional development, (c) activism; and, a 4th and 5th I would like to add in this new iteration of TFI is (d) parents/caregivers and (e) students/learners. 

That's how important Fear is as a topic, subject--and, yes, it is equally all about ourselves--about our own psyche, and collective psyche and our own social-cultural self, our conditioning, our entrancements in the malaise of politics, economics, our worldviews, and all aspects of living today and how are we going to live in the future in a sane, healthy and sustainable way.

Fearology is a 'new' way to study this all and yes, it ought to be legitimated as just as important as any other study. It ought to be in all highschool curriculum as an option, it ought to have diploma and degree programs all over the world in post-secondary education. But even beyond that, it ought to be available also in popularized forms of education online, in our communities in many forms. You can see this is a huge project I envisioned. 

But reality is, since 2018, it has been a hard pitch to convince people of this need for humanity. I'm roused again, and again, to attempt to share it with folks and ask for support in getting this going--rubber hitting the pavement--and having a real impact. The diagram above is a screen shot from the resources page of what is available on "Fearology" that I have put together for years, to access those free documents and youtube channel presentations on fearology,

go to: https://prism.ucalgary.ca/discover?query=fearology

Let's keep on this topic and venture possibility, and have discussions, and see what is possible. Of course, you can also have critiques and pushback, etc., I am all open ears to this, when it is intended for correction and growth. I just know, that a great potential sits waiting for a world/consciousness/worldview ready to 'see' what I see--and, what is potentially a new field of study, profession and practice for those from all walks of life. Contact me: r.michaelfisher52@gmail.com 

The FM ning is also a good platform for discussion. If you search in the upper left box of the FM ning, "fearology" you will also find a whole lot of material on TFI and other fearology posts there. There's no shortage of readily (free) materials available to learn from and explore. I'm ready to lght the fire again, but I can't do it alone. 

Endorsement(s)

The quote, "need to restore fearlessness to higher education" is a refreshing call, one that I cannot ever recall hearing in North America or the Western hemisphere for that matter. It comes from President of the Campus Contact (network) of 1100 colleges and universities both in the USA and Internationally. It is one of the largest such coalitions of promotion of higher education in the world. The President who said these words in a blog in 2016 is Dr. Andrew Seligsohn.

Seligsohn, talks of interviewing casually many in higher education today. "More than anything I hear fear." He writes of all the kinds of fears he hears people concerned about as priority in their campus lives, from students to top administrators. "Everyone is afraid," he wrote. And then continues with words that are gold to my ears: 

"... nothing is more destructive of the mission of higher education than fear....We need to restore fearlessness to higher education....We need to talk to each other [across our differences and conflicts and ideologies] about what would help us regain the fearlessness that makes higher education great." 

I highly recommend the rest of this article... 

FYI, as a resource (annotated bibliography), I have compiled most all of my publications since the mid-1990s on Education, Fear and Fearlessness in Tech Paper 77.doc, free for your download, and may this be used in educational institutions as well, because in the end we need to better understanding fear and fearlessness... not merely talk about them as words... as if we already knew everything there is to know about them. 

R. M. Fisher: Concerned About the State of 'Fear' Studies -2018

Hi Folks, I am offering my latest technical paper here on the FM ning. It is one that is crucial to all my work in fearology, fearanalysis, philosophy of fearism, etc. The conceptualization of 'fear' (with ' marks) is not an insignificant gesture to distinguish it from the contextual discourses on fear that fill the mind and libraries of humanity. So rare few in my experience have acknowledged the postmodern and integral meta-contextual framing for 'fear' and thus are always attempting to reduce my work into their context of fear. 

'Fear' Studies, 12 Years Later: Progress and Barriers

                                              - R. Michael Fisher,[1] Ph.D.

                                                 ©2018  Technical Paper No. 74

Abstract

Fear became an evocative object/subject of the author beginning in late 1989. The massive and mediated (post-9/11) assertion of Terror(ism) into humanity’s experience and thought has spurred the author’s work to the point in 2006 of publishing “Invoking ‘Fear’ Studies” in the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing. Much has changed dramatically in the world and in the interest, across disciplines and in the populist communities, in regard to how to negotiate a relationship with fear(ism) and terror(ism). This article is the next-generation ‘Fear Studies’ invocation for curriculum theorizing in a postmodern and post-traumatic era. The purpose is to validate the growing significance and complexity of the Fear Problem and the many authors who contribute to better understanding it and undermining it.

[Author’s note: This article was turned down by the so-called progressive Journal of Curriculum Theorizing by the one reviewer and the editor because it did not, in their view engage the ‘canon’ of work that exists in the field regarding emotions, etc. And, my whole argument is that my work is not within the context of emotions, it is rather a meta-context beyond that reductionism, and so all their advice to me to integrate other literature on emotion was totally not what this article is about. As the one reviewer wrote, “while the author’s work is quite valuable, I feel that he leaned a bit too much on his own ideas without the complication of those ideas across fields in general or within curriculum studies in specific.” Clearly, the reviewer and editor wanted a totally different kind of article and couldn’t stand my own work as ‘leading-edge’ re: ‘fear’ (not as mere emotion). This is a sad statement on the conformist, clique-like conservativism that has invaded even the progressive wings of educational curriculum in the last 12 years. I now would add this very response of JCT as one more “barrier” to the progress of ‘Fear’ Studies in the future!][2]

[1] Fisher is co-founder of In Search of Fearlessness Project (1989- ) and Research Institute (1991- ). He is also founder of the Center for Spiritual Inquiry & Integral Education (http://csiie.org) and is Department Head at CSIIE of Integral & 'Fear' Studies. He is an independent scholar, public intellectual and pedagogue, author, consultant, researcher, coach, artist and Principal of his own company (http://loveandfearsolutions.com). Currently, he is developing The Fearology Institute to teach courses. He can be reached at: r.michaelfisher52@gmail.com

[2] Personal communication, Rob Helfenbein, Mar. 9/18.