For full pdf of the journal 2 (1) click here IJFS vol 2 no 1 2020 rev.pdf

I have a basic question for all of you now 82 FM ning members... after you have browsed through hundreds of posts and pictures and discussions (if you have) on the FM ning-- I would like to hear your views and suggestions for advancing the world's knowledge on fear and fearlessness. That's a practical move, and action for us to consider. I'd like to hear that conversation here on the FM ning in the next year... next days. 

Looking forward to it... 

R. Michael Fisher, Director, Instructor, The Fearology Institute... is looking for a new cohort of students to take coursses and pursue a certificate in Fearology. Want to find out more about it, go to this new video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oisrTrOR2to

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I am pleased to introduce the social psychology researcher Dr. Pelin Kesebir who has for several years been studying fear (e.g., anxiety, terror, and role of culture as a buffer to death anxiety); and has acknowledged in recent correspondence with me the critical importance of "fear" in societies overall. I included the above excerpt from one of her articles (2014) in J. of Personality & Social Psychology 106(4), 610-623. To read full article A Quiet Ego.pdf 

Note: Kesebir is inspired and researches generally under the Terror Management Theory (sub-field) in social psychology, an area I have respected and cited in many of my own publications for decades. Very important empirical research is offered in TMT that supports and critiques the way we engage with fear (and its management). I look forward to more conversations with Dr. Kesebir and may all Fearlessness Movement ning members perhaps find time to read some of this work and comment. For more info. from Dr. Kesebir, contact: kesebir@gmail.com 

[Breaking News, morning Jan. 10, 2020; Marianne Williamson withdraws from campaign; not to my surprise but a bit of disappointment -RMF]

As many of you may know, my work since 1989 (In Search of Fearlessness Project) has engaged seriously and critically the discourses throughout the world on the relationship of the meta-motivations of Love vs. Fear (and/or Love and Fear). And, now I am writing a book on US presidential (Democratic party) candidate [1] Marianne Williamson, 67 year old veteran of the transformational field of psychology, spirituality and politics--what some would call a radical cultural transformation phenomenon. She's a leader in this area and is having global impacts. How big or how little is still out for the jury to decide. I wish to make a case study of this. 

Lots to discuss here on the FM ning. Recently (Jan. 7, 2020) she has posted the most overt political messaging on the Love vs. Fear dynamic I have ever seen by a person in politics specifically in my life time. So, I am reproducing her message here (skip to the latter 1/2 of this letter for the real punch!)-- as she sent it out to her followers via her current campaign newsletter: 

[Marianne 2020 Nwsl. Jan. 7/20

[NOTE: for more of my views on Love and Fear, e.g., see video "Marianne Williamson 3: Love & Fear" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJzLb6ALHPg

END NOTE

1. I am currently in process of signing a contract with a New York book publisher, with the current title of the book "The Marianne Williamson Presidential Phenomenon: Documenting Cultural (R)Evolution in a Dangerous Time" 

I recently came across a paper by the Brazilian progressive critical educational philospher Walter O. Kohan (State University of Rio de Janeiro). The paper is called "Paulo Freire and Philosophy for Children: A Critical Dialogue" go to: Kohan2018_Article_PauloFreireAndPhilosophyForChi.pdf

He describes positively and critiques the "philosophy for children" (or P4C) movement [1] in education and philosophy that developed in the early 1970s (by Matthew Lipman et al.). He also brings Lipman's philosophy and pedagogy into distinct comparison with Paulo Freire's philosophy and critical pedagogy, where he concludes the former is too apolitical to be effectively emancipatory for children or society--while Freire offers so much more. Kohan goes even further to bring forth several other critiques, methodologies and critical perspectives to complement critical pedagogy (see below).

I'd suggest any of the philosophy of fearism scholars and practitioners take a good look at the P4C movement and Kohan's critique (along with others). Kohan's views are very similar to my own on several grounds and particularly his conviction (along with Freireans) that philosohizing with children is extremely important to their wholesome education and socialization process but that it is a relationship of 'peers'-- where teachers and learners co-create the unlearning and learning that will set them free (in my words, re-connect and correct their way along the path of fearlessness to liberation). Philosophizing with children is often done (via Lipman et al. and P4C) with the teacher(s) being in charge of the design of curriculum and delivery and with the emphasis on being 'neutral' as teachers and likewise the curriculum. From my view (and Kohan's) that is a faux neutrality (ideal) and not to do with what true education has always been about, which is a problematizing of everything including the economic-social-political order. At some point, every philosopher and educator has to decide what kind of society children live in (as curriculum context). Do we live in an oppressive society or not? The answer is rather obvious to me, as to Kohan, as to Freire. 

Role of Fear: Real vs. Ideal

My favorite part in the Kohan paper is when he is in dialogue with his mentor of his dissertation (Lipman himself). Kohan asks Lipman about the abuses of democracy and questioning capitalism in that relationship and how this topic has to be put on the table of philosophical inquiry with adults and children. Lipman says: "... in this country [USA] we are very confused. We respect the notion and the ideal of democracy but we are afraid to see it in its confrontation [relational context] with capitalism. There we just shrug and turn away, we don't want to talk about the fact that democracy and capitalism may be incompatible...". (Kohan, 2018, p. 625) [bold added for emphasis]

Kohan doesn't pick-up on the fear component that Lipman brings front and center, as I would have done so, from a fearanalysis viewpoint or a fearist lens. I agree with Lipman (as I am sure Kohan does here as well) that fear of critiquing the 'hand that feeds you' (i.e., Capitialism) in philosophical inquiry is typically such that philosophers and educators (educational philosophers) will shy away and talk about other things. The very basis of a philosophy of fearism (and method of dephilosophy of Desh Subba, [2]) is to make sure that when fear is involved in the construction of the ideas and realities of our texts and practices that we 'call out' the fear and name it and deal with it in some conscious and constructive (if not transformative) way rather than "just shrug and turn away" (as Lipman expresses). Note, even Lipman, in this interview, has no 'solution' to offer or re-frame the very problem of fear he raises and its power to 'dissociate' the real and the ideal in our societies and individual lives. It is disappointing the source leader of P4C comes up so short. The ethical importance of this ought not be overlooked.

My entire educational philosophy is pretty much now based on this dephilosophy (i.e., philosophy of fearism and/or fearlessness philosophy) I bring to all inquiry, philosophizing, and educational curriculum and pedagogy. My first principle of a fearlessness philosophy could be: 

(a) fearlessness at all cost is essential to the integrity and sustainability of Life (systems); and thus, fear ought not be used as an excuse to avoid/deny the Ideal(s) we hold dearly (sacredly); fear leading our lives tends to compromise the ideal for a real (via ideological realism-pragmatism) because the latter is functionally 'convenient,''comfortable' and 'conformist'

Other Means for Emancipatory Practices: New Rationalities

I'll close this article with the recommendations by Kohan (incomplete as they are) because they offer all of us involved in philosophy, and especially philosophy with children, other ways (beyond Freirean or Lipmanian P4C approaches) to emancipatory education. Kohan (2018, p. 625) wrote, 

... other paths to explore Freire's inspiration other than critical pedagogy. One is to follow the decolonial turn, opening, for example, a "mestiza rationality" [3] (Anzaldua 1999), one of the sensual body, "full of feelings, of emotions, of tastes" (Horton and Freire 1990:23). [4] [this alternative] It needs to be a rationality sensible to different forms of being of the "oppressed" (to use Freirean terms), which would also include LGBT, Indian [Indigenous], Black, and women and children: a rationality sensitive to contradiction and ambiguity. [5]

Various forms of "undoing of identity" (via queering), or feminisms, post-humanism, etc, are encouraged by Kohan and those authors he cites, as part of re-examining critically how we see the child and human nature itself. He calls for "deterritorial" approaches, deconstruction, etc. (part of postmodern philosohpies) to bring human and non-human into a closer relationship overall in valuation to resist the easy commodification and capitalization processes of oppression. Even different kinds of schools ought to be considered. And he then writes of how we ought to trouble the very notion of rational-linear "time" conceptualizations and the problem of only one notion of time that dominates a worldview and schooling and/or educational system. I particularly like this challenge and it is one that Luke Barnesmoore and I have brought forth in a few publications, because time-fear are very closely connected ontologically and need to be critically examined to set us free from fear-based worldviews in general [6]. 

In conclusion, Kohan argued well that philosophy and politics are not separate nor should be, they each contribute to an emancipatory project of which all authentic education (and philosophy) ought to strive for. Like Freire's notion, each educator (philosophy) and child ought to "build her own path" in how best to accomplish a wholesome education and critique of the status quo. That said, and I agree, there's essential need for firm and mature guidance in this building that we are as educators ethically responsible. The trick is to guide without imposing. I offer the path of fearlessness, I don't impose it, even when many through my decades of this work believe that I am imposing it. A similar criticism has been launched at Freirean critical pedagogy. Perhaps, the articulation of politics and philosophy on my part is just not sufficient or it is still incomplete--always a project in progress. I invite input and critique ongoing, as part of good dialogical learning and research. 

End Notes

1. Kohan sees himself part of the P4C movement in a cautious way, and told me he prefers PWC ("philosophy with children") as the articulating concept of this work.

2. E.g. See books and articles by Subba and Fisher (philosophy of fearism) and in particular his dephilosophy method--which, I call fearanalysis in my work. 

3. Usually this is translated in the literature as "mestiza consciousness"-- note, Kohan's mother tongue is Portuguese and this article has been translated into English.

4. I (and Barbara Bickel and others) would call this (in part) the arational domain.

5. What is being constructed by Kohan here is a pathway and/or 'container' of expansion beyond the fear-based egocentric and ethnocentric worldviews. It is a matured existential (and emotional) capacity he is calling for that moves from fear to fearlessness as its operative paradigm, beyond being oppressed by a dualism-centered philosophy in which fear breeds and predominatnly shapes everything. I believe Kohan would be better to bring in notions of transrationality at this point. That's a more complex nuanced discussion. You can see that fear however will be intimately involved in the rationality processes (alternatives) Kohan calls for (as do others)--but unfortunately, little do these theorists (including Kohan) adequately theorize fear/fearlessness in this expanding of worldview in their philosophies. 

6. For e.g., see Fisher, R. M., & Barnesmoore, L. (2018). Hierarchical security: Problem of fear of the eternal [Appendix 3]. In Fisher, R. M., Subba, D., & B. M. Kumar, Fear, law and criminology: Critical issues in applying the philosophy of fearism (pp. 125-48). Australia: Xlibris. 

US Presidential hopeful (candidate) is the last person you'd expect to be fearmongering. But her recent promo ad video (58 seconds) gives indicators of her decline in awareness and her political tactics of using old fear-based discourses to "win" over her followers and gain more followers for the upcoming primaries.... not good. See my latest video on this problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Satev8F7K14

Note: There is a substantial discussion (Comments) on this video as well, worth checking out and joining in. 

Ken Wilber, integral philosopher, explains 4 processes universal to human higher potential and thus for (r)evolution of culture and societies... the planetary macrolevel... 

go to his short interview lecture on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuNN6vB-gQQ

Note: I have based my "Fear Management Systems Theory" on this model of Wilber's, which I have studied since 1982. 

Note: (Errata), the video makers of this interview mis-read the 4 processes slightly with one change and that is that "opening up" should read "growing up" (for a full-detailed description of these 4 processes see for e.g., Wilber's (2017) book "The Religion of Tomorrow". 

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The above chart is particularly of interest to transhumanists who belive in change dynamics and evolution endlessly moving on into dimensions that 'stretch' (include but transcend) the very nature of humans, human nature, and humanity itself and what we call "life" (and Life) itself. Often mathematical paradigms, computational paradigms and good ol' creative extremism is brought into this mixture of futuristic and hybridizational thinking-- that is "transhumanism"-- as both vision, ideas, perhaps even ideologies. But those controversies I'll leave for others to discuss. I just read parts of an edited book by Lee, N. (2019). The Transhumanism Handbook. Springer. [charts from p. 760 by Selariu]

Very serious writers, thinkers, innovators and some 'mutants' in the current normal pool of psycho-cultural-sociological happenings. I looked up "fear" and was curious what positive transformational people were thinking in this book. I find it interesting. I would have liked to see a lot more on "fear" as a topic but I found this diagram of particular usefulness to my work and I think anyone ought to pay attention to this in the domain of Fear Studies, fearism, fearology etc. In particular look at the major factors on the left-side charts of what most limits the macroevolution of systems in an Intelligent (Information-driven) universe-- and, yes, I agree with this side for sure-- all of the aspects there are crucial and "culture of fear" (i.e., a human, humanity defined by pain/fear/reactions and neuro-sociological pressures to conform to that base structural brain-system of "survival" above all else)-- are top of the list. I am not at all surprised this is being critiqued, as well it should, by some transhumanists. Yeah!!!! 

Indeed, my whole domain of work is about re-imagining and transcending the 'Fear' Project... now, that's a long story and theory and ends with a promotion of a (perhaps mutational) idea of a new Fearlessness Psychology just read to be born in this living world here on Earth-- and the sooner the better! 

Contentious to my Fearlessness Psychology (and viewpoint) [1] is the way many people and groups construct the dichotomy of "Love" vs. "Fear" (especially in the esoteric religous traditions and 'new agey' spiritualities)--and, so for e.g., I offer you to take up this debate with serious study and discernment. I have many publications on this Love and Fear issue [2]... and, for the purpose of this blog I'll offer one excerpt from a typical writer in this (unsatisfactory) dichotomous (binary) discourse (note: also Marianne Williamson running for US Presidency for 2020 follows a similar logic to this author below): 

The Two Emotions: Love vs. Fear

by Michael Braunstein

The human mind has a tendency to isolate, divide, extract and reduce. We look at Nature, our planet, ourselves and begin to analyze and separate. The base, human, data-driven mind resolutely weaves a tale of “better living through figuring out.” Meanwhile the higher, Divine mind that each of us is born connected with, simply absorbs and includes. The Divine mind sees things holistically without sense of division or separation.

Of course, that concept of reality is frightening to the human mind. We are convinced to a person that person is all we are and individual identity is what we must protect at all costs. Yet our very experience in this classroom of life demonstrates that we deeply long for the oneness that only joining can bring. We embrace the feeling that 90,000 people can conjure when rooting for the home team at an autumn football game. Idiosyncrasies, political divides, racial barriers, ethnicity all cave when sitting next to another human who shares the oneness of cheering a home team touchdown. We crave personal connectivity and oneness in a relationship with a special person. We even lust for physical oneness in the sexual sense. We cannot stray too far from the Garden to abandon those core realities. Yet we are frightened to death of giving up our individual personhood and becoming part of the bigger energy that is the universe.

And so we fear. Out of this mistaken value we place on separateness, individual personality, ego we have enlisted an emotion to protect it. We energize our belief in separateness with fear. We even rationalize and fall into the trap of claiming “some fears are healthy.” We hear some people claim healthy fear of some things help keep us alive. Learn this if you will: There is no such thing as “healthy” fear. You may imagine something along lines like, “Fear of getting hit by a car is what keeps me from walking in the street!” I will end any debate like that with this simple retort: “Love is what keeps me walking on the sidewalk.” No, there is no healthy fear.

[more on the Internet]... 

End Note:

1. See e.g., https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/110441

2. E.g, of one of my latest publications https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/109975

In Search of Fearlessness itself is a very intriguing phrase, which has spiritual (theological), mindful (philosophical) and historical import for humanity, as well as more practical psychosocial, cultural, and political and economic implications. I wish to begin a series of FM blogs on this topic with emphasis on the "research institute" of this name and its publishing and educational role of liberation. I am inspired to write this out and share it because most people in the Fearlessness Movement (and beyond) have no idea what my main project has been in this form of a research institute "In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute" (founded by me in 1991 and still going). A few years later, with my partner Barbara Bickel we led the non-profit organization (and eventual official "society") called "In Search of Fearlessness Centre & Research Institute" combination which had two physical centre spaces in the city of Calgary, AB, Canada (between 1991-1999). That's a much longer story, of which some of that history will unfold in this blog series and some of it is documented in various places on the Internet and in my publications if you do any searching. 

The Generic Phrase: "In Search of Fearlessness"

My own prophetic vision for the use of this phrase came in late 1989 while going to university and getting involved with a woman, all of which is very intense and explosive in terms of my discovering deeper layers (mystical aspects) of "love" with another like never before in my life-time. I was 37 years old when the term and project "In Search of Fearlessness" appeared to me as my life purpose and my partner at the time agreed but she quickly bailed out of it all and the relationship ended by mid-1990. I kept at the helm to lead the ISOF Project (for short). Later, I would search the Internet and other places to see if anyone else was or has used this phrase. I found very little. Osho [aka Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh], a mystic from the East who came West and had a big impact in the E-W spiritual integration of the 1980s-90s etc. had used this phrase, which I find interesting and yet I am curious exactly what he meant by it and what his followers thought of it as well. But that's another research project to figure out, which I will not do here. But it is clear such a phrase has not taken off with anyone to any extent except myself. 

What does it mean? Well "in search of fearlessness" means many things and it all depends on how you define fear and fearlessness for one. That's extremely complex the more you get into it, especially that is the case in my own transdisciplinary investigation of these phenomena and their interrelationship. Let's start with the criticism I have received over the years since declaring publicly ISOF and attempting to develop it into a viable community, organization, research vehiicle and place of practices for liberation. Most people, or many at least, thought it was too weak and not inspiring. They believed and judged "in search of" gives the project and name a kind of nebulous unknown with no fixed and certain vision of the end goal, the promise, the reward. I was accused of being a "wandering jew" by one person and probably others with Christian faith commitments have thought the same. There was no "god" or "goddess" either that was the ultimate leader of ISOF and of its principles and practices. They couldn't trust such nebulous unknowns and that one is always seemingly in this ISOF Project always "searching" and never satisfied or redeemed or enlightened. I thought that was then, and still now, very telling of the kinds of people and their developmental evolution of consciousness, more than it was an accurate statement about ISOF Project. Reality is, they had their criticisms about this weakness, if not folly, and yet understood very little because they were largely uncurious about the nature of the ISOF Project--for they sure did not talk to me about it, they merely preferred their speculative judgments from afar with little good information or dialogue. That tells me they are afraid to really know. They want their secure fixed already known safety and security in their belief systems and their faith practices etc. They want their promise of good reward. 

In Search of Fearlessness as I articulated it was a movement from Fear to Fearlessness in an overall evolutionary developmental process. But it was a process-focused way of getting to liberation (or enlightenment or to 'heaven' if some prefer that term). Process-focused means there is always an emergent learning in and with the unknown and mystery of life/risk/death dynamics and no guaranteed outcome. One requires a larger scope and depth of understanding that the process of existence is such a variable and sometimes nebulous magnanamity that there is no way to fix and control and reduce it down to the guaranteed result one wishes for as ideal. ISOF can be an ideal way or path of life, a journey, but the ideal is not worshipped nor even fully known. I made the case early in this that "in search" keeps us humble before the ideals so that we don't let our fear of not getting to the ideal become such a big motivator that it distorts the path and the very qualities of the ideal (e.g., God or Perfection, Absolute). Most people don't have the emotional or existential capacities developed to adopt and stay with this "path of fearlessness." That is a socialization and educational problem of the modern era, which is another longer story I write and teach about in many places you can look up. 

One practical example I can give of the necessity and demand of the "in search" commitment to ISOF is to be an inveterate learner (researcher) of the highest calibre in that you are endlessly pursuing information, knowledge, knowing and understanding, from one level of superficial to a deeper level of integration of wisdom and compassion, then pursue the search to learn again as much as you can about fear and fearlessness (as central topics)--and, then again pursuing the moving from a deeper level to an even yet deeper level of integration--potentially endlessly to one's death. For many, I found, they are not used to such disciplined learning and process-focused work in their growth and in their drive to find safety and security in existence, and they short-cut their way, by-passing their way, to find a quick fix solution to their fear, without really understanding fear (and fearlessness) very deeply at all. They die mostly in this shallow state of understanding and it is a loss I see because of its short-cut path to true liberation. 

Of course, a whole set of lectures could be developed on what is liberation? That's another topic beyond what this blog is dealing with. The path of fearlessness, the ISOF Project are designed with a good deal of study I have made of liberation, and that is a critical integral perspective on liberation and not just some individualized psychospiritual liberation that I am referring to within the ISOF context. Liberation work is very complex and so far the world has made overall very little progress in my view and seems actually to resist liberation at the same time the instinctual impulse of the universe is liberation. Maybe, this is the point the brilliant psychoanalyst Erich Fromm was getting at with seeing the deep irony in the human condition where people en mass are controlled by others (dominating) because people are in "fear of freedom" (i.e., liberation). ISOF is the way to explore and understand and undermine that fear of freedom, you could say, which is based on fear of fear itself and so on. Learning what the spirit of fearlessness is and being open to learn more about it, same with fear, brings a whole new level (paradigm) to our quest for freedom, liberation, enlightenment, call it what you will. And, yes, you could say "Love" is the final goal, at least, a love purified (more or less) from the fear-based motivations that so quickly undermine love (and compassion). 

Brief HISTORY of In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute

Since the moment of my own 'awakening' to the ISOF Project, and giving this name, I feel I have been guided by spirit to enact this in my life-time on this planet. No one is paying me a salary to do this. It is service, in serving as best I can the liberation work of which fearlessness is the great principle and path. After just over a year of working and living this path in relationship in the real world, and feeling all the resistance and betrayal and despair that goes with it, my personhood was transformed and more clarity came about the need for a real space and vehicle to perform the service. The Research Institute (1991-) was my newest way to go and it has been with me ever since to this day. It shows that In Search of Fearlessness is not just about individual personal growth and development and success. So many others in the Human Potential and New Age Movements of my time were into this individualizing liberation which I saw as a flaw and still do. It is corrupted for many reasons but that's a longer critique and story you can find in my other writing and teaching. Research Institute I take very seriously because I knew we had to research this new paradigm of fearlessness (today, I call it a "fearlessness psychology") based on theories and practices adopted and tried out for real. Then making corrections and keeping track of our findings, and publishing and educating on this so it could be effective. It was a great idea I still believe in but without funding it won't go anywhere fast and it hasn't done so. I have never figured out how to inspire people overall to donate (gift) to this cause, and to the very gift of fearlessness tradition which is found in the ancient Eastern wisdom and religious traditions. In the Western world where I live, this notion is rejected and fearlessness is often vilified as being pathological and dangerous to people and societies in general. I find that very oppressive and not very wise of the Western world to have been so ignore-ant of the Eastern roots of fearlessness. 

In 1991 my partner Barbara Bickel came on board and her and I formed a non-profit Canadian publishing company "In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute" and have used that to publish several small books and booklets over the years with our own ISBN library catalogue numbers. We've pretty much stopped that in the last several years but ISOF Research Institute continues to publish my technical papers series and the journal I just founded (International Journal of Fear Studies). I am looking at finding a space again to start up the In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute (and Centre) but without funding it is hard to grow anything. I see that such a Research Institute can provide many things for the public in support of them reaching their potential but also being wise and compassionate, and this is all especially important in the coming crisis years we face as humanity (including near social collapse if not extinction on mass scale). Emotional resiliency as one example, is now getting more attention in the mental health sectors, but basically it is a way of managing "fear" (emotional anxiety, panic, etc.). I would like to promote the ISOF Research Institute as offering a much deeper approach to emotional resilience, as I argue "fear" ('fear') cannot be reduced to only an emotion as these clinical psychologists tend to do. They will only address symptoms, whereas ISOFRI will address much deeper causes--and set us back (potentially) on the course of liberation (via the path of fearlessness) from which we have long strayed as nations and peoples. 

Okay, that's enough for this very beginning bit of history and clarification of ISOFRI and I trust you will find it useful in your own navigation of what liberation could mean. Feel free to contact me if you'd like more information and make Comments on this blog as well, so others can engage a dialogue with you. 

I've always been interested in the question: Who legitimately can call who fearful? What I mean is, who is qualified to do so? Who is allowed to by the other person (or by society) that is so being labeled "fearful"? And who of course is actually fearful? Are they admitting they are fearful or are they covering the fear up with bravado (for e.g.,)? Is the one labeling the other fearful, actually the fearful themselves and only projecting fear onto another? Is only a 'transcendent other' the 'one' to truly know the fear in the human soul(s)... and resolve it? The questions grow... like weeds... but I think they have philosophical, sociological, psychological and political merit. As a society we ought to reflect on these questions and others like them.

I'm concerned we don't talk about fear enough for the challenging times we live in. I'm concerned we remain largely unconscious of the great "force" of fear to influence us. And, thus, you can see I am an advocate for feartalking and fear management/education, and fearology and so on. 

I recently was in a conflict with an acquaintance who was insistent I listen to a set of videos on 'end of the world' scenarios via extreme climate change. This is a growing topic in our world, at least in the West. I said, I won't likely get to them because I have interest in other topics rather than the science of climate change. This person became incensed and bullying in response and tried to find ways to intimidate, make me feel guilty, etc. for not doing what he wanted me to do. Now, this was not an adolescent or a three year old child of mine, it was a 45+ yr old man and a very intelligent and sensitive and aware man. What was going on? I snooped out it was his fear (and fearfulness around survival of the end of the world) that was pressing on me to be informed of what he was informed on that he thought was so important to survival. I guess, in the moment I wasn't concerned about survival and the future that much. I'm more interested in other aspects of extreme climate change, like the perceptions and psychology of such events and realities. That greatly interests me. 

So, under pressure of his personal attacks on me for not cooperating with his desires for me to watch these videos, I told him bluntly, but respectfully, I heard his concern, and I wasn't ignoring it but I was more concerned with the way he was approach me and trying to get me to do it. I told him he was using fear tactics to teach, if not convert, me. This raised the level of his anger and he denied he was doing so. 

I suppose it was very hard for him to hear my message of communication, that both he wasn't effective in his communication and he was using fear tactics and that cannot be a way to wisdom. His rage went on and on and many many emails he sent. I stopped reading them. He was unloading a whole lot of distress. I told him so. He again, resented my view because it felt like a judgement upon him. Was I judging him because I said he was using fear tactics? Which, in a way I suppose I was but I wasn't trying to make him into a horrible person necessarily at all. I just was standing up for what I believe is unethical (or just not effective)--that is, to use fear tactics, some call fearmongering to make your point and to try to change people to your view. 

This all was hurtful to me and disappointing this person would treat me so disrespectfully--he treated me suddently from friend to enemy. No doubt many of you know this experience I am talking about. It felt like the 45 year old person became a young angry adolescent quite irrational--that is, fear-based in their relationship with me, rather than connecting and respectful--even if we had our differences. This is a common problem in our world. People disrespecting people with differences and for having a right to be different and to not be coerced or threatened to change. 

Anyways, I'm most intrigued by my calling him out and labeling his approach to communication as a "fear tactic." I was saying he is using fear implicitly because he is fearful. Why else would he be so insistent and stubborn and disrespectful to my free choice to do as I saw fit? Fear has to be ruling that kind of behavior, so I surmised, and I do believe this is the case as well. One could go into the theory behind my thinking, and some evidence perhaps from knowledges available but that is not what I want to do here in this blog. I merely want to have readers think about this in terms of why did this person, knowing I was a fear expert for 30 years, not want me making my observation of his fear tactic? It seems he couldn't stand it that I was discerning something he didn't see or feel? Did he not feel fear in himself when I refused to follow his orders of insistence to watch the videos he sent to me? Perhaps not, perhaps he was quite unconscious of his feelings and only trying to correct my behavior with his behavior of writing all the disrespectful emails. Later, he did apologize for trying to "force" me. 

Point being, what is more important is that he would not trust or respect all my knowledge and experience with fear and thus when I labeled it onto his activity in a particular way he rejected it completely and more or less threw back comments to try to make me fearful of his vengeance and power etc. He tried to say I was fearful to not watch these videos. I did wonder if that was true of myself? I had bits of doubt. Then it took time to get over my hurt and fears of his abusive language toward me and find out that no I was not avoiding anything, I was merely chosing a different priority of where I put my time and energy than he would. 

This person is like so many I have met, and often when in conflict--I will say, if I sense it, "you're coming from fear" or you seem to "be afraid" etc. Most people resent me saying that, no matter how soft I deliver that message or observation. I guess they don't like me interpreting them. I am not saying I am highly skilled in effective communication around this touchy issue. I have lots to learn so I can be more effective. But nonetheless, I keep doing it and will because I think it is so important as part of my teaching to point out fear and its mis-uses on others (and/or on me). I see people hate being called out on it. 

They fear being seen through--seeing their fear when they don't even seem to see or feel it. They are fearful and won't admit it. They attack me or others you label the fear in them and their actions. The attack is meant to transfer the unacknowledged fear in them onto me (or another target who names the fear). They attack the messenger, in that sense. 

Yes, very very common and very destructive this dynamic is. It is like they don't give persmission to me (or others) to so name their fear, except maybe they would do so if the person was someone they trusted a lot or was a clinical psychologist for example. Maybe. 

I wonder about this phenomenon of legitimacy to call out fear when it is there. Of course, maybe I was 'wrong' in my interpretation. That's possible. But I trust my skills in detecting fear. Anyways, it's a problem that won't go away and I have lost good friendships with many people over this issue of my naming fear when I see it in them. 

Another e.g., comes when I am not with someone I know per se in person. They are not a friend or colleague in my close connections, but I may still want to point out and name the fear I see in them, and feel they are not acknowledging, and/or feel they are abusing fear against others--e.g., in fearmongering. This is what I have done with the famous Jordan Peterson. I have done a few youtube videos on his life and work from what I gathered studying him and his work [1]. He tends to come across in his lectures and interviews as very "brave" or "courageous" (some might call "fearless")--and, yet, I don't see him that way when I watch him and listen to him speak on videos. I don't get his fearlessness--he seems quite fearful and anxious.

Now, this is subtle. But recently a psychoanalyst in Holland pronounced that J. Peterson is quite an anxious and fearful person because he mainly is a traditionalist [2] and Peterson cannot stand loss of traditionalism (a lot of it anyways)--and thus, Peterson attacks the postmodern thinkers who are rejecting traditionalism. Long story. I have made a poster below to make my inquiry visible: 

So, if you don't know, Peterson is a clinical psychologist himself, he does therapy with people, some 30+ year competent career, etc. So, why is he so fearful? Oh, but first, the question is: Do I have a right to call him a fearful person? Does Dr. Jan Derksen, from Holland, have a right to do so, even if he is a trained psychoanalyst? On and on it goes. Is the fear pathological, neurotic, or near-psychotic (at times)? Is Peterson in need of psychological treatment for his excess fear and use of fearmongering? Lots of questions could be asked. My point is, not to diminish him and his work. My purpose is to ask if I (or anyone, like Dr. Derksen) has a right to call out Peterson on his fear-based ways of approaching things in his communications? This is just like the question of my calling out my friend recently that he was using fear tactics to try to convert me in some manner. I resent such coercion and worst, it is unethical to use fear tactics or fear-based perceptions and thinking to try to change anyone. At least, that would be a working pivot point for further philosophical discussion. This blog is not the place for that. I just wanted to raise all these issues. 

Dr. Derksen, rightly I think, nails it down quite well in talking about how Peterson has become the icon (of one sort) today for defense of Tradition. Sure, I know he doesn't like everything about tradition, but he is one of its remaining advocates, and yes, he's a privilege white old male to boot--which makes many skeptical of his motivations. I say, his motivations are often quite fear-based in his defence of Tradition (and himself). That said, you can see my videos on him and his work for more nuance. But to close here, I'll give the explanation Dr. Derksen gives (interprets) re: Peterson, as Derksen is here discussing the deep roots of fear that are being raised rapidly in a society of "political correctness" around identity politics and how our culture and society and law are all grappling with the new emergence of identity politics and "difference" overall. Dr. Derksen says in the video: 

"... it shakes people, it pulls at their roots... then it gets more emotional than rational, so it's [identity] a topic that will stay with us for many years... the most important intellectual topic will be, are we culturally and politically [able] to manage that anxiety [fear] that rises out of the fact conservative principles [values] are being broken down. Is there enough leadership... to organize their emotions about that in a productive way?" 

The host of the panel came in and said: "I think for many he [Peterson] is seen as a manager of anxiety [himself, for much of the society, especially white young males]." Dr. Derksen said, "yes." At one point Derksen says (paraphrasing), that Peterson's best-selling book "12 Rules for Life" is not science it is religion, it is all about Peterson's preaching his gospel of Tradition in his own unique way as a clinical scientist/psychologist, but it is not justified in the field of clinical psychology itself it is something else Peterson is trying to accomplish. The philosopher on the panel says (paraphrasing) it is Peterson's 'new mythology' guide for especially those who have lost their way, lost their identity and pride in this postmodern world of multiple and complex identities and their conflicts. The question in the panel's mind, seems to me always implicit in its rightful questioning of just how 'healthy' is Peterson himself to be teaching this way to 'health'? I think we should ask that of any teacher, especially one who makes their living in the human services field and who trafficks in authoring self-help advice in videos, talks, books etc. How healthy is Peterson, or how fearful is Peterson? [3] These are important questions, and questions I ought to also have hurled at my own teaching and life.

So, all this comes around to the importance of fear (anxiety) management, individual to collective. Our challenging times require a tremendous up-grade of how we manage and will manage fear. My own estimate, is that Peterson doesnt' do a great job of it. Albeit, I say that knowing he's made millions of dollars on his approach to fear management (unfortunately). The discussions must continue to challenge even Peterson's approach just like my friend's approach-- we have to look at when fear-based means are used for good ends, for good teaching, for morals, etc. I am a great skeptic and will be until I see a fearlessness-based approach invoked. 

Notes: 

1. Go to: https://ca.video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrVk.IRk89dvksA3BAXFwx.;_ylu=X3oDMTByNWU4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=youtube+r.+michael+fisher+and+jordan+peterson+and+fear&fr=yhs-Lkry-SF01&hspart=Lkry&hsimp=yhs-SF01#id=1&vid=c3e2964bb0e8876f8326dc648887b306&action=view

2. Go to youtube.com/watch?v=Y5LrxSKGW5Y for a great 2019 conversation on Jordan Peterson by a panel of scholars, including Dr. Derksen. Also see just how "fragile" (fearful, anxious, sensitized) Peterson is in recent times with this interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0P6H7cm0E4

3. I suspected from the first moment I watched Peterson in a lecture on video, from several years ago, his approach is very preacherly, he has a tone and style that reminds me of many preachers I have observed and how they are very fearful of many things (like "chaos") and are trying to teach as a way to manage this fear. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but fear used this way can accumulate and multiply and become 'fear' in a cultural discourse which is far beyond Peterson's personal fears. I don't think he truly understands what it is he is doing with his fear, and so my video (note 1) is precisely my challenging of him to be more aware, and likewise with his followers. The fact that it is public knowledge that Peterson has suffered with severe depression in his life off and on and has been taking certain meds to deal with his emotional problems, he has become addicted to the meds (apparently) and in coming off those meds he is struggling even more emotionally and one can see this at times in his recent interviews, it is very obvious he is 'on edge' and highly hurting and anxious and fearful just below his tough and sharp intellectuality (the latter, which so many people admire as his strength). 

[RMF note:] Likely THE MOST COMMON assumption in looking at the “great divide” of ontology, epistemology and axiology in world history, especially in the historical era of documenting human behavior, is probably the divide between “materialist” vs. “spiritualist” worldview perspectives. Much of philosophy and theology has been particularly involved in this debate. In many ways each of us lives out this dynamic, more or less consciously, each and every day--influencing who we think we are and what is most important. It ought not be ignored today as still very complex and important in our growth and development processes.

More and more others (like Luke Barnesmoore) are questioning the structure of that debate itself and re-visioning a more useful, and arguably more “nasty” debate that we ought to be having in terms of going from an ‘old story’ to a ‘new story’ of human reclamation and re-building a ‘new’ society that is truly sustainable. Barnesmoore, over several years of his graduate work on philosophy intersecting with geography and his own contemplative experiential journey of discoveries has synthesized a somewhat coherent way to categorize the distinction he thinks is crucial to the future of our species and to guide the necessary changes in our worldviews that then will help change our behaviors individually and collectively. I think there is much merit to his work, and, most particular I am interested in his adoption of the “Fearlessness” and “Fear” distinction(s) he often makes, which are evident below:

 “The Natural Worldview: 1. The order of (human) nature is inherently good. 2. Natural order as the basis for virtue and wisdom. 3. Order through emulation of natural order. 4. Power with. 5. Order through reciprocal collaboration between sun (breath, active, relatively masculine1516 [from the finite human perspective], pollen, sperm, mind, etc.) and moon (blood, latent, relatively feminine [from the finite human perspective], flower, egg, emotion, etc.). 6. Rooted in being. 7. Deliverance through return to natural order. 8. Fearlessness (love) as guiding principle of action. (Four Arrows)

 The Artificial Worldview: 1. The order of (Human) nature is inherently evil (sic. fallen). 2. Natural order as the barrier to virtue and wisdom. 3. Order through domination (sic. ‘improvement’, ‘completion’, ‘destruction’, etc.) of natural order. 4. Power over. 5. Order through hierarchical domination of moon17 (blood, latent, feminine, emotion, etc.) by sun (breath, active, masculine, mind, etc.). 6. Rooted in privation of being. 7. Deliverance through conquest and colonization (Warrior 1989) of the ‘other’ (sic. the natural, the feminine, the heart, etc.). 8. Fear as guiding principle of action. (Fisher and Barnesmoore 2018)”

[Note: “Where the above tables attempt to differentiate between the Artificial-Domineering Worldview that extends back through the history of hierarchical civilization and the Natural-Indigenous Worldview so as to illustrate that the essential worldview divide is not along the line of spiritual-materialistic but along the line of whether order is to be manufactured through hierarchical domination (the Colonial Modernist materialism that rose out of the hierarchical domination side of this essential worldview divide has surely increased the stratification between the natural and indigenous worldviews, but this was not the original divide)...” (Barnesmoore, p. 18-19).]

 Reference Cited:  Fisher, R. M., & Barnesmoore L. 2018, “Hierarchical security: Problem of fear of the Eternal”, In R. Michael Fisher, D. Subba & B. M. Kumar, Fear, Law and Criminology: Critical Issues in Applying the Philosophy of Fearism, Australia: Xlibris.

 Title: Nomadic Explorations V1: Essays in the Craft, by Luke R. Barnesmoore Founder/Co-Director, UBC Urban Studies Lab Founder/Executive Director, Center for Critical Interdisciplinary Studies PhD Student, UBC Department of Geography. This V1 is available at: 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/57779865/Nomadic_Explorations_V1_Essays_in_the_Craft.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DNomadic_Explorations_V1_Essays_in_the_Cr.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20191107%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20191107T215337Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=64a472259c0af3a39f69f9b70efc433ea2b1d7796b639ca879629c1167b9ffbd

International Journal of Fear Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (issue) is now open for submissions (due Feb. 1, 2020) --click here for IJFS third call .docx

IJFS Founder/Senior Ed., R. Michael Fisher, Ph.D.

To access past issues of IJFS go to: https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/110103

Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook corporation is currently under investigations and growing criticism, for breaking anti-trust violations, but the situation is far worse than that. I highly recommend the 3 part interview (or even part 1) https://www.democracynow.org/2019/10/23/roger_mcnamee_facebook_russia_cambridge_analytica 

The part 1 interview above is with Mr. Mcnamee, author of the new book "Zucked" and how Facebook is completely screwing the world and destroying the fabric of democracy. Most important in this interview by a very credible critic (Roger McNamee) is basically another kind of insider whistleblower story of sorts. Worth listening to. And, particularly because McNamee talks about how Facebook (like most social media platform giants today) are making business and algorithm systems that "prey" upon the most vulnerable in a population and primarily make most of their advertising dollars and viewer numbers based on (mis-)information, hate-speech and conspiracy theories-- that is, according to McNamee's words, Facebook preys off of the information that produces and reproduces "fight flight behaviors" that become "addictive" to many, especially those who carry smart phones around nearly all the time and everywhere they go. 

The danger of ongoing exacerbation of "polarization" of the toxic kind, not just healthy conflict in societies--there is no doubt social digital media ways of doing business are hurting us and undermining our ability to manage conflict and fear in good ways. See also a review of McNamee's book 

Like it or not, in the last few months especially, Extinction Rebellion movement on climate crisis (e.g., CO2 levels) is at the forefront and dominating media-attention re: environmentalism. One can debate the value of this, e.g., as Charles  Eisenstein and others have (see previous blog). Most important to me is the way Extinction Rebellion leaders (planners) have staged this movement upon the uses of fear, terror, panic, and what is an "emergency" beyond which they are willing to accept without their dramatic actions on the streets. We as citizens and leaders of all stripes need to pay serious heed to what their fearological strategies are, because they are decidedly (have already decided) how best to define, make meaning of, and create fear and anxiety amongst the people of the globe, but especially in the UK where the movement started and is strongest. 

Fearologics is a fearanalytical term I coined recently to assess the way anyone, or any group, cohesively and systematically induces a particular relationship to fear without providing alternative constructions but rather focuses on only one way (which, implicitly, in their view, is the right way--the one and only way)--and they put all their efforts into this dominating dicourse formation on fear and how to handle (manage it). I would question such a fearological domination (ideology) by anyone and any group and stand up to resist such domination, as I trust more and more people will do so. 

Note the fearological part of my analysis of environmentalism, as one example (including Extinction Rebellion as a most recent formation), is what is under the covers of the overt and dramatic actions and rhetoric of "activism" (of green politics). It is what we curriculum theorists call "hidden curriculum" (e.g., ideology behind the surfaces of what is being communicated and taught  of what looks benign and 'good'). I won't go into the critical theories behind the uses of hidden curriculum and the propaganda that goes with it that undermines truly educative praxis. Unfortunately, so far, Extinction Rebellion leaders have gone on full blast with their new strategy and fearologics that they have some how decided is the best and only way to manage fear and anxiety re: climate change/crisis. Environmentalists, like just about any activism I have studied for three decades off and on does the same thing, and do not disclose a rationale or make overt their agenda for using fear and promoting fear management--and of which I strongly am against such one sidedness in its uses as a process to bring about change. For many critics, "fearmongering" is not acceptable to the degree which it is being indulged in by all kinds of causes, Left or Right or Center or within activism in general-- but not only activists do this, most every form of institution and leadership does this without rationale of any critical depth and reflection. I thus assert there is more hidden curriculum (propaganda) than there is educative practices and due attention to the negative impacts on learning, on freedom of thought, and on the right of the people to have "freedom from fear" (as the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights recommends to all the world). 

One will have to take time to organize the critique in my mind regarding the fearanalysis of movements like Extinction Rebellion, but already there is one good example in thier promo (propoganda) videos they produce coming out of London (I'm presuming). I have watched two of these promotional videos where they are usually "apologizing" to the people that they have to be so disruptive in their so-called "non-violence" direct action because they realize it pisses a lot of people off like the average citizens trying to go about their lives. Again, my fearological analysis is not about that direct action, maybe that is definitely needed for a lot of good reasons, my great concern is the hidden curriculum they use to shore up and glue-together their motivational psychological approach to fear management/education. The one example I'll use here comes through to show Extinction Rebellion's primary fearologic (and its great weakness as good fear education): 

See two images stills I took from these promo videos of Extinction Rebellion

So, the pattern of communication tactic here in these two videos has one section that includes a "man" identified rather obvious by physical image and voice. These two men speak a scripted text, acting as if it is their authentic voice, but obviously it is scripted and play acted. Sure, each individual may feel scared but we don't really know when I see the same script each is repeating and performing and the fact they have chosen "males" to act this out is a part of their fearlogics that it is okay men can share they are afraid. Fine. My critique mostly then would come, as part of a fearanalysis, that they offer nothing about "fearlessness" -- as in when fear appears so then does fearlessness or some higher virtue as Four Arrows teaches and so on. No. The fear management system here is flatland. It just says, men are scared (and people are scared)--and, because of this we are "just like you" -- which is a big generalizing jump of communication and imposition because it doesn't let us each make up our mind and feel our feelings, and this imagery and text imposes upon us... and tries to get us to buy into their "I'm scared" or "We're scared" collectivism. This is the danger of this monocultural ideological messaging very typical of propaganda in general. It then leaves the justification for virtually any thing open as action and as the way to manage the fear-- that is, by joining Extinction Rebellion, joining direct action, strikes and disruption of society the way they do it and so on. Again, I'm not critiquing the particular events of strategy I am critiquing the hidden curriculum of how "best" (implicitly) to manage fear and anxiety and terror and panic-- by following their way.

Why don't these men after they say in these videos they are "scared" that they are then moving towards fearlessness... using some approach that is based on real theory about fear and fearlessness, or fearism philosophy, etc.? Truly they [e.g., Extinction Rebellion leaders, makers of these promo videos) have not done their homework on fear and its management. That's not their interest. They want to use fear to justify their behaviors, values, etc. That's the big error of their hidden curriculum, it is a mis-information on one of the most potent forces in the human universe--fear. 

So fearologics of Extinction Rebellion can begin to be critically analyzed here... from this kind of scripted imagery, text, and repetition of theme and approach. Unfortunately, it leaves nothing more for viewers, it drops us off... and I really challenge that that is really useful when the crisis situation is going the way it is. We have to be much more intelligent  (e.g., re: Defense Intelligence) in truly helping people manage (and transform) emotions of this powerful kind... truly, these movements have not thought deeply enough about this 'soft' side of the problem of eco-anxiety or whatever you want to label it. Again, I and others are writing more and more but surely these bits like this blog, are far behind and more research and critiques need to be published. I offer only the barest bit of a fearological analysis here. More to come. Let's talk about it. 

Addenda:

Thanks to my daughter for a new link: I just heard a great talk (interview) with Ronan Harrington of Extinction Rebellion as one of its UK political strategists who supports the movement for sure but also raises questions (and makes videos) re: (in his words) "shadows of the Left that make up Extinction Rebellion" [a point I have long made since I first watched how ER had a political agenda below its enviromental agenda of which moves into rigid ideologies of polarization, even though many in ER leadership talk of having "nonviolent" and non-polarizing (r)evolution]-- go to http://www.whatisemerging.com/emergepodcast

 ALSO a really good critique of the "hidden curriculum" (i.e., politics) denied by the XR folks (leaders) is brought out in a critique by Erica X. Eisen (2019) in an article in Current Affairs. We have to look closely at the politics behind the apolitics (slogandia) of XR, e.g., their "Beyond Politics" ideation and campaign. Eisen makes several good challenges, while still positively in support of XR. Go to: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/10/extinction-rebellion-has-a-politics-problem

ALSO just recently climate scientists themselves have come out and critiqued Rupert Read (Extinction Rebellion) leader who is scaring kids unnecessarily and worse, he's doing so with unjustifiable (biased) interpretations of he climate science data https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob7P_o-6OE

ALSO, I just made a video on "Fearlessness Love" which adds to my critique of Extinction Rebellion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7gzA1t_hU

Yes, things are getting 'messy' around the Extinction Rebellion movement (tactics, and philosophy) etc. really quickly, and I picked up on these potential problems way back several months ago as red flags were existent in my study of what they were saying and doing. Which is not to castigate or demean what they are doing. 

Charles Eisenstein - on ECO-rhetoric (ideology) and fear [1]

"I am afraid that, in adopting climate as their keystone narrative, environmentalists have made a bargain with the Devil.... The premises of the [environmental] conversation shifted away from love of nature and toward fear of our survival [fear of Nature]." - C. Eisenstein (2018, p. 131) [2]

When we confront the environmental and ecological issues of the day, we are also confronted with an overwhelming (if not distracting) rhetoric (ideology) of the dominant climate crisis narrative. I and others are challenging the implications of this narrative, even though we don't deny it is important. The question we have is how important is it? So, I'll introduce you to one of the critics, an environmentalist himself--and specifically I suggest his recent video "Am I a Climate Alarmist or a Climate Denier?" which lays out a lot of important issues, and ends in the video with a really good challenge to "fear" vs. "love" as the motivational source which will be most effective to bring to our grand environmental problems in the next decades. Unfortunately, he says nothing about fearlessness and/or fearism etc. in offering solutions. Anyways, I commented (see below) on his Youtube video channel the following: 

ALSO, see my series of two videos on The Greta Effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kHozXgPS7Y which look at similar dilemmas that Eisenstein is pointing to, albeit, he doesn't name names like I do. And see alternative views of young Swede's (other than Greta Thunberg, for e.g.) who are sick n' tired of the "prophet of panic" and "climate cults" from Leftists and their continued pc binary thinking  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZCCXZz5Esw

Equally, a great short talk on becoming a critical level-headed "climate thinker" (not propagandist) see Alex Epstein's work: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm&ogbl#inbox/FMfcgxwDrvCQvDhZMvSdxBQlDFfKhsnM?projector=1

I like what wise elder and death-grief expert Stephen Jenkinson said recently: 

"There are people walking up my path, one-third my age. Their hands are full," spiritual activist and author Stephen Jenkinson told The Vancouver Observer a recent fundraiser for Wakan Tanka, a film about environmental elders engaging youth on climate change. "One hand is full of a blistering hatred of anybody my age—the other is full of despair, something I’ve come to call principled anxiety...They say to me, ‘have you got anything?’"

ALSO, on the back cover of Eisenstein's new book and critique see Climate: A New Story (2018):

"Flipping the script on climate change, Eisenstein makes a case for a wholesale reimagining of the framing, tactics, and goals we employ in our journey to heal from ecological destruction. With research and insight, Charles Eisenstein details how the quantification [statistic obsession] of the natural world leads to a lack of [empathetic] integration and [reinforces] our 'fight' [and 'flight'] [fear-based] mentality." 

This latter point of exacerbating a battle of who's facts are right, re: climate change activists vs. the deniers, is fear-based in structuration, which is something I also have seen for many decades when it comes to making cases to 'save the environment' (or the world). The passions of fight-flight, our primal brain reflexes on survival get triggered and grow and out race the higher cognitive functions of which are needed to look at the situation and problems we have to face more collaboratively. Digitial media and social networks in the past decade have exacerbated fight-flight divisiveness on top of the quantification battles and in the end the subtleties of really listening and connecting to our hearts, souls, and our holistic nature of perception are diminished. David Abrams, cultural ecologist, geophilosopher, and author of Becoming Animal and The Spell of the Sensuous endorses Eisenstein's critique calling Eisenstein's latest book "a blast of sanity!... he writes from within an uncannily woke worldview... that discerns and feels into the complex entanglement of our lives.... This book is visionary and prophetic...". 

I think with Eisenstein's work here we have the possibility of moving from fear to fearlessness in the entire eco-problematique. I still am in the early stages of analyzing Eisenstein's work and especially from a fearological lens. So the "New Story" he speaks to is basically, as his book (back cover) says: 

"This refocusing away from impending catastrophe [as primary fear-based motivator to care for Nature] and our inevitable doom cultivates meaningful emotional and psychological connections [love] and provides real, actionable steps to caring for the earth. Freeing ourselves from a war mentality and seeing the bigger picture...".

The book (according to Brock Doman, Water Institute Director) is "A clarion call to reconnect through love with our living earth... to collectively move past divisive reductionism [fear-based patterning], betwixt false Prophets of doom and false prophets of denial, towards a revitalization of reverential relations." 

 Note

2. This shift is super important to recognize and analyze (see Note 1 also)--it is part of an emergency paradigm regarding time and risk--and the fear of failure at an unprecedented scale--thus, it is a way to motivate people and institutions to change by 'force' of fear rather than love--which is the basic foundational strategy of what is called "negative" politics/environmentalism relative and in contrast to "positive" politics/environmentalism. 

Fearlessness is complex enough. Add "fearlessnessnizing" and you get an even more intricate complication. I believe this is absolutely necessary to work our way in and through the nightmarish days we live, and the worse to come as a global reality of crises and tragedies of immense proportions will rain down. We are already there... what we do about it all is another thing and fearlessness and fearlessnessizing everything is really important, so I say and... so says the fearlessness theorizing that has come to me in the decades and most recently in the last two years or less. I introduce you to the currrent writing I have done on fearlessnessizing as a resource.

"Fearlessnessizing" - was budding, preconsciously and intuitively as I wrote the book on Four Arrows' life and work [1], and especially by the end of that book I began writing on it indirectly as Four Arrows and I were invited into another project of co-writing a chapter [2] for the SAGE International Handbook of Critical Pedagogy. I had been spending a lot of time thinking and reading about "Indigenizing" (especially via Four Arrows' perspective on this revitalizing healing transformative concept) but did not include "Fearlessnessizing" in the book on him but did bring it in somewhat alongside Indigenizing to align both with Four Arrows' thought and the burgeoning field (perspective) of Indigenous revitalization across the globe.

What would it mean to (re-)Indigenize modern societies? And, for me, that came to be: What would it mean to (re-)Fearlessnessize modern societies? It was an analogy I found very useful but have not at all developed in detail yet. 

"Fearlessnessizing" however, has continued to stay a live with me since 2017 early intuitions and then with the writing of articles with Four Arrows in 2018 forward. In the recent issue (Vol. 1(2)) of the International Journal of Fear Studies, I gave it a simple definition and officially recorded it as part of a "New Fear Vocabulary" [Fisher et al., 2019, p. 13] : 

fearlessnessizing - [coined by RMF] the process of deconstructing fear-based realities and structures and replacing them with fearlessness-based ones; analogous to indigenizing [3]

See also some writing on this concept in a recent technical paper on "fearlessness psychology" I am developing (Fisher, 2019) [4]

So, that definition, preliminary as it is, has a long history that goes back to the prophetic visionary experience I had with Catherine in the birthing of the In Search of Fearlessness (ISOF) Project (1989), a project (spiritual, philosophical and political) that was meant to counter the dominating hegemony of the Fear Project [5]. In a sense, that very counter-hegemonic 'turn' I was introducing formally to the planetary conciousness was itself a fearlessnessizing of everything. It's hard to even imagine that. The fear-based paradigm was to become eventually a fearlessness paradigm [6] and so on. I was on this grand project to re-make and re-label the world--so to speak. I know that sounds all rather grandiose. And, so is Indigenizing the world. 

Besides the ISOF Project and the Indigenizing project, there was a prior influence in my educational (re-)evolution tracing back to the Critical Tradition coming out of (mainly) Europe with the Critical Theory [Frankfurt] School and with many parallels the Liberation Theology (South American) resistance movements, of which the latter produce a very powerful line of Critical Pedagogy of which Paulo Freire made popular around the world and still ongoing. The key term I related to in Freire's writings was conscientization as a form of describing liberation process/work and its deconstruction and reconstruction of oppression. So, in that sense, I was attracted to how liberation (conscientization) was a type of fearlessnessizing as well, even though I did not call it that in the late 1970s when I studied that tradition in my education degree. Conscientizing, indigenizing, Fearlessnessizing all made a lot of sense to me. In 2017 I wrote a short piece on the FM ning [7] mentioning my interest to re-vise Freirean conscientization to Jacobsian conscientization (a la Four Arrows)--of which this was elaborated in the Fisher & Four Arrows, in press) article about to appear in the SAGE critical pedagogy handbook mentioned above. 

Notes 

1. Fisher, R. M. (2018). Fearless engagement of Four Arrows: The true story of an Indigenous-based social transformer. NY: Peter Lang.

2. Fisher, R. M., and Four Arrows (Jacobs, D. T.) (in press). Indigenizing conscientization and critical pedagogy: Nature, Spirit and Fearlessness as foundational concepts. In S. Steinberg & B. Down (Eds.), Sage Handbook of Critical Pedagogies (Vol.1) (pp.   ). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

3. Fisher, R. M. et al. (2019). New Fear vocabulary. International Journal of Fear Studies, 1(2), 10-14.

4. Fisher, R. M. (2019). Fearlessness psychology: An introduction. Technical Paper No. 79. Calgary, AB: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.

5. See for e.g., Fisher, R. M. (2018). The Fearlessness Movement: Meta-context exposed! Technical Paper No. 72. Calgary, AB: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.

6. See for e.g., Fisher, R. M. (2013). Fearlessness paradigm meets Bracha Ettinger's matrixial theory. Technical Paper No. 46. Carbondale, IL: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute; Fisher, R.M. (2006). Integral fearlessness paradigm. Technical Paper No. 20. Vancouver, BC: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute; Fisher, R.M. (1995). An introduction to an epistemology of 'fear'; A fearlessness paradigm. Technical Paper No. 2. Calgary, AB: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute. 

7. See my (2017) photo https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/photos/jacobsian-conscientization; and, also see my (2015) 'mapping' (photo) of critical pedagogies and locating Jacobsian critical pedagogy and conscientization as an Indigenous addition to the traditions of critical pedagogies https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/photos/crit-pedag-fear-fig-1001

Check out the latest issue of IJFS 

The following 1 hr interview podcast hosted by Sotiris Makrygiannis takes listeners through a philosophical tour of R. Michael Fisher's work on fear, fearism, fearlessness. 

https://soundcloud.com/sotiris-makrygiannis/the-marshal-michael-fisher

Abstract: A casual discussion around the philosophy and epistemology of Fearism. Together with M. Fisher we covered his multiple books, ways to promote books and also a philosophical branch that is inspired by the Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. Hope you enjoy a friendly chat turned into a podcast.  - S.M.