I have just co-authored and published "Education, Theology and Fear: Two Priests and a Fearologist in Dialogue" (Technical Paper No. 61)... I highly recommend you check this out at Department of Integral and 'Fear' Studies (scroll down for a free pdf). 

HINT(S) FOR THE WISE

You may be wondering what is Michael up to now with this "theology" kick? 

I have been asking this question really sincerely for the past six months, since I have met both Emmett Coyne and Terry Biddington, the two priests (American, British) who have taken up my work on fear and fearlessness like no others in my career so far. And, yes, more or less, the three of us are discussing what a "theology of fear" (healthy-side, and unhealthy-side) might look like in the 21st century. 

Today, while journaling, I came into a long series of rather spontaneous connections, going way back to my interest in "theodicy" (of Good vs. Evil)... now, and since the 1989 founding of the In Search of Fearlessness Project, Love vs. Fear has been one of the core foundations of me working through what a "metaphysics of fear" could look like. 

That's enough hints... for why you may want to read this dialogue in tech. paper no. 61 ... There will be a lot more coming on this, because it seems "pressing" (or "calling") upon my soul to articulate this better-- much better-- than I have to this point. And, to finally, wet your appetite, the ongoing study of fear ('fear') now 27 years in progress is by any other name a code-word for evil ('evil') -- and, this is big stuff ... it has eluded me, and then revealed itself, and then eluded me -- my forensic fearanalysis is getting better at seeing through what it is I am on about here on this planet... ha ha! 

Spring 2006

[This is an excellent article, for a lot of reasons, and written by a Muslim leader is even more important, I think: and how appropriate I just found this on the Internet, published by New Perspectives Quarterly, 23(1), in 2006-- it is another way to imagine fearism-t, for one, and another way to imagine evil-- keep attuned with my own new blogs coming out soon around a metaphysics of fear, and theology of fear, of which Tariq Ramadan, and any religious or spiritual leader ought to be taking seriously]

The Global Ideology of Fear

Tariq Ramadan, Europe’s most controversial Muslim leader, is currently a visiting professor at Oxford’s St. Antony’s College and a senior research fellow at the Lokahi Foundation in London.

London — Global terrorism and the global war against terrorism both fuel, in equal and pernicious ways, the global ideology of fear.

When we examine the countries of the West or those of the South, particularly where the population is primarily Muslim, we can only conclude that fear is omnipresent and deeply ingrained. It is having an unmistakable impact on the way human beings perceive the world. We can observe at street level three principal effects:

First, fear, naturally and often unconsciously, breeds mistrust and potential conflict with the “Other.” A binary vision of reality begins to impose the outlines of a protective “us” and of a threatening “them.”

The second effect derives from the absolute domination of emotions in our relationships with the Other and of emotional responses to events. When fear rules, emotions undermine rational analysis. In such a state, we condemn the consequences of some action and reject the individuals who commit it, but we don’t seek to understand what led to such action.

Our “good reasons” and our “just causes” are praised by the general public without critical examination, while at the same time their “bad reasons” and their “evil intentions” are indiscriminately condemned. Fear authorizes us to forgo all explanations, all understanding, all analysis that might allow us to understand the Other, his world, his hopes.

In the new regime of fear and suspicion, to understand the Other is to justify him; to seek out his reasons is to agree with him. A curious—and dangerous—reductionism transforms reality into a series of discreet, disconnected facts, and the Other into a series of acts without cause, without history or historic depth, without reason and rationality. Emotion does not understand but rather appreciates or condemns; one’s “feelings” determine everything.

The third consequence is as paradoxical as it is startling: We may well live in the communication age, but human beings seem to be increasingly less informed. We have witnessed the multiplication of “communication superhighways” that diffuse a dizzying excess of information in real time, saturating the intelligence and making it impossible to place facts in perspective. The communication age is an age of non-information. We are passive receptors of reality and of facts; it is as if we have no grasp on how they come to be. Swept away by our emotions; trapped in binary, reductive logical structures; and lost in the rising tide of “as it happens” events and politics, it has become impossible for us to see, to understand or even to hear the Other.

In short, the ideology of fear has produced a devastating deafness: The Other’s world and the reasons he behaves as he does are inaudible; to attempt to hear them more clearly is to reveal one’s own ill-being, or, at worst, the vilest of treacheries. Between “us” and “them” a virtual wall has been thrown up, marking out the borderlines of our new identities and connections, protected within, threatened from without.

The upkeep and feeding of the “ideology of fear” has become a political weapon, particularly as part of the opportunistic strategies of the great economic powers of the day. Far from true political debate and shielded from objective criticism of the consequences of the world economic order, they perpetuate a state of fear and vulnerability. This in turn grants a license for security policies of the most dangerous and discriminatory kind—exceptional measures that are most inimical to freedom (particularly with regard to human and citizen’s rights) and often include extremist, racist concepts. The ideology of fear confirms the definitive, intrinsic guilt of the Other and the overriding necessity to protect oneself by increased security precautions or by force of arms—a condition made to order for the multinational arms industry.

The Globalization of the Israeli Syndrome | An observer of Israeli society and of its successive governments cannot but be struck by the similarity between the logical premises that inform that society and what is now taking place on a global scale. Since the 1940s, the history of the state of Israel has been shaped by fear, by the imperative of self-protection and by mistrust of the Other.

After the Nazi horrors and the extermination camps, after the painful European experience, Israel appealed to many both as refuge and as possible self-reconciliation in the eyes of history. Years have passed, but the same logic has perpetuated itself in the form of deep feelings of mistrust; the perception of self as victim; the reality of insecurity; the continued inflation of security policy measures; and the perception of the permanent hostility, unavowed or not, of the world around it.

In the end, however, roles and perspectives have been reversed: Israeli society is much richer than those that surround it, incomparably better armed than all the Arab countries combined, at the pinnacle of scientific and military technology, a true regional and international economic power. Yet it still sees itself as a victim of the destructive intentions of its neighbors, or their age-old opposition—of “Palestinian terrorism” or, in broader terms, of Muslim extremism.

The superior regional power has become a “victim,” of the Other’s “horror,” of his “madness,” of his “hatred,” of his “irrationality,” of his “murderous insanity,” of his “nihilism.” These are but a few of the terms utilized to justify a security policy that accepts “of necessity” violations of the principles of international law or of respect for the lives of civilians and of the innocent. They are used to authorize “moderate” recourse to torture and for the adoption of distinctive and openly discriminatory legislation toward certain citizens still considered too “Arab” or too committed as Christians or Muslims. The victim protects and defends himself. Could anything be more normal?

If we broaden our focus, we see a world that reflects these same considerations and postures. The “war” that has been unleashed to destroy terrorism is now founded on the same logical bases, but on a global scale.

Don’t get me wrong. Terror is a fact, not an ideology, and the killing of innocent people must be condemned with no exception. It is the ideological use of its consequences that is problematic.

The American neo-conservatives and their European imitators instigate and nurture a permanent sense of fear, which they wield as though it were an ideology. Their policies are based on a feeling of insecurity and a binary vision of the world. The imperative is one of self-protection, sometimes through draconian security policies that are hostile to freedom and, for some, openly unjust and discriminatory. After all, the West has become the “principal victim of terrorism.”

The world’s most prosperous, heaviest-armed countries are threatened. Citizens have to understand that they must revise the laws that govern them, and their rights, in more restrictive terms...for their own security. To confront the threat, and to calm their fears, citizens must be more closely monitored, intensively video-recorded, kept under constant surveillance. The Israel Syndrome, whose characteristics are the state of siege and of the reversal of the power equation on the level of perception and symbolism, has come fully into play: The Other is no longer criticizing our policies, he is negating our existence; he detests our values, our very civilization. He must no longer be held responsible for his acts alone but for his hatred, his nihilism, his madness and “why not?” his beliefs and his religion.

With Fear We Are All Victims | The first tragic consequence of the ideology of fear is to transform all societies and their members into victims. While in the West the idea of a civilization under threat gains currency, we can observe the same emotional reflexes, shaped by fear and victimhood, in majority Muslim societies, and even in the Muslim communities established in Europe and in the United States: “They” do not like Islam and Muslims; “they” have singled us out, discriminate against us; “they” are openly racist and xenophobic. “Their” war against “Islamic terrorism” is nothing but a “pretext for lashing out at Islam and at all Muslims.”

Everywhere we find the same feelings, everywhere the same attitudes. Before our eyes an ideology is emerging, one that transforms us into “victims” incapable of viewing the Other except as a potential threat. Because we are colonized by fear, it has become impossible for us to enter into the Other’s reasoning, even to hear him or, in the most humane sense, understand his distress and frustration. We are all, each and every one of us, caught up in the same web—a web woven of narrow-mindedness and sectarianism.

We must break the bonds of our fear, master our impulse to see things only in black and white and recapture our critical spirit and our ability to listen. We must once more become thinking “subjects”—that and nothing else. And yet, to do so seems so difficult.

Muslims, whether they live in the West or in primarily Muslim countries, cannot under any circumstances endorse the ideology of fear, nor can they fall into the trap of a polarized, simplistic and caricatured reading of the world. By perpetuating the idea, which has now become an obsession, that they are either dominated (or members of a minority) and unappreciated or singled out and marginalized, they unconsciously accept the premises of those who propagate this emotion-based ideology, of those who seek to build walls and dig trenches, of those who promote prejudices, fuel insecurity and fan the fires of conflict. These propagandists of fear tirelessly spread the idea that Islam and Muslims are threatened by the future; by allowing themselves to be swept into a vicious circle of self-justification and defensiveness, Muslims confirm and lend credence to a debate whose terms have been deliberately skewed.

Our very conception of humanity and life is at stake. Far more than simple politics, this new ideology is the challenge of our times. It raises issues of conviction, faith, understanding, ethics and behavior. If a vision is to emerge as a response to the ideology of fear, it must be one of self-liberation. This “act of self-liberation” is located precisely at the core of spiritual experience, for when the emotions urge us to let ourselves go, spirituality requires of us that we educate ourselves.

The American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., following the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, understood that it was all too easy to see one’s own community or cause as the universal value. He constantly warned his followers not to use the excuse of injustice done to them to abdicate responsibility for their lives and their obligations to others, calling for “spiritual discipline” against resentment or self-righteousness.

We must make a similar effort to educate ourselves in order to bring together the search for meaning and for God and respect for the principles of justice, freedom and human fraternity. Against the temptation to close ourselves off, to see reality in black and white, we need an “intellectual jihad.” We need to resist (jihad means, literally, effort and resistance), to strive for the universality of a message that transcends the particular and allows us to understand the common universal values that make up our horizon.

This enterprise of critical intelligence and understanding alone will make it possible for us Muslims to return to the Islamic concepts that contextualized or specialized historical definitions have often diminished, restricted or even amputated. Notions such as the Shari’a (Islamic code), “fiqh” (Islamic jurisprudence) and “ulum islamiyya” (Islamic sciences) must be reviewed and redefined in the light of the Islamic principles that call us to the universal, not through the narrow prism of the attitudes of “the dominated,” of “minorities” or of “immigrants to be assimilated.”

This is the reform—and it is a literally revolutionary one—that we must undertake in order to resist the ideology of fear. Some of our readings of the Islamic sources are a godsend for the propagators of the ideology that promotes fear to justify war, policies destructive of freedom and institutionalized discrimination. The reform we need does not negate a single one of the principles of Islam, its fundamentals and its practice, but it reinvigorates self-confidence. In so doing, this reform helps us overcome our fear of the Other, the obsession with adversity and the promotion of closed, reactive, petrified identities.

The original spirit of the message of Islam is an invitation to us; it teaches us to open ourselves to the world, to make ours what is good (whatever its origin). It teaches us to understand that each of us has multiple, fluctuating identities, that diversity is a school for humility and respect, and that humanity is one, just as God is One.

Fears, like fractures, cut crosswise. In Western society, we can observe signs of tension between those who define themselves in relation to others and have no desire whatsoever to acknowledge the fact, and those who understand that there exist values to be held in common, partnerships to be created.

The same fault lines exist in Muslim societies and communities. We must counsel those who lay claim to, and who accept, the principle of common values and are prepared to put fear behind them and not be deceived by the extremism of the “other side.” If they do, then extremism will have prevailed.

Today’s most urgent task is to bring together women and men from all backgrounds, from all convictions and religions, in the name of the common universal principles of the dignity of human beings and of the critical spirit. To overcome the ideology of fear, to loosen the grip of the emotions, requires a demanding critical intelligence and a sense of the ethics of debate, of receptivity. Some will identify these qualities with belief and spirituality, others with their conscience alone. But each one will understand them as the necessary, imperative qualities of his or her humanity.

Now and then it is important, I believe, for anyone, especially leaders of liberation to talk about their struggles. Not to over-indulge or anything, but to share the journey of fearlessness so that others can sense what it is like for others and leaders. If you were to read my boxes-full of my personal journals over the decades you'd get more than a handful of pages about the struggle to keep going. I sometimes just express "distress" and "despair" and "depression" and lots of rage and righteous indignation. Sometimes I get valuable insights. Mostly, a lot of sadness of how it is so hard to get others to 'take up the cause' and join me and/or join the Fearlessness Movement on the planet in their own ways. I certainly don't need to be the leader of it all. I look for fellow companions, comrades, and peers who are also leading this work. It's so hard to find them, and when I do they are so busy with their own worlds of goings on that they don't have time to engage with me usually very in depth. So, I suffer from an intellectual aloneness pretty much daily. 

The following excerpt from my journaling the other day is I think a good example of my struggles and how in journaling (often) I find some resolution to my internal conflict and other negative feelings and heaviness due to exhaustion of carrying out this work of fear and fearlessness with so little positive rewards from society. I certainly don't generally get paid for my primary cultural productions or efforts. I am financially dependent on my life-partner, not a situation that ever feels good to me or her. Yet, it is reality. 

April 22, 2016 - Fearism-t is not to be side-stepped, displaced by some simple elocution or filing away in a locked-up storage vault!!! -- in my mind. 

If I look at the underlying 'cause' of 80% of my mental and soul suffering daily it comes from my own (with others) forgetting that fearism-t, in one way or another is operating and tearing me down. All the triggering manifestations that disgust, sicken and hurt me (an other beings) are based in an ideological formation so hard to define and to keep a finger on. Let me tell ya! I just know intuitively, every few weeks or months, to pick up my own book/writing/teachings, especially the last book Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue (co-written with Desh Subba), and actually hold the book when I am in the midst of my despair and sickness of how the world is, of how I am. To hold that book and actually open it up and read it, is not easy for me to do when no one else around me is showing interest in the book nor asking me questions about it etc. Today, I read some sections and watched my mood change, the suffering disappear, and listened to my own voice articulate the essence of fearism-t, and its toxic impact... and it is as though I am reading into the entire W. society and civilization and its addiction to fear, and no wonder it doesn't want to change, nor engage with my work... or follow the path of fearlessness with any real sincerity never mind real discipline and sharing this journey with me. 

So, that's the jist of the journal entry, that went on and on much longer. I don't think it is necessary to write it all out. Maybe someday, historians will find these journals of mine and publish bits of them. I have shared my struggles with my daughters and with my life-partner, but not often. I have counseled on this material with many co-peer counselors over the decades, but there is really never enough quality attention for me to heal through all this distress and constant bombardment from the fearism-t ideology that is embedded in my own being, and all around me. It is an ideology so well designed to make us forget there is even an ideology of fearism-t that exists... and, I watch how easily I forget this, and I am the one who found this "truth" and labeled it, and have written more on it than anyone on the planet that I know of. That's how toxic and effective it is-- it can make me forget how to free myself from the 'Fear' Matrix, the 'Fear' Project, the Culture of Fear, the fearism-t complex itself. Forget. Forget. Forget. And, I suffer in that forget. I also think everyone does, but they are often not aware of what is causing the suffering. I have no doubt that fearism-t is operating to make people stop reading my work on fear and fearlessness. It is preventing them from coalescing with force, of following my lead... of taking their own lead to develop a radical fear management/education on the planet. Of course, there are rare (but fragile) exceptions to this rule and my observations. Nothing is sustainable right now... I just don't see the "movement" and I don't see the willingness to learn about it that is required. Again, I blame no one because I watch my own slipping 'off' track and forgetting, and suffering and forgetting why I am suffering. That is, forgetting the very deepest roots of that suffering in an imprisonment, that is not being led by fearlessness as it could be. 

I feel so alone on this battle, and yet, rationally I know I am not. The proof I am not alone was something I sought to find for years in my research. That's why I wrote a wikipedia on "Fearlessness Movement" of which is the introduction to this FM ning as well. Which, I encourage everyone who has signed up (or not even) to read that introduction--see the very first FORUM at the bottom of the webpage on this FM ning-- we are part of something much larger, lest we not forget this is so! 

Final note:  Yes, I am reminding, and I have uncovered a great systemic ADDICTION TO FEAR (1) that I live in, with, amongst... and, it would be a similar daily experience to live amongst an alcoholic family in denial, who has not gone to treatment-- I know that experience from my own upbringing, and I have worked as a therapist with so many families where this is so and have tried to support the children (mainly, the male adolescents)... it is a toxic system, and it wears you down, and it feels like it is impossible to change. That's what I am sharing above... what it is like to be an addiction therapist for the entire W. civilization that is addicted to fear and denies that it is. 

End Note

1. If you get the drift of this "Addiction Problem" then if you read more of my work you can re-translate that code-word for "Fear Problem" and if you read the two blogs that were created (after this blog; thanks to my editing flexibility here I can add this end note) you'll see that "fear" (and 'fear') as I have been studying them for 27 years are codes for "evil" ('evil'), that is the 'Evil Problem'. In my recent co-authored book with Desh Subba, "Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue" (2016), you'll see it is not by accident that in the Preface the discussion begins with looking at evil (a la Carl Jung) and linking it with fear and a philosophy of fearism. 

It's Spring (March 21, 2016) in the illusion of linear marked-out "time" as we commonly evaluate qualitative reality--fine, but meditate not on this, or that, or this, or that, unless you know what you are meditating on and for what purpose in terms of liberation, toward a fearlessness way. That is not an order, because for it to be so would mean I am bossing you around, and you have not hired me to boss you around. Thank goodness. 

It's Springing outward in great leaf-green forces... and I meditate with people like Thich Nhat Hanh (the Buddhist teacher today in North America)-- with people like David Suzuki (who is listening to Hanh), in this great little 6 min. video--- love it!  http://ralphmetznerblog.com/2015/04/24/thich-nhat-hanh/

Michael, I ask you what is meditation? And I don't know what you are talking about. 

Thich Nhat Hanh defines it in this little video on "despair" and the environmental condition and the environmental movement today (e.g., the climate change crisis, or "wicked problem" as Wilber calls it)... "Mediation, means to look deeply." [I would tend to call that "contemplation" but sure, I'm fine with "meditation" if the man says so]... 

It's Sprung... that the truth we have to face as in all possibilities of Truth, now and whenever... that's a wonderful existential occasion for potency in the path of fearlessness when we come to the "gate" (threshold) between first-tier and second-tier (using Spiral Dynamics integral theory)... when, "hope" and "despair" are seen as two sides of the same coin... clearly, Hanh is meeting these environmentalists in a way they don't like to be met-- he's calling out their fear/despair ... and does so by asking us to meditate on the total (or near) destruction of this civilization which I see is not about "doing" (just listen to see how Suzuki is so concerned about us become "passive")--- here is, my friends, the conflict in East and West-- a conflict that the West has constructed between "doing" (its favorite) and "being" (it's nemesis)-- harken, and echoing, I hear Erich Fromm... and so many ... 

Watch the video... meditate. 

Happy Spring!

As an educator, and as a critic of when certain ideas are promoted as propaganda, and distorted, I have to be concerned. Truly, I'd rather put my attention on more positive productions of my own work on fearlessness, for example. But when it comes to "fear" and our knowledge about it, I am on the path of the sacred warrior real fast. A defender of the dharma, as Ken Wilber has been called. I too am not about to leave knowledge about fear and its management alone--if, I see it is creating more problems than good. Now, the latter is not so easy to prove, and indeed, that's not my task. Other's with funding dollars and research support teams can go out there and prove the harmful effect levels of anything. I don't have that research team nor the resources to do it. I can be a good philosopher however, and that means offering a good critique--of everything. That said, I don't want to waste my time on everything-- I "waste" my time where I think I couldn't live with myself if I didn't say something. That topic of compelling interest is fear (by any other name). 

One major critical philosophical tradition has been to critique ideologies. I am talking about fear-based, fear-mongering distortions of knowledge. Now, there is not a premise in such critiques that persons, or organizations, etc. are consciously trying to reproduce toxic ideologies, nor do they want to do fear-mongering. But everything anyone publishes is potentially doing that if we are not consciously reflecting on what is being taught in discourses (e.g., how do we talk about fear). Well, there is an awful lot of talk about fear and an even greater volume these days of writing about it. I follow books on Amazon.com to watch how quickly a new book comes out on fear--like it seems every few months. All the authors have an agenda, and they want to help us be less afraid, and/or be only afraid of the right things, not the wrong things. That alone, on the surface is admirable and even ethical. But as critical philosophers, since at least Aristotle, have known, you can be right about something but be motivated by the wrong source and create unethical results. Carl Jung is somewhat famous, as a psychotherapist and theorist of the human psyche for his elaboration of the enantiodromia syndrome he found quite universal in most of modern human history and in people he observed. That syndrome boils down to a kind of 'law' of human behavior that goes like this (paraphrasing Jung): Those that try hard to do good end up (usually) doing bad. That is, the opposite results. 

So, if I as a researcher are looking for such syndromes, and I do, there is no greater source of cases of such as in the literature on fear management/education. I won't go into all the reason for why--but a good deal of my arguments can be found in my books and articles over the decades. One of the first steps to such critical analysis (i.e., fearanalysis) is to see how contradictions show up in common sense ("wisdom") of a society, a group, a writer/teacher, etc. So, here's one example that just popped-out at me today while researching new books on fear (the following are from the self-help genre): 

The example is Christian authors (but believe me, if you will, my research could find a similar case in secular writers). So, one author in a new book on fear (Jeanetta Dunlop, Unmasking Fear) writes: "As divine beings we are entitled to live a fear-fear life." 

The next Christian author (David Jeremiah, Slaying the Giants in Your Life), unknowingly, in distinct contradiction to the above author, writes, "The Bible, as a matter of fact, doesn't paint a picture of the fear-free life." 

Okay, I have to ask if I am selecting very specific quotes out of context and juxtaposing them to make my case of a contradiction in Christian teachings (at least by these two authors)? It is a slight possibility I am biasing this because I haven't read their books. I don't know them. I am speculating, but logically so, via a reading of one line of text, which is a "teaching"-- which has implications for readers. I ask, but what is a reader of such texts supposed to believe now? Which author is telling the best truth? I could go on an on as an educator and as part of a critical analysis... asking these questions. My reason for confidence in just how contradictory these authors are (as selected from many possibilities) is because I have read many such books by all kinds of people across as many diverse backgrounds as possible, over 27 years. If that makes me a bit of an expert on predicting where an author is likely going (in most cases, not all)--I can predict pretty well, and I have seen the pattern pretty well. In the self-help books, it seems people skew knowledge the most readily. Hey, we all skew somewhat anything we are passionate about to want to write a book about so we can help others by how we think we have been helped. I appreciate that desire. 

The ideological part of my criticism, however, is less forgiving, because these typical books on fear and its management/education, never critique themselves reflectively. The authors who write about fear don't seem to have that basic philosophical and ethical imperative in their work. I just do not see it (the rare exception is out there). 

I look at how there is so much contradiction about "fearless" these days-- is it good, is it bad? The volumes of teachings on fear and fearlessness is growing rapidly because of the era we are in--people are looking hard, and are quite 'desperate' for answers. Oh, yeah, and rarely do they read other authors and cite them in their own particular book or on their own particular promotional videos. Oh, no, they like to present their knowledge about fear as if it is their own great discovery, and if it worked for them then it will work for you. They are quick to flaunt their own philosophies. 

I think I've made my general point, of how this mess... of contradictions... and insufficiently good knowledge, often unethical knowledge... is splattering all over our children and parents, and so on... all over our societies... at least in the West. The East doesn't seem so obsessed with this. And my colleague in the philosophy of fearism (Desh Subba) tells me it is because the W. is much more fearful than the East. Now, there's an interesting thesis to test... as years go by. 

No, I'm not offering any advice on my critique here. You can ask if you want to know more. I'd rather, like you to think about it, and do your own research well, whenever someone says something about fear and its management as if they know what they are talking about. 

Everyone once in awhile, while I continue to surf the Internet looking for contacts and good info. on the Fear Problem, I find a 'gem' -- at least, in this case today, a gem of an article by Don Hazen, Exec. Ed. of AlterNet.org (an online community of radical progressive thinkers)... Don has a great article "Fear in America: Fear Dominates Politics, Media and Human Existence in America--And It's Getting Worse" (a quick read)... 

It does my heart good to find current folks taking up a series of articles on their sites like this one Don and AlterNet have initiated. Now, I don't think any of the articles following Don's are all that great... and rather, more distractive to me... from the punchy issues that Don himself raises. I wrote to him and maybe we can collaborate. I'm glad his article is out there, and their site has near 1 million "Likes"... whatever, that actually means... but yes, I thought to copy and past a few tid bit quotes that stand out for me as so true...

FEAR IN AMERICA by Don Hazen, March 15, 2015

Fear Dominates Politics, Media and Human Existence in America—And It’s Getting Worse

Today, AlterNet launches a series of articles and investigations on fear, and how to combat it.

"We at AlterNet feel our society is overrun with a destructive and growing social preoccupation with fear.... Politically, socially and emotionally, fear is arguably the most powerful potent force in society."

When I look over a few prior blogs on this site that I have posted, there's the notion that we need a new philosophy of fearism to call out and analyze (as well as resolve) the unique human-fear relationship; which, I often call the Fear Problem. One doesn't want to necessarily be completely negative and cynical about the universal and pervasive role of fear in human existence, but some might not like that I tend to problematize fear ('fear') in that tone. It's a reasonable criticism of my bias. Desh Subba, however, founder of the philosophy of fearism [1], a Nepalese philosopher, novelist, poet, is not quite so negative sounding.

When Subba and Fisher join, there is a new dialogue and perhaps a more 'balanced' tone towards fear. That is our hope as co-authors in our new book [2] and ongoing collaboration. It creates a unique problem for me as I have to continually think through what do I agree with in Subba's work and what do I disagree with, and when is it appropriate to describe either in a piece of writing. So far, my emphasis is on sorting through, and it is not easy, what exactly Subba and I agree on to make this new E-W version of a philosophy of fearism. Currently, we are co-authoring an article on our work to be submitting to a magazine [3]. I want to use this blog to sort through my thinking about a similarity (agreement) Subba and I have in our work, and it revolves around a very powerful notion which Subba (2014) and (2016) [4] has called "dephilosophy" as one of the major (not only) components of applying a philosophy of fearism to other philosophies throughout history. Further, interesting, and somewhat complexifying, Subba (2016) wrote, "Fearism is a dephilosophy" (p. 8). Which means, many things, and I will only touch upon a few here. 

What dephilosophy means for Subba, is a "deconstruction" [5] and "reconstruction" to follow--as a primary methodological approach in a philosophy of fearism (or fearism, for short). Fearism in Subba's mind (and I am becoming more convinced) is a new philosophy of the 21st century, unlike no other philosophy in world history before it. Now, that alone, raises questions as to why this new philosophy (term) arose, almost by emergent random expression, in 1999 in one of Subba's novels [6]. Obviously, Subba had been thinking about the nature and role of fear in human existence for a long time before "fearism" popped up. Like myself, Subba is incredibly serious and dedicated to better our knowledge about fear and its management. I've not met another human being with his conviction and clarity on the topic of fear and unfortunately for the West, it is going to take time and many English translation of his writing in Nepalese (his mother tongue) to absorb the profundity of his work. I feel still an amateur interpreter of Subba's fearism. 

To focus on his fearism as dephilosophy, is to focus on a unique trend within the philosophy of fearism. To state it as simply as I can figure it out, it goes something like this: 

A case can be made, using a philosophy of fearism and its fearist perspective on human life, that all other philosophies that have evolved talk about important topics but they usually only refer to fear as important (if they do) and do so inadequately in relation to empirically how central fear is in shaping human existence. Thus, one of the tasks of fearism as dephilosophy is to deconstruct all the other philosophies and point out to where they focus on certain aspects of human existence and societies, e.g., Marxism and its focus on "class struggle"-- such a philosophy can be deconstructed to show that what Marx was really talking about underneath "class struggle" (classism) as so important is something more important (and left mostly invisible)--that is, "fear struggle" (fearism). [7]

Although I had not come across Subba's work until late in 2014, I had been doing some similar fearanalysis work (as I call it) on all kinds of philosophers, and thinkers in general who wrote about fear, or were writing about some other major concept like "sex" (or sexism) but were not acknowledging that fear was much more important than they were recognizing--or, as in the case with "sex" they were not writing near enough about how sexism is really underpinned by fearism and when they wrote about sexuality, I kept thinking they could easily be writing about fearuality. By 2000 or so, I was seeing fearism as the underpinning of classism, sexism, racism, etc. I wanted the theorists and philosophers writing about the various 'isms' that impact humans to talk about the fear underneath them all. So, in that sense, I too was utilizing a dephilosophy approach, although much less systematic than Subba. 

To keep this depiction of dephilosophy short in this blog, I think that is enough to give readers a sense of where Subba and I are coming from, and one of the major aspects of the work behind fearism as a critique (i.e., as a methodological practice of deconstruction and reconstruction). We believe that fearism can really help humanity free itself from  excessive fear and suffering. This we completely agree with each other on.

I trust, if you are interested further to join us in this project, you'll get in touch with us. Reading our books and articles is a good way for you to gain a better background before you engage us more seriously.  [fearism@gmail.com  and r.michaelfisher52@gmail.com]

End Notes

1. Subba, D. (2014). Philosophy of fearism: Life is conducted, directed and controlled by the fear. Australia: Xlibris.

2. Fisher, R. M., and Subba, D. (2016). Philosophy of fearism: A first east-west dialogue. Australia: Xlibris. 

3. We have been invited to submit a short piece to the semi-academic (more popular) Philosophy Now magazine. 

4. Subba, D. (2016). Towards philosophy of fearism. Unpublished paper. Trans. Rajendra Subba.

5. Subba (2016) wrote, "Thoughts of deconstruction came into being in the western literature [e.g., Jacques Derrida]" (p. 8). There is no doubt that one can only appreciate the historical sensibility of why fearism arose in consciousness in an Eastern critical thinker (and burgeoning philosopher) like Subba, if one understands that Subba has first and foremost been an accomplished literary figure in Nepal (and beyond). Derrida's deconstruction methodology (if one wants to call it that), is quite unique overall in the history of philosophy, and it is often referred to as a postmodern philosophy--and/or it has greatly impacted postmodern philosophy--and, it's roots are in Derrida's passion to introduce the philosophy of deconstructionism into literary analysis, and literary criticism and theories. It took much longer before the field of philosophy took up Derrida's work and eventually gave it some merit, albeit, it also has received great criticism and dismissal in the field of philosophy. I say this, to add the context by which a philosophy of fearism as dephilosophy is also going to take a long-time to get acceptance anywhere (especially in the West). Fact is, fearism has taken off a lot more in the East (N.E. India to be precise) in literary criticism (see Subba, 2016, and Fisher and Subba, 2016).  

6. It also appeared in my own unpublished work in 1997, as far as I can tell but I never pursued the term until much later. Subba, however, wrote it down and got excited about it as it was highlighted of interest by one or more reviewers of his novel draft in 1999. He is therefore, officially the founder of the term because he developed it systematically and has written the most extensive philosophical text on it (Subba, 2014). 

7. Currently, Subba is working on a dephilosophy of Marxism and plans to work on "dephilosophy of philosophies through [a] fearist perspective" for a long time. His first article  on dephilosophy [in Nepalese] was published on May 4, 2013 in Nagarik Dainik in Nepal (quotes from Subba, 2016, p. 9).

I just found this new book review of Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue (2016) posted on amazon books by Emmett Coyne, a Catholic priest who is the first person I know to have bought a copy of my book and read it through (note: he is also author of a fascinating book The Theology of Fear): 

By Emmett A. Coyne on February 29, 2016

FEAR is universally pervasive, not only geographically, but it penetrates all levels of human consciousness, unconsciousness, and endeavors. As has been noted, and many would accede the point, fear seems to be rooted in our DNA. DNA is certainly a modern category that seeks to identify the locus of what might be innate to humans. But, to say something is rooted in our DNA seems like it is a capitulation to a fatalistic acceptance of the ways things are. If our view, however, of the human person is dynamic, and not static, then fear need not be the bogey man in our human psyche that holds us prisoner.

 This work, The Philosophy of Fearism, seeks to bring to human consciousness how fear might be brought up from the basement to the living room., from the dark to the light, from an airless, stagnant place to fresh air space. When in the light it can lose some of its power to control, and cause us to wonder how we might better manage fear so that we are less the victim, more the agent.

 This work is a milestone in an east/west conscious consideration of fears many facets. By examining it together we can perhaps become more the subject than the object of fear. The West’s colonialization of ideas can create a blowback. We can be negatively impacted by our isolated analysis. An east/west dialogue allows us to consider how others perceive fear. This is a vital plus as it provokes us to think, reflect beyond the confines of our particular box, to view in a new light.

The authors provide us with a ‘new’ vocabulary relative to fear, all of which allows us to be less victimized by fear, to view fear as a force that can be managed. Until recently, fear has been like sex, omnipresent, but which too often the impulse seems to keep us dangling. Sex education has tamed the balky beast. If sex education has allowed persons to manage it for a more holistic life, ought not fear education which these author are promoting, integrate fear in the pantheon of our being? This work will cause one to have new thoughts, considerations about fear, and how its DNA need not necessarily be a negative, unmanageable beast. Again, knowledge liberates.

Interdisciplinary Conference on Fear Studies (ICFS), would be a first of its kind in the world, in human history. The human Fear Problem is that bad, and anything less than a full interdisciplinary gathering is not going to be enough to turn the toxic concentrations of fear (and 'fear') around to live-able levels. 

I envisioned this ICFS today and thought I'd put it out to people on the FMning, and others who may see this. So contact me if you are interested to explore a role for yourself in this concrete and very important event. It could be one to two or three years down the line for it to fall in place, but it will fall in place and organize... I just don't know when and right now I don't have any solid volunteers to draw upon for any of my research and educational work. And, of course, I'd love to find funding so people don't have to just volunteer either. 

For point of interest, this conference would bring together as many diverse people who study fear (and/or fearlessness) in some way, so they can share their work, get to know each other and build a community to set goals for tackling the "wicked problem" of Fear. I know there are enough people out there working, often in their own isolation more or less--it's a matter of unifying our work and voices--and then, well... just about anything can happen with a team or group or international organization... whatever form evolves.

We have to start somewhere... this would be a conference open also to the public. Historically, this is not the first time I have wished to organize such an event. The major first thrust was in 1994-95, when a colleague [1] and I put many months into trying to get "Learning Under Fire" conference series going as a global event, with the first year being on the "Nature and Role of Fear"--in the widest sense. We got some interest, but not near enough, and we couldn't find the volunteers to help. It was laid to rest and I no longer am in contact with that individual. A lot has changed since the mid-90s... some twenty years has passed, and 9/11 and a whole lot more... surely, this time we may be more successful attracting attention. 

So, give me a shout: r.michaelfisher52[at]gmail.com

End Notes

1. Ian Dakers

I finally received a first published hard copy of my new co-authored book Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue (of which I have written previously on this FMning). I glanced it over and opened the book randomly at a few places and started reading. It's a little shocking to read one's own published work sometimes: "Who wrote that?" The overall impression is positive and that's a good sign. I happened to think (with all modesty and objectivity as I can muster) that there is no book more important on the topic fear and its management on the planet right now (that I know of). This short blog will say a few words (and quote from the new book) about why I think this is true. Btw, I thank my co-author Desh Subba (a Nepalese philosopher, novelist, poet) for his dedication to developing a philosophy of fearism and his openness to include me in that conceptualization and project. I see myself dedicating the rest of my working years (maybe 15 left until I'm 80) on this new philosophy. 

So the pages I happen to open to at random come from Chapt. 4 (pp. 98-100) which is unique in the book because Desh encouraged me to re-vise but basically republish a 2014 essay I wrote on a "Theory of Fearism" (Technical Paper No. 51) (note: theory of fearism as distinct from, but related to, a philosophy of fearism). I begin with a Foreword to Technical Paper No. 51: 

p. 98: "In Chapter 3 of this co-authored book there is a controversial message: "There is something wrong in the field of fear management" [a phrase I penned in my first major scholarly book The World's Fearlessness Teachings in 2010, p. xxvii]. I go on to talk about why we need various theories of fearism (mine, which I call fearism-t) in order to have a healthy philosophy of fearism, and from that a healthy set of practices of fear management (and fear education). Yes, I could just have easily written: "There is something wrong in the field of fear education" (i.e., fear education used in a positive way, analogous to sex education). So, how controversial is this claim? What do I back it up with? 

Let me first say, the phrase "something wrong" is hyperbole in a sense to attract attention on a problem in the field of fear management. In retrospect, I am not sure this is a good way to get attention, because the very discourse of labeling something "wrong" is highly problematic in terms of its long history (especially in the West) of being a way to put something, some group, some policy, some person (and their behavior or values) down. It is a criticism. And it carries a lot of fear-based baggage (garbage, toxicity) that tends to easily slide from saying "something is wrong" to "someone is wrong" and I would not want to perpetuate such a notion. I think it is too partial of a claim and it tries to paint the entire reality of something or someone as "wrong" in an absolute sense. And, it immediately raises the question of who (and from what perspective) can anyone judge that anyone is wrong--same applies to something. The use of the label "wrong" (often with emotional discharge behind it) is clearly an attack to putting something down and "diss it", more or less. I won't go on and on with this but to say the use of the term (hyperbole or not) is a dangerous one of bringing more injury into human society--and that means concomitantly bringing more fear with it. Arguably, it is "fear talk" to blame, shame and make someone or something "bad" (the opposite of good, and it may even mean making it "evil"). 

So, I used the phrase as hyperbole, and I could have (more sensitively) said: There is something wrong in the field of fear management, even though there is a good deal of something right in the field of fear management. Then, that would be both more fair, and less re-stimulating of our hurts and fear itself. Especially, in that I am not intending to attack anything or anyone per se who practices fear management as a professional, theorist, etc. Nor, would I want anyone who teaches and designs fear management curricula to feel I am attacking them and their work and their motivation. Criticism alone is usually not very useful and does more harm than good. Critique however, in contrast to criticism, is when you point out the negative and positive at the same time, in proportion to a healthy engagement with someone, rather than trying to put them down. I intended to offer a critique in my new book re: the state of the field of fear management (or, equally of fear education). I think if anyone reads my books they will find I can get passionate and critical and even slip into criticism but that if they read on it is more critique I offer overall. But I'll leave others to assess my work overall, as I am too close to it to tell. 

Returning to the point of this blog, I am taken with my clarity in the new book (scanning pp. 98-100), of how simple (and controversial) the message is that I have argued. It is worth repeating again but maybe I'll do it in a more readable way here in this blog. Things need to be said many times, and in many ways, in order to communicate. Sometimes a reader will hear it anew, from a different time and place and with some different language. As an educator myself, I am dedicated to not giving up on anyone, even when they tell me "I read your book and I don't really understand it." Okay, to the basic simple message in these couple pages, which really well represents my overall project--it all boils down to something like this: 

1. there is something wrong in the field of fear management; and that is skewing how we understand best how to know fear and thus, manage it well

2. that something wrong (or missing) is ....... a "harmful violent ideology" (p. 98) that over-shadows the entire study of fear

3. a theory and philosophy of fearism (e.g., Fisher and Subba) can address this ideology and ensure a 'correction' to what is missing (wrong) in fear management

4. no one else has pointed out the above problems (gaps, errors, "something wrong" or missing), until now, in this new book .... etc. 

Okay, there's the basics of the my work I am so passionate about. Would this excite anyone else, to the point where they would dedicate some time, or a lot of time to helping clarify the problem in the field of fear management (and, in every day life as we manage fear, more or less consciously)? With this new clarification, we could then develop interventions more healthy re: fear, and its study and management. We could create a re-evaluation of everything we think we know about fear, and run it all through a new deconstruction and reconstruction--that is, through a new theory and philosophy of fearism. 

On p. 99, I have a sub-title: Fearism-t and Epistemic Violence: Reconstructing Fear Management. That speaks to a greater articulation of all of the above. And, about now, one gets the creeping feeling that this all is about to impact the way one perceives, thinks, and acts in regard to fear. That's pretty major in implication to our everyday life. That involves being a lot more consciousness and self-reflective (and critical) about everything to do with fear--and, especially what others tell you about fear (e.g., authors, teachers, parents, ministers, psychology clinicians, policemen, lawyers, government leaders, business corporate heads, and so on). 

The simple notion is there. But will we talk about this further, or merely read about it? Will we talk about "a 'harmful violent ideology' surrounding the study of fear--and, in particular, the construction and dissemination of the knowledge about fear and its management and education" (p. 98)? Another way to put the problem is something like this: 

A lot of authors/experts on the topic of fear management (and researchers) often say: It is not fear that is the problem, it is how we manage it that matters most. Such a claim has become ever-popular in layman and professional circles today. It is partially (in my view) good wisdom but to a point. I (and Subba) tend to stretch this quite a lot more to a critical perspective on that claim itself (which, btw, those who utter the above predominant wisdom of the day, never reflect on themselves and offer readers some opening (cautionary) of critical inquiry into the claim and its potential limitations, if not distortions--they seem to not be aware of a perspective beyond their own favorite one--which gets repeated by others who think like they do). So, on p. 98-100 in the new book, I offer another entirely different angle (and I think a much better one): The problem with fear and how we manage it is that we lack a critical awareness and vocabulary (i.e., guiding methodology) that operates outside of the fear-based structure of the field of fear management. And thus, we return to the 4 points I listed re: the basic problem--which, you can see is articulated much differently than the popular wisdom problem articulation above. Introducing a notion of a harmful violent ideology surrounding the study of fear--becomes a very simple but also complex intervention I throw into the soup pot. The main ingredient missing in the popular wisdom is a notion of fearlessness (but that's a much longer story, of which I write about in my other WFT book). 

From this point forward, my work (and Subba's) is essentially different from anything else out there. It is also in that sense, critical of anything else out there. Now, in the long-run, time and experience will prove if it is better, as we both think it is. And, any such "proving" will only occur when others (beyond Subba and I) take serious interest with the necessary support of resources to help test the theory and philosophy of fearism. There's no doubt in our minds, that many theories and variations of philosophies are required to cover the huge territory of fear (and/or 'fear')--or what I like to simply call The Fear Problem today. So, I am not looking for only "followers" (yes, they are helpful for the cause), I am looking for allies who think critically (and have healthy doubt) about everything--including everything I just wrote in this blog! 

Give me a call or email [618-529-1166  r.michaelfisher52@gmail.com] if you want to talk seriously (or even playfully)... and co-create with me and this work. 

I promised (see latest Photo), that I'd do some writing around sex and gender (wars)... and especially around Dr. Sarah E. Nicholson and Vanessa D. Fisher, two bright stars in the approach of many perspectives on sex and gender, and evolution of men, women, feminists, etc. First, I'll guide you to my latest two pieces (see below). Later, I'll probably write more. Also, I've given a link to Vanessa's latest powerful video on the necessity of the messiness and need for vulnerability in the cultural woundedness of sex and gender. Lastly, I link to a good (positive) review of Sarah & Vanessa's book (2014) of which the reviewer also writes about my chapter in that book, and I respond (all from Integral Leadership Review journal).

Vanessa wrote to me: 

I put together a spontaneous video last night about my struggles and vulnerability being in the gender conversation. I ended up getting emotional half way through, but just let the camera keep rolling...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss_zSjghZtw

So, as for my two review pieces here you go: 

(1) "Women, Gender, Sexuality: Two Rising Stars and a Follower" (by R. M. Fisher, Feb. 8/16), go to http://csiie.org and click on Blogs (right-hand side) -- to read it you may be asked to sign-in as "Guest" which is just a button to press... hastle free... this gives the background really for my Amazon.com book review piece on Nicholson's book "The Evolutionary Journey of Woman"

(2) Amazon.com book review: Search "The Evolutionary Journey of Woman: From the Goddess to Integral Feminsim" and click on Book Reviews, and I am no. 7 ... it is enitled "In Defense of Woman's Journey: A Wicked Problem"  

And the review of Sarah & Vanessa's (2014) book: 

http://integralleadershipreview.com/12579-115-rejoining-conversation-commenting-integral-voices-sex-gender-sexuality-critical-inquiries/

-enjoy, 

M. 

Within the last few days several things have been happening as I tune into the world (and particularly the state of economic crisis in Illinois where I live with Barbara) and tune into what I am doing, who I am becoming, and all of what is 'calling' my soul (if you will) to present itself to the world. You may know me mostly (since 1998) as an independent scholar, writer, speaker, consultant, teacher, etc. All of that has been continually an interest and will remain so, of which my latest book Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue just published attests to my background and interests (as does this FM ning website). However, there is always a re-evaluation of what "I Am" and am becoming and how to offer myself to the world. 

I'll keep this blog post short other than to declare that I am opening the door again to myself as a teacher of fearlessness. You or people you know may contact me now because you are looking for such a teacher, or considering checking me out in this very particular role--not one that is casual as has been the case for decades, but now it would be a formal contracted role of "Student and Teacher" in the great philosophical and spiritual traditions of all history across time and cultures. Call me an elder, a wise person of knowledge, a sacred warrior, a healer, etc. All labels have their value and their distraction. For now, I prefer simply to call myself a teacher of fearlessness of which I am inviting students to pursue the path of fearlessness, which can be from either/or a secular viewpoint and spiritual viewpoint--it matters not to me because I have seen the core essence of all traditions around the world in my studies as basically after the same thing. They are attempting to solve the human Fear Problem, more or less, with various ways of doing so--and, often they do not say this is their core essence. As an experiential journeyor along the path of self-reflection, contemplation, meditation, and all the other forms of work I do to free myself from the regimes of fear ('fear') in this world, I see no contradiction in the essence of all these paths of liberation. That said, I am a postmodern/integral 21st thinker and teacher, and I have long crafted a very unique way to understand and research this phenomenon of the human Fear Problem and path of fearlessness--integrating what I see as the best of the traditions and discarding (through good critique) the worst of those traditions. 

I recently posted a Photo from a brochure I discovered some 10 years ago (The League for Fearlessness: An International Movement to Free the World From Fear), 1931. Finding this organization (that once was) became a validation of my own vision and initiative in founding the In Search of Fearlessness Project and organization in 1989. It was difficult on many levels to be a leader-teacher of the In Search of Fearlessness Project because I was seemingly doing something no one else had established a particular systematic tradition to do so. I had to learn with others what this ISOF Project was and would become and it has been a bumpy road. That's a longer story where you can learn details about on my various websites (particularly click on "Projects" at http://www.feareducation.com). The League for Fearlessness is the same kind of initiative I knew in 1989 I must bring forward into the world, for the purpose of the health of the World Soul (if you will). Again, notice one can use many different kinds of languages to describe all these things I speak of, but just because you read or hear the words and labels it does not always reflect exactly what I am speaking to. Interpretations are always tenuous at getting to the truth. So, that is the limitation of writing and speaking words and it is best sometimes to communicate with each other in silence. For the moment, I make the communication in writing.  

I trust you'll gather the essence of my opening the doors to students. Of course, one will immediately connect myself in doing so with 'gurus' etc. And in part that cannot be escaped because of the long tradition of what the guru-discipline formation has (and continues) to bring to the world. I was fascinated watching a video the other night documenting (from the inside) several (non-famous) gurus and their disciples of Hinduism in India in present day (see film called Naked in Ashes) where they give the facts: there are 1 billion people in India and 13 million "holy men" who live more or less in poverty as nomads offering themselves as teachers of the path of liberation. I couldn't help but see the relationship to what I have been doing since 1989, albeit I am a relatively comfortable 'working class' North American, not a Hindu, not of any religion, not a naked nomad on the streets (or in caves)--and yet, I am so deeply dedicated to the same essence of the work as gurus in India or anywhere, and like with the people who founded The League for Fearlessness in 1931 New York City.  Again, all of that is another story. 

Now, if you want to get a sense of what I am opening the doors to (in a serious way now, after many years hiatus)... as Teacher I would invite you to read my work ahead of time to tune-in to much of my thought at a basic level. Then contemplate what being a Student might entail for you and why you seem attracted (and, you may also discover in this reflection you "don't really know why?" which is fine too). Contact me and we can begin the phases of your training (i.e., education). You'll have lots of questions in the preliminary phases and that is all fine. You'll have critiques of what I am doing as well, and that is all fine. Here are the rough phases I envision at this time for a Teacher-Student Relationship based on the path of fearlessness (i.e., the World's Fearlessness Teachings -- see my 2010 book on this topic): 

Teacher-Student Relationship: Phases

1. 'Trial' Period-- Exploration of the relationship with me as Teacher and you as Student (this may also involve a group when there are more people involved simultaneously in this relationship with me and each other as a community of learners of the path)-- lots of questioning, assignments, dialogue, and practices (secular and/or spiritual depending on what you want as a Student at this stage) - at least 6 mo.'s this is a trial period and there are expectations of seriousness to work together and stay connected, but it will all be re-evaluated often and either myself or yourself can 'pull the plug' so to speak and we part and move on with our lives without (preferrably) a lot of critical judgment of each other--which, does not mean we ignore telling the truth to each other 

2. 'Initiation Preparation' Period - comes after the 6 mo. 'Trial' Period together and it arrives the moment we both realize that it would be good to keep the relationship going along the path and to enter into a deeper study and commitment with more rigorous practices... this may go for years before the next phase unfolds as a readiness to full 'Initiation' 

3. 'Initiation' Proper - a ceremony of Initiation to emerge as appropriate to each Student's path (and may likely involve other 'Initiates' and/or those in preparation for a future 'Initiation' [note: this is not a 'cult' experience but a 'culture of fearlessness' and like any culture of any kind, it has its boundaries and regimes more or less rigid all depending on many factors--the process is one of membership and joining, belonging, and responsibilities that go with that]

4. 'Post-Initiation' Period - this is a time (of indefinite length) when the 'Initiate' develops their own leadership and contributes to the path and teaching of others as a major vocation, under some guidance by myself as Teacher, and of course, the 'Initiate' may at some point decide to part from my guidance directly and find other Teachers etc. 

The value and payment for such a Teacher is always a difficult challenge to work out, especially when we live in North America or any modern capitalist society. The fact is that I need to survive with basic value and payment for my services in this world of demanding resources to pay the bills. On the other hand, the arrangement of payment is flexible to conditions and individuals and thus I cannot state any such one "cost" for such a Teacher-Student Relationship. It has to be negotiated and it has to operate in a non-fear-based way (as much as possible). The general path of fearlessness is aligned with what many today have called a Gift Economy and that topic ought to be part of how we come as a community of practitioners of the path to work and live together, share our knowledge and experience, and grow a new kind of world based on new ways of relating. 

That's enough of an Introduction to what I mean by opening my doors again... 

In the Spirit of Fearlessness, 

Michael

It has been an intense 10 mo. working on this new book Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue (2016, just published by Xlibris International). I have written a few prior times on this blog site about the book, and I just posted a photo and short write up as well. The following is going to be something more raw and fresh as I have been writing today about the 'birth' of this book, and how I see it is significant. I know everyone who encounters the book will make up their own mind about its significance. I hope you write me if you want to tell me and others what you think. This blog can be a location to document those conversations. 

So, the writing about the book here is from my journal, writing unedited, and spontaneous for the most part: 

On the simplest concrete level one merely sees an image of a book cover, Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue, and if they don't take time to dwell with it and better yet read it, they are going to likely be missing so much. It's a shame that will happen, inevitably, as I have known it to be the case with my other prior book, published 6 yrs ago (The World's Fearlessness Teachings). I wish I could be there to encourage everyone to dwell with this new book and see beyond the surfaces of words and images, and imagine deeper. It is troublesome I know for most to do so. Philosophy and fearism together as words, concepts, is a strange mix but then there is the purpose of the book, perhaps even stranger. 

The book is intended to outline (epistemologically) the necessity for a new kind of philosophy (practical and social) that human history has not seen before, and in that light it is so incredibly radical. For me, a lifer-kind-of accomplishment. I am most curious what it will do for the reader, layperson, academic, philosopher but that is all unknown at this point, other than the few folks who reviewed the ms before publication. It is going to be an odd book for me in that I am interpreting Desh Subba's work a lot (Philosophy of Fearism, 2014) and he comes from another culture and part of the world (the East, Nepal, and living in Hong Kong)... he's a poet, novelist, writes in Nepalese... and all these factors, now, bring his work as a philosopher of that 'strange' part of the world into my life and writing and thinking... philosophizing... and this book is the outcome of all that, including my original work on a philosophy of fearlessness. But, now I return to think about the reader of this book. I realize now, which I didn't realize before when writing it, that this book is not so much for the individual. It is for the World Soul, the collective-social-communal aspect of our psychic-soul reality. It is hard to say that. I didn't write that in the book itself. But it is there. 

Fear has never been treated at the center of a philosophy before, not anywhere near the extent as in this new book. It marks a new awareness and calling in the World Soul of which is mostly unconscious. It is important in that the time has arrived, as Subba and I have written for decades, to make fear this important. We are needing a new philosophy that recognizes this, and develops these ideas we present. We are in (as Subba says) an Extreme Fear Age historically, and collectively. That tells me of the 'pressure' that is building in the World Soul dimension. Feartalk is "ego-talk" and Fearlessnesstalk is "soul-talk"-- this book is all about the latter, and it is articulated, unbeknownst to most everyone, that it is crafted from a Fear Management System-7 (i.e., Integral). I also made sure this was the case in the gaze I brought to The World's Fearlessness Teachings book in 2010, and most everything I have written on the topic since 1989. But, most people will look to see what the book offers individually, and yet, that would mis-interpret the scale and register of the purpose of this book --for the World Soul. 

How could writing a book for the World Soul, make a difference globally, as we are on the cusp (as Subba says) of a Fearless Age? These and many more questions are lurking in the new book, even if we don't bring them to the surface for discussion. I guess, that's what I am most curious about in the next months and years ahead as this 'soul child' of a book enters into the world and energizes the World Soul-- and, in that, the soul of which everyone cannot tap from their individuality to their collective meshworking... gravity, history, geography, and all the psychophysical and emotional and philosophical threads are there--and like a web of eternal time and space, perhaps, I believe (or am only guessing)--this book will hold a weight in that net--across time and cultures, universally... and ... and... and... 

Words run out at this point... the World Soul does not operate on the Symbolic Code (the phallic lens)... and, now, it is all poetry, art, aesthetics... at least, for me and for those who may dwell with just the 'strange' combination and emphasis which this book brings forth now in human history (herstory)... 

I have just downloaded a long article "Educators, We Have a Culture of Fear Problem," one of my best (imo) in terms of a relatively complete analysis of the domain of how a culture of fear has penetrated the field of Education all the way up and down the spectrum right up to academia itself, at http://csiie.org/mod/page/view.php?id=3  (scroll down to Yellow Papers).

I have included the Abstract of this paper below. I look forward to talking with you on this after you have read it (in part, or whole). I cannot think of a more important topic on the planet that we should be talking about and taking actions on in order to transform this society ASAP. But, then, that's just my view--although, the culture of fear and education topic is my expertise. Btw, this article was submitted to an academic journal in the field of Education and rejected by both reviewers (on not very stable grounds) and so I decided to add the reviewers criticisms of the paper in the paper itself (at the end) with my fresh comments of critique of their critiques--so, that might be interesting for you to read. -enjoy, M.

Abstract

The author argues that a focused universal agenda for educators to critically assess is the human Fear Problem (i.e., “culture of fear”). It could serve as a useful and ethical meta-context to rally around for a thoroughgoing new reference point by which to design healthy and emancipatory educational global systems. This is the first publication in Educational literature to summarize the status of discourses using the culture of fear construct. The author briefly tracks out his 26 year journey studying this topic and its relationship to Education and social policy in their widest global sense. He documents and critiques some current conventional liberal reductionist discourses on fear and education, as well as the arising interest in writing about the culture of fear construct and reality (from 1990- to date). Based on cross-disciplinary literature surveys, a basic definition of culture of fear is offered that is unique to the otherwise ubiquitous nebulous definitions of others. The article asserts it is now near impossible, and certainly naive, to mention and/or study fear without including the necessary, if not universal, meta-context of the culture of fear. Without such a context, fear will be reduced to a largely ‘value-neutral’ psychological discourse and phenomena instead of a cultural and political one. He offers several suggestions for resistance amongst the educational community to adopt the culture of fear in critical pedagogy and Education in general. Concluding remarks offer recommendations to resist that resistance and pursue proactive means to improve our critical understanding of the nature and role of fear, and the culture of fear in Education and civilization-at-large.

A short note to let you all know officially, we'll be carrying on with the FM ning for another year, and will decide then in 2017 if we ought to invest the $300/yr fee to keep this going. I'd really like to keep it going forever. So far, there is little activity on the ning and I would like to see that change but it is up to all members to be active and/or recruit others to join as well. 

I look forward to 2016 and movement forward with this great cause... 

all the best, and may the spirit of fearlessness be with you in the next yr.

Michael 

I have to say I am quite disappointed at Huffington's latest downgrade: she used to talk all about fearless and fearlessness in 2006-07 or so, and now she's only talking about "thriving" and how to re-evaluate the nature of success (which is a good thing)... but in her latest book "Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-being, Wisdom and Wonder" (2015) she does not even mention at all fearless or fearlessness (1). I watched a 57 min. video of Huffington on stage at the Googleplex for Google employees (see Youtube) and she mentioned the word "fear" only once (i.e., we have a "fear of pausing" in our extra busy life-styles these days). Google as a corporation has been called by some a few years back a "culture of fearlessness" for its positive innovative activities, which makes this talk all the more interesting to me, and at the same time, disappointing. 

So what's going on with the change-up? What happened to her major life mission to help everyone (especially girls and women) become fearless? We need to inquire critically into this phenomenon as an example of my big concern about how superficial people really are (and are teaching) when it comes to how they conceptualize "fearless" this and that and this and that... and how fearlessness is ultimately distorted, and degraded in these hyper-sales type human potential pitches of all kinds of people, stars, and such... Huffington being one of them. I thought she might be something more in 2009-10 when I read and researched her work. Let me explain the "downgrade" problem... 

If you haven't heard of Arianna Huffington, a quick Internet search will show you who she is on paper anyways. She's a famous business person and health promoting personality (at least in the USA). In 2013 Forbes magazine voted her as one of the Most Powerful Women. All that success aside, the reason I have been sort of following her is because in my book The World's Fearlessness Teachings I highlighted her in the first chapter (pp. 4-13) among several other contemporary women leaders around the world who I cherished had been teaching about fearlessness as the best way to go in the early years of post-9/11 etc. Huffington wrote multiple essays, gave talks, and had a hit book entitled "On Becoming Fearless in Love, Work, and Life" (2007). I thought wow, this woman leader could really make a difference and promote fearlessness in a good way. 

I was disappointed that she nor her staff would respond to my short articles sent to them for publication in the Huffington Post (which Arianna is founder and CEO)... I was disappointed she never cited my work on fear and fearlessness all the years I have been publishing, etc. I sort of let it go and kept my eye on the positive things she was doing to counteract the fear-mongering in the 2008 American elections and her call for an "epidemic of fearlessness" among Americans and others to resist the abuses of fear in politics. 

I haven't followed her work for five or so years. But, turns out, some powerful things have been happening in which her "fearless" way of being in the world came crashing down. Literally, as she told her story to the Google staff on Youtube, she completely collapsed without provocation or notice something was wrong and broke her jaw and cut her head open above the eye-- near concussion. All because, as she says now reflectively, she was an A-Type personality and workaholic in denial all these years. Yes, in my words, it was this strong successful business woman and journalist that was teaching the world to be fearless... and all that time she was self-destructive and waiting to 'hit bottom' so she could turn her life around. She tells of her priorities and obsessive work habits and how she had lost the joy of life and was always tired (but she admits, she didn't know she was that off-balance and tired). She was a mess on the inside. The outside looked good. She sold a lot of books on "fearless" and everybody (nearly) loved her. 

I tell this story because, even in my book I applauded her call for an "epidemic of fearlessness" (and listed her as leader of such a populist Fearlessness Movement--see Wikipedia that I posted). I also critiqued her thin conceptualization of "fear" and making its meaning so watered down without rigor, and thus her definitions and meanings of fearless and fearlessness were also going to suffer. I had some doubts about it all but it was something rather than nothing. Practically, I let it go, but theoretically and philosophically I was disturbed (as I often am with people's shallow and marketing hype in using "fearless" to sell and coach and you name it)... 

Turns out my critique was accurate. Huffington was on a 'kick' with her "fearless" thing. It was temporary. It was false (or at least weak in foundations). I see this over and over in the Human Potential Movement and New Age, and in Business and Organizational Development discourses. It really pisses me off how much attention, money and following they gather... but the real authentic Fearlessness Movement never gets that. So, now we see Arianna Huffington not even talking or writing about fearlessness. I think, in fairness, she was caught in the masculinist world's interpretation and valuing of fearlessness--she, had not done her homework on the notion and how it is much more feminine (or at least more about balancing the worlds, if we want to label them so insufficiently as masculine and feminine)-- bottom line, she was out promoting her own version style (flavor)... and now she's selling "thriving" (beyond just surviving)... 

I'll end my disturbance of thoughts and feelings about how style and hype (celeb culture) get so much attention and money in American culture... and just say that Arianna had to 'hit bottom' like every addict. And addicts get addicted to fear and fearless. It doesn't seem to matter. They do so because they really don't understand what fear and fearless are about. They don't understand the developmental and evolutionary process, nor the world's fearlessness teachings. They certainly don't follow my work. Oh, well, her "thriving" is exactly where she should be... she has not yet matured to authentic fearlessness... if you see my book Fig. 2.1 (p. 48), I had mapped out this path of development as a universal soul path:  naive, to victim, to survivor, to thriver ... then (across 'Fear' Barrier-2) to sacred warrior (and magician) and then to royal leader... 

"Thriver" is, from the perspective of true fearlessness (sacred warrior-magician) still someone who buys into the normal culture more or less-- only tweaks it a bit to improve it... a 1/2 step beyond the 'norm' and when they are rich and famous, like Huffington, then they are "goddess" or "god" to the normals who want to really make it beyond survivor stage... my point, is there are still two stages left in development. Huffington has now settled (it seems, at age 65) with this great "wisdom" as one of her big offerings to people today, and she wants us all to slow down and sleep better longer... okay, fine, but she also still wants us to live in this world of coping (first-tier) and not really do anything too revolutionary... in fact, she repeated in the interview at Google, "just micro steps make a big difference"-- there was no more the talk of fearlessness and (r)evolution like there was in her teaching back in 2006-07... nope... something really downgraded in her teaching... but, maybe that's just what needed to happen... 

But, my critic keeps wanting to ask her: So, what happened to "fearless" and how have you integrated with "thriving"? 

If she answers that honestly, we all will see just how "thin" fearlessness was in her conception and teaching, coaching, back before her accident (he falling on her egoic nose!")... true fearlessness is not about ego-hype-style-charm and business wealth... not about bravado... thanks, Arianna for showing us all that! 

Endnotes

1. Except for on citation of a book title by Joan Halifax in the references which has the word "fearlessness" in the title of Halifax's book (p. 323)

I have recently come across a wonderful book by Emmett Coyne (2012), The Theology of Fear. Emmett is a priest who had lived a rather unconventional path and recently has taken great interest in the In Search of Fearlessness Project and the ways that I point to "Fear" as our main enemy along the journey of which, in Christ's words, we have to come to love (i.e., "love thy enemy")... no small calling. I wrote a book review of Emmett's book on Amazon.com which I suggest you check out. Here is the first paragraph from the book review I wrote there: 

The latest "white powder" in the mail hoax threats against Muslim Organizations this week and now the closing down of the entire LA School System in Calif by Education Officials... you really have to look at the twisting of discourse that is going on... which was well studied by myself (as a fearologist) after 9/11 and others like Gavin de Becker (a security expert in the US) and others... It comes down to the way knowledge is used in these "credible" (or more like incredible) "threats" to public safety... and how Officials in those domains of society make decisions. Without a doubt, LA Education officials are showing us all just how much they didn't learn their lessons after 9/11 as the entire W. world (especially in USA but also Canada) "panics" again, more or less. 

A long blog post could be written about this moral (safety) panic phenomenon, which is the "culture of fear" by any other name showing just how un-intelligent it is in the face of fear, terror, and then in contrast with what is merely a threat of fear and terror initiated by someone (as a criminal act). The "terrorists" today gotta be laughin' all the way to the bar, or wherever else they are celebrating the power of an email threat on a few school districts in the USA ... btw, New York Mayor and Officials (not in Education) decided there is no way they would close down schools broad brush like they did in LA. And, there is no facts or close to facts that show any real difference in these two localities, except that in the context of LA, it is the power of Education Officials to shut down or open schools, which is not apparently the same as in NY where the Mayor only has that power. I mention this because Education is the field I work in as a professional and to which I have been attempting to educate them on the role of fear and its irrationality for 14 + years. 

I keep thinking of the "costs" of the LA School-based Authorities today, acting on an email threat. You want to read a few of their "reasons" which always come down to the same thing... (when under pressure of the fear of being sued if they don't keep kids safe at schools--or the "but if something bad does happen?" -- all of which are xtreme applications of the "precautionary principle"--but that is another argument for another time)... I keep thinking what do the children and youth and families of entire city as big as LA take home from staying home... because of an email? Talk about terrorizing one's own people in the name of "safety first"... that's always the reason the Officials gave after 9/11, including going to War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq and the mess of costs that has produced (likely Islamic State bred upon that error of the US illegal invasions into sovereign nations). 

Tell me, Education Officials, now what... there was no attack today... but what about tomorrow... and the next day? and next... now what are you going to do? what money (for one) are you going to spend to try to keep every child and youth safe in your school systems... and then, are you going to try to keep them safe when the walk home from school or go somewhere else after school and what then, are you going to do ... any time, any place... you see, it is a slippery slope of irrationality that is winning the day... not intelligence, not intelligent Defense, or Security... it is madness caused by moral and safety panic (assumptions)... of course, the Officials can always throw it back at me or anyone who critiques them as "What would you do if you were in our place?" ... that's of course a distractive argument that goes no where because it doesn't exist and because they don't really care what I would do ... because they would never let me get into power in that place where they sit and make these kinds of decisions and cover them with "reasons" based on patterns (i.e., fear-patterned) Discourses. That's what I want to end with... 

To end this initial blog, I want to put this distinction about Discourses... that came to me while reading only one news blog on this LA action (and NY reverse action)... it is that we citizens, leaders of all kinds, have to be honest about what is going on in a culture of fear--denial is deadly. The so-called "reasons" are that people have to be making "rational" and "reasonable" and "responsible" choices to protect the absolute safety of all their children and youth who are students under their care during a school day... but let us not be fooled (not anymore after what we learned in post-9/11)... that "Safety-Discourse" (or argument they make) is a "Fear-Discourse" in disguise, and their "Rational-Responsibility-Discourse" is a masked nightmare which is really "Irrational-Irresponsible-Discourse." 

They use language that is false and highly destructive. Anyone in high fear (panic) will do this to justify what they have done. In my view, and many others in the security business, and who study fear and social moral panics in a culture of fear... all of them will tell you how fear-based and irrational it is to do what the LA Education Officials did today... and one can only imagine how long they will keep doing it and/or other school districts will do likewise... I don't buy it for a minute that "safety first" is the only "first" value on the block... on the table... no, my friends, and fellow educators, what is first is Intelligence ... a good assessment of risks and costs... that actually comes before trying to secure safety... that's what all security experts will tell you... but when people are in fear of being sued because something horrible happens (and US society is really good at that-- finding someone to blame and sue)... then you have Fear running the entire program... and Educators of all, are people who should be well-educated about risk, fear, danger and their interrelationships. I have been trying to get Education Officials everywhere to listen to what good education exists out there... and how to operate from fearlessness not fear... in making any decision about anything... I always believed (ha ha) that Education was about fostering Intelligence... you can see what I am a big believer that Fear-Discourse rules Education (and has for a very long time)... 

Give me a shout... if you all want to know more... if you want to challenge me... go for it... respond on this blog, or email me rmfisher.88[at]frontier.com

Oh, and Pres. Obama, you may want to look at my book I sent you near a yr. ago, offering to "educate" yourself and your governments on fear and fearlessness... that is, Intelligence as "first" and Safety as "second" (or third, or fourth)... that's another debate... a long one... for another time... 

Trigger Warning: the following is not what you will usually be exposed to in the dosage (or paradigm) of what is called "counterterrorism"

The following map/guide is the skeletal outline for a Series of Articles (blogs) and an eventual booklet to be published soon. I'll start these on this site and eventually expand them. The map/guide and series is an attempt to take a fearist perspective on the current rise of terror(ism) and its effects. The map/guide and the title of this blog may catch your attention. You may think of a spectrum of ways to manage terror(ism), as I have utilized for a long time the spectrum of consciousness model of the philosopher Ken Wilber. As well, I have added my own research on fear management systems along that spectrum, of which the current map/guide (below) is an example of how it can be utilized. The title "Map/Guide for the Terrorist Fighter" is left ambiguous with many meanings, depending on how one wants to 'read' this. There is a long philosophical rationale (based on a philosophy of fearism by Fisher & Subba and a resultant identified new fearist perspective) for why any intervention into the "problem of terror(ism)" requires an essential moral imperative to serve both the "terrorist" (so-called--and, often called freedom fighter, depending on who's perspective does the labeling) and serve those harmed by those values, beliefs and actions of the "terrorist"--the former would be called the "victim" of such acts--at least, initially. 

You may notice I am being very conscious and particular in how I frame the entire discourse that proceeds around anything we might call "terrorism"-- and it is in this cautious and exploratory modality I and Subba suspect we'll find much better analysis and solutions than what is offered today in what could be called an old-fashioned Modernist perspective (i.e., Victimist, Survivalist, Thrivalist). You can see where I have located the Fearist perspective on the spectrum. Again, there are numerous philosophical arguments and theoretical positions to be taken to articulate all of what you see in this map/guide. But that will have to wait its time to unfold. I am interested to put out this 'new' spectrum approach and let people begin to digest it. I look forward to our further dialogues and explorative co-inquiries on all this. We truly need something much better than what is offered today anywhere--around the world. The philosophy of fearism has great potential to disrupt and re-form our entire way of understanding terrorism--and, of course, the new book Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue (soon to be published) will give lots more background. 

The obvious electric condition of affect flowing in the USA and a lot of Europe (at least) these days comes from the recent "terrorist attacks" in France and recently California... linked to ISIL Organization and the movement for a radicalization of the Islamic State conception (not all that different, but more publicized, than the Zionist State conception of the official Israeli government). And one could find another 20 or so "rogue state" types of organizations or "nations" in the world that are one way or another fighting for their right to exist, to critique the hegemony and status quo and defend themselves against the oppressive larger states and their enemies. 

I open with this rather cold-hearted political analysis of what is going on. I am not going to continue such a sociopolitical, geographical or historical analysis of the problem of "terrorism" (some call "freedom fighting") as many would call it in the mainstream, certainly in the USA. Rather, you may see that I am viewing the current (and ongoing) crisis as political and psychological, philosophical and theological, sociological and historical... all at once. There is criminal activity going on and "justice" (usually as revenge killing) going on. I find the whole mess of conceptions, perspectives and barbaric actions on 'both sides' an indicator of how sick our world has become in handling conflict, in handling views totally different, and views that are suppressed by the dominant. Don't forget to listen to the recent state address Pres. Obama gave in response to these recent rising attacks on European and American soil. Obama is, like 99.9999% of Americans dedicated to "wipe out" any such organization (e.g., ISIL is the latest target) that is against the USA policies, values, capitalist and military expansionism and its claim to exceptionalism via its claim to moral superiority, and a free democracy. 

Let me turn, and say, from a fearanalysis, from a perspective of fearlessness... any system that cuts off another part of its own system (i.e., a world system) and claims that it is to be "wiped out" by any means (be clear, there is not need in times like this for the USA military might to follow any kind of legal or just framework or attention to human rights or international codes of ethical war conduct... not for a second is that mentioned in Obama's speech... he actually is out to punish and kill people without a trial (a justification beneath all capital punishment regimes)... listen to the calm voice and rhetoric, it is very clear, as it was similarly when former Pres. Bush Jr. called for an equal revenge and the pres. of France recently did like wise--oh, you are able to do that once you declare "war" on some organization, some state, etc. This my friends, is the way we in the West do leadership even from so-called liberal or democratic governments. This is sadly how far we've come in what we have learned went so wrong with the American response to 9/11. 

Let me turn again, to focus down to the question I raise for the Fearlessness Movement (a global phenomenon: see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fear_educator/sandbox)... What role has fearlessness and fearless leadership to play in the current rise of actions and reactions to terror(ism)? Obviously, it has a huge role. First, any fear-based means of trying to control ("manage") or destroy ("wipe out") terror(ists) and terror(ism) and organizations that use fear to terrorize... all will fail. That is what the philosophy of fearism (and fearlessness) argues... at great length... in most all of my publications for 26 years and in the recent book by Desh Subba and myself coming out soon.

Yet, that may still sound abstract to many, unfortunately, who have not chosen to study my work or Subba's and who have ignored the experience of the ineffectiveness of fighting terror with fear-based means (e.g., punishment and terrorizing, revenge killing, wars, acts of injustice that are rationally and cooly justified, e.g., Pres. Obama's latest speech to the American public). Again, in this one blog I only introduce this topic for the FM ning. I am not propounding out a philosophy or theory that itself cannot be challenged. I wish it would be. I'd love to argue, dialogue, conflict, and grow with others sincerely engaged in such a discourse, seriously engaged in asking ourselves if we want to learn something "new" about the way terror(ism) moves in societies, and in the world systems of today. I know there are hundreds if not thousands of arguments, journal articles, research studies, philosophical and political critiques... but to this day (although I have not read them all), I see nothing "new" or anything I'd call a fearlessness approach. I'll stop, and await to see who else may want to join this discussion (oh, and feel free to set up a FORUM on this site for this very topic).

Journaling on this all this morning, and lamenting on the repetitive failed-strategies to solve a "Wicked Problem" (see two blogs prior)... wouldn't it have been so nice to hear Pres. Obama truly say somethings different--truly re-frame the problem differently--at a higher (mature) integral level guided by fearlessness? Oh, he says bluntly, he is not attacking ISIL out of fear, for that is what the terrorists would want. Cooly, bravely, as only American males are so good at on camera, he says, we will do what needs to be done to "keep Americans safe." Which will not of course happen, as we saw in the past 14 yrs... terror only moves and morphs, going further below the surface... and the violence that goes with it... and the more you try to wipe it out... the more it duplicates and spreads in more difficult ways to detect and to stop. Okay, wouldn't it have been nice to hear the president say, "All of the recent tragedies, and crimes, have left the world, and certainly many Western nations with a great dilemma.... a great problem we have not yet figured out how to solve but solve we must. It is the Fear Problem. If we don't stop the Fear Problem we will not stop the Terror Problem. Fearism (as toxic-fear made ideological weaponry) is after all, that which operates under terrorism. Let's all take moments to reflect critically on our own part in "THE TERROR THAT COMES TO VISIT US" that is, where, why, how... and less ought we focus on only the criminals of these acts of mass murders... even though, a part of us wants to hate their hate towards us."

And after my fantasy Pres. Obama speech, I am thinking and asking myself: So, Michael, are you saying, as it appears above, that whatever organization of thoughts, values and actions that exists, has a right to exist, because it exists? Yes, I guess I am saying that. It seems the only ethical coherent fearlessness philosophy that will bring sanity back. Notice, at no point, have I condoned in that right to exist (the opposite of "wiping them out") that such acts are free from social challenge and free from scrutinized, informed judgments by those whom we entrust (e.g., court systems--even if imperfect). Such discernment, sometimes judgements on ethical and legal grounds are necessary for sociality of systems--yet, they ought to be non-fear-based as we decide to to label things "criminal" or "not"... now, that all get's more complicated, for sure and a good theory of fear and fearlessness is essential to guide that process. But declaring war on everything that is totally different than your set of ideas, values, etc. is no way to end the cycle of Domination-Conflict-Fear-Violence that is really 'killing' us all...