As the postmodern era of scholarship has recently opened debate and doubt about the nature and role of emotions, so also has been the case specifically with new postmodern scholarship on fear (what I prefer to call 'fear'). One recent example, worth checking out, is the edited volume Entertaining Fear: Rhetoric and the Political Economy of Social Control ed. by Catherine Chaput, M. J. Braun and Danika M. Brown (New York: Peter Lang, 2010). I had not seen this book until just a week ago and thought I ought to check it out. I only read the Preface and Introduction (by Chaput), and I must say this is great work going on regarding the way to conceive of rhetoric in a conceptualization Chaput calls a rhetorical "ecology of fear." Not having studied rhetoric and theory, this Introduction chapter is very technical, and theoretical and I was not able to follow it totally. It may take time to absorb through various re-readings.
I bought the book to add to my collection of new scholarship on 'fear' that takes it way beyond the psychology or philosophy of fear, and brings it into the intersectional dynamics of social, political and economic contexts and the way rhetorical situations and energies move--directly and most profoundly influenced by an "ecology of fear." This really interests me, although it is hard to get a handle on exactly what an "ecology of fear" is. There are other authors, from biology to cultural studies also using this phrase ecology of fear all with quite different meanings in some ways, and yet I am seeing some pattern that makes them all the same as well. So, hypothetically, and theoretically, the argument of Chaput et al., and my own thought, is that the best unit to understand 'fear' is by studying its ecology (and sub-ecologies). In other words, it is best we do not rely on studying fear "as an isolated event [or experience] rather than as a circulating energy" (p. 15). Let me cite Chaput some to give you a flavor of this ecological way she is attempting to create a discourse of understanding about fear for research and practical purposes (i.e., fear management/education):
"Global capitalism, as an extension of the past and an imagination of the future, relies on fear to pull us within its new modalities. Fear discourses [rhetorics] work in an paradoxical structure.... Although individuals certainly act on their own volition, their choices are powerfully proscribed by the rhetorical energy of fear.... What I am calling the rhetorical energy inherent in these discourses functions, according to theorists of fear, as a unbiquitous and apparently innocuous form of political and social control.... Unlike the visible repression of Orwell's watchful Big Brother, this form of social control occurs through the rhetorical energy circulating almost imperceptibly among many of the more open and free political and cultural sites of contemporary life.... this overdetermined rhetorical space of political economic reproduction [e.g., a campaign speech to preys on our worries] means that 'it is not necessary to make active or express threats in order to arouse fear; instead, fear can, and usually does, hover quietly about relationships [like a glue between them and the society's forms of social order] between the powerful and the powerless, subtly influencing everyday conduct without requiring much in the way of active intimidation' (Robin, 2004, p. 19).... [p. 14] the fear explicit in any one of these examples implicitly recalls the fear in the other spaces, and such [ecological] connections form the discursive undrepinnings of an overdetermined rhetorical ecology that sustains our current [conservative] political economic moment.... it is precisely this pervasive intangible quality that gives the rhetorical energy of fear its power.... Like ambient noises, fear resonates in the background of most contemporary experiences..." (pp. 20-21).
What I make out of this way of imagining and using the conceptualization of a rhetorical ecology of fear, is that there has grown invisible 'channels' like grooves based on hyper-over-arousal of fear energy, circulating in these grooves (or veins) and each kind of experience that 'triggers' fear, then immediately lights up the entire grooved network of past and present and future imagined fears, and more fear energy is released from these sites in split second restimulations and accumulations but also in complex systems of constructing new ecological dynamics in which this rhetorical ecology of fear serves many things, of which global (predatory) capitalism is a major provider/host.
One almost has to talk about this organismically, and autopoietically, ecologically, as well as poetically, just to 'play' with ways to ensure we don't fall into an easy reductionism as fear is only in our brain, our self thought. No, an ecology of fear, especially via rhetorical discursive practices (many which don't seem fearful themselves per se or coming from someone afraid in any obvious way)-- takes on a 'life of its own' and thus 'fear' takes on a life of its own (a point Michel Foucault made about Discourses).
There's an entire sub-field of study of the ecology of fear, in the larger sense, that I have long been a supporter of those naming this 'unit' and way of studying fear ('fear')... and, I am barely scratching the surface in this blog post... perhaps, as I read this new book by Chaput et al. more things will come clearer... and no doubt, more complex in how to understand fear ('fear') in our highly constructed rhetorical world today.
Comments
I just had a positive response from Dr. Chaput to this blog, and she says, "there are some interesting overlaps in our thinking" (pers. comm., Oct. 10/16)-- all which inspired me to write and publish the following book review for amazon.com:
Tracking the Rhetorical Ecology of Fear
By R. Michael Fisher on October 10, 2016
I am a fearologist and long-time tracker of fear professionally. So to find another book of scholarly quality with a like aim is heartening. The book "Entertaining Fear" is not reductionistic, thank goodness, in treating "fear" as some phenomena only in fMRI brain waves or self-inner thought or a response to an immanent danger--all the explanation of which the biology, psychology and philosophy of fear tend to over-focus on. We know there is a Fear Problem, but a question of postmodern scholarship on the topic of 'fear' is what unit is best to study.
Why even look for such a unit of study when dealing with fear today in the postmodern world? The introductory chapter by Cathy Chaput really helps make sense of why-- the chapter is entitled "Introduction: Fear, Affective Energy, and the Political Economy of Global Capitalism." The unit she posits as probably the most effective to study the real negative impact of 'fear' today is what she terms the rhetorical "ecology of fear" and the rhetorical energy that is produced and consumed by "fear talk" (as the simplest expression to get at it).
Now, there are books out there about the current "culture of fear" for sure, and this one is also a good reference for understanding that, however, I have not seen a book with so many diverse chapters that speak about "rhetoric" and study rhetoric in the postmodern world and that deal directly with the Fear Problem. It's a gold mine resource for the serious student of culture, society, politics and economics--and, in my mind is crucial to understand as we attempt in education (for example) to create curriculum and pedagogy that does not breed the same rhetoric of fear that education ought to be trying to undermine.
Chaput as scholar of rhetorics, and the lead editor of this book, starts her chapter with "I believe that tracking the pervasive discourses of fear and our simultaneous faith in managing the world's uncertainties illuminates the rhetorical situation of contemporary globalization and, by implication, global capitalism. Because fear directs our attention to ad hoc, isolated, and containable events, it displaces the reality of capitalism as vulnerable, under threat, and in crisis onto local and apparently aberrant events and separates those feelings of anxiety from our understanding of larger systemic operations" (p. 1). Again, this linking the rhetorics of fear and "ecology of fear" with forces that distract us to pay attention to things not so important is exactly what many culture of fear theorists (e.g., Barry Glassner, Frank Furedi, etc.) have been saying since the late 1990s. Chaput however lays out a distinct argument, based on theories of rhetorics (all a bit complicated and specialized)--which I found fascinating and reinforced my sense that 'fear' is not what we usually call it when we think only in a biology of fear, psychology of fear, or philosophy of fear (i.e., fear is an emotion or feeling). Her perspective, and many of the authors' in the book as well, is that we need to imagine that actual flow of fear/power/knowledge (i.e., rhetorics, discourses) as an ecology of energies that flow and influence us way beyond what we are usually aware of. These flows shape us and embody us, they become us and we become them--we are part of that ecology of fear energy not merely standing back and analyzing it alone or thinking fear is only in our minds.
I trust this intriguing bit of reflection will also assist us as a society to take back a way of critically educating ourselves about 'fear' and fear management. This book is a welcomed resource for the resistance to what I call the 'Fear' Matrix that is currently constructing our identities and societies--all linked heavily into many 'channels' of flows of interest by the powerful elites of the world, of which global capitalism has helped to produce.
See my latest blog on the Center for Spiritual Inquiry & Integral Education website in regard to Bill McKibben's "War" rhetorics on climate change of late and how it leads to more fear not less... and he is one of many activists today who are 'blind' to the negative impacts of this fear-based approach to change and transformation. Go to
http://csiie.org/blog/index.php?entryid=90