I appreciate Desh Subba connected me some months ago with Rom, who produces adult education programing, and Rom eventually got around to interviewing me: 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/romwerrangayoso_my-guest-today-is-dr-r-michael-fisher-activity-6900110653852303360-Mz3I

Christine Breese, Ph.D., University of Metaphysical Sciences, and from Wisdom of the Heart Church (non-profit 501(c)3), offered in 2011 a free book entitled: 

"Fearlessness In the 2012 Paradigm Shift" (here is free copy in pdf.

I have not read too much detail but scanned her Table of Contents --and it is interesting for sure. A few highlights: "Paradigms Are Built to Fight Change, It's Natural" and "Hypnosis in Fear For The Masses" and Chapter 5 "Facing Fear" and "What Does a Fearless Life Look Like?" 

Those are all topics that interest me a lot as a fearologist. I'm writing my own book now on The Fear Problematique, and a core of what I need to articulate is the importance of what a Fearlessness Paradigm, contra a Fear Paradigm is all about. And, then link that to a fearlessness philosophy and theories and finally to education as a field. 

Anyways, you folks may want to check out her book here. It's historical of course, that 10 years ago there was a lot of 'new age' hype, especially in the astrological and metaphysical communities about some critical juncture of alignments and ancient Mayan calendars, etc... whereby, a "quantum leap" in the evolution of consciousness and humanity was being predicted--albeit, Breese admits in the book apparently, one cannot ever totally predict such things in terms of when--yet, there is a transformation going on she asserts, along with many others. And, I have been hearing about this since at least the early 1980s--and, especially with another big celestial and astrological event in 1987, of which I found so many new ager types of folks way too optimistic about what was going to happen at that juncture on a particular day, etc. I think the evidence is clear that these people exaggerate things yet, I am also not one to put them down for their enthusiasm generally for the need to transform the paradigms of the day. I like that Breese in particular has identified "fear" and "fearlessness" as significant vectors for this transformation. I agree!. 

I found this excerpt from a magazine article online. The point I'm interested in for this FM blog, is not this article per se. I find article after article, and most books or video talks, that discuss the culture of fear, have so little deep analysis of the phenomenon. Perhaps, folks here on the FM ning will do some analysis and serious writing about this topic? I have lots of articles on it, e.g., go to Google Scholar, if you wish. Mostly, I think the term "culture of fear" is powerful in itself, and there is no easy answer in the details and reality of the work, the healing, the re-education needed--that is, to just say we need a culture of hope, culture of love, culture of peace. Unfortunately, that's about all that gets offered out there. We need fresh thinking and new perspectives--even if imaginative and creative. You may also notice this author suggests "eradicating fear from mind, life and society" is the key point of the article. Why not call it a "fearless society" rather than a "culture of hope" as the solution? Yet, even such a statement is like a sweeping the dust away on the porch of a cabin in the desert. I want to look at why in 33 years of my own work on this topic, I do not see a coalition of people, forces, theories, philosophies, that are truly working to make this change. I see a lot of people talking, writing and teaching, but they are for the most part 'all doing their own thing.' That's why I started the In Search of Fearlessness Project, Movement, FM ning, etc. I have to sadly say, however, very little 'fire' is burning in these ventures in terms of collaborations that are continuous and passionately leading, and putting our best thinking together. I guess, the answer for the lack is 'people are too busy'...and, of course, I guess there's some reality to it. I just find that a lame answer and there's gotta be much more going on why we stay so separate and fragmented. 

I've long been a believer that artists, and the aesthetic mode of thinking, feeling, acting (that is, the arational) is a more effective way to change our fixed and overly-conditioned ways of thinking about anything--especially "fear" itself. So, in the above 'play' I situate two major concepts, and phenomena, and now they sit within a 'taoist' model or philosophical system of thought and imagination. I wonder what new could be discovered if this re-mapping of both Taoist philosophy and the understanding of fear in general could be adopted--as a thought experiment. So, if any of you want to try and play with it. I'd love to see what you come up with. 

There are so many things one could say about this new film. I'll hold back for now, as I want to watch it a few more times before I write too much. However, there is a clear picture of the morphing notion of "The One" and what the latest movie Resurrections makes of it, with Trinity coming into her own--and, in fact women generally coming into their own to challenge the men characters and designers of The Matrix which controls human's lives (for the most part). The control pretty much declared throughout the four films since 1999 of The Matrix, as control via fear-- that is, when a fear choice is taken over a love choice. The enactment to reclaim the love choice, is however, made clear to me (at least) is about fearlessness--call it "fearless"--but it is fearlessness nonetheless--utter and shown as a harder choice (it seems) for women (and mothers) than for men. But, I'll let you all decide what dramatics are going on in this great piece of art--again, congrats to those who all made this latest film possible. I do trust the teachings from it will have more impact, 20 years later, in this self-reflective work with a critical edge. 

What are the Matrix teachings?, you may ask. They are, based on my study of this film series since 1999, a most poignant and deeply powerful set of "fearlessness teachings"--of the Fearlessness Movement--and, if viewers miss that, it's sad, but truly most people don't see the full depth in this art work project. It's profound. And it is available to learn from. 

Screen shot from my white-board process drawing, in a video teaching (2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvW-kz6pcck

As Senior Editor, IJFS, I'm now taking submissions for the next International Journal of Fear Studies: IJFS seventh call.docx

To see Back Issues since 2018 of the journal: https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/110103

NOTE: As of January 11, 2022, PRISM (Univ. of Calgary) library is no longer able to carry my work or house this journal on their digital archives and open access system. The major reason is that my interim tenure as an "affiliate faculty" with U of C is now over and not being renewed. So, IF you know of another digital home for the journal let me know.  r.michaelfisher52@gmail.com

Hello, all Fearlessness Movement ning community members. I also sent a group email to all. 

Currently, 116 FM ning members are signed up.

The FM ning costs $300 US /yr. I and other gifters have funded this project/and ning since I started it in 2015. 

I cannot afford out of my pocket that much money each yr., as I am a senior with little gov't pension.

So, to keep the ning going, please consider a donation this 2022. Thanks to those who have contributed in other years. 

Send, me an email: r.michaelfisher52@gmail.com  (FM ning host)

We can arrange on email, a form for your donation by e-transfer, cheque, etc. 

-Best to you all in the New Year! And, let's contribute to a lively community on the FM ning... 

-Michael

Early 1991, Morocco, N. Africa - R. Michael Fisher in contemplation. 

(photo by Barbara Bickel)

What Kind of Philosopher Am I?

I FOLLOW the trail(s) of words/concepts, like, fear, fearlessness--and, I end up in places to learn about it and have it change me, even if just a little. As cultural critic Sara Ahmed said in an interview, noting she is involved in philosophical inquiry and likes it, but it is questions and words/concepts that are her focus and guide--declaring herself not really a trained philosopher at all, nor motivated by philosophy in an academic disciplinary way:  "I’m interested in the world making nature of words and concepts, philosophy becomes one of the places I go...among others...". [1]

            Making of a Naturalist-Moral Philosopher (1952-  )

Life vs. Death, Good vs. Evil, have long intrigued me; since 1989 I found another way to express this great archetypal Battle of opposites, and situated it as Love vs. Fear. The latter, has been by far the most fruitful investigation. The ethical implications of how we are motivated by deep forces as humans truly is my passionate inquiry—it is what I bring to the field of Education.

Although some have called me so, I have never really labeled myself a “philosopher,” never mind a moral philosopher. Firstly, my thoughts about calling myself a “moral philosopher” (wanna be), is that I had a fundamentalist Christian family system informing from my dad’s side, and I was raised implicitly in a Judeo-Christian (Abrahamic) culture, with insidious religious roots in the Middle-East and its grand sacred myths of divine leaders and newly emergent religious doctrines. My entire K-12 education in public secular schooling, was in fact, not so secular and not free of a controlling religious power regime in Canada. I had to stand and say the Lord’s Prayer (from the Bible) since I was very young until junior high school.

Secondly, I think of my deep dive into the Environmental Movement, and graduating from high school when the first Earth Day was announced and celebrated on this planet. The 1960s-70s consciousness transformation and (r)evolution was in the background of my “growing up.” Yet, one other thought, not so obvious to me is always likely shaping my philosophy. It is WW-II and the rise and fall of the Third Reich (Nazi Germany)—the invasion of fascism in modern times—leading to the Holocaust and a devastating assault on modern assumptions of rationality and human decency. What has civilization to offer, if it could not prevent Nazism? Another Reign of Terror, as in the eras across history that show “progress” and “democracy” come with a heavy price—and, a lot of fear (terror). With my mom being an immigrant (war bride) from Belgium to Canada, and a survivor of Nazi occupation for over three years when she was in her teens, it is not surprising I have a penchant to become a moral philosopher. Yet, we shall see here in this section just what kind of philosopher that is, in my own customized version.

From some autobiographical sketching it is obvious that some of my family influences were significant in my upbringing. I talked of three ‘best’ teachers, my dad, my older brother and Nature. It seems obvious to me that informally I was very much a naturalist philosopher budding, from the earliest days of my child-play and experimenting on the prairie escarpment  of the Bow River valley, in Calgary, AB, Canada, of my most formative 2-8 years of life. I was a “nature boy” and grew to become a “nature lover.” With my love for and defense of the “Natural” world, it is not surprising that the first serious (mostly Western) philosophy I was attracted to in my spare-time, in my early-to-mid 20s, were biological philosophical writers (e.g., René Dubos, Lyall Watson, E. O. Wilson) and environmental/eco-philosophical writers (e.g., Albert Schweitzer, Arnie Naess, Gregory Bateson, Lynn White, Valerius Geist, etc.)—with roots in the American Transcendentalism philosophy stream (e.g. Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, etc.)—and, then specifically, E. F. Schumacher’s (practical-economic) Buddhist philosophy. Other Eastern philosophers and spiritual teachers (e.g., Alan Watts, Chöygam Trungpa, Ken Wilber, etc.) all had their early influence as I turned 28 years of age and started my Education career track....

[extract of draft for a chapter in my new book in progress, The Fear Problematique: Role of Philosophy of Education in Speaking Truths to Powers in a Culture of Fear ].

Notes

1. From "Sara Ahmed: Dresher Conversations" (Mar. 20, 2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zadqi8Pn0O0

IT IS NOT VERY OFTEN I come across a really interesting paper on "fear", and this one by Bogun (2016), is extra-ordinarily interesting to my fearologist-self. 

I won't say more in this Intro blog, but will give you all a chance to look at it and chime in on Comments. Just to note: --scanning the paper, I see the major discouse (pattern, system) that is operating in Bogun as a philosopher very keen about fear and its role, is "FMS-5" (as "fearmap" or code-categorization of my schema)--and, to remind you there are 10 FMSs available to humans at this time, that I can identify categorically as an overall evolutionary theory of fear management systems (FMSs). But, I'll leave it there for now... 

Hope you have a glance at this first page, and realize this author (seemingly from Ukraine) is quite a fascinating scholar. It's my first encounter with them in the fear literature. 

The above excerpt is from first page of my latest book chapter in Ramala Sarma (Ed.) (2021) [1]. Sarma has put together an interesting mix (mostly Eastern writers) on philosophy and mind issues. I was pleased she asked me to contribute to this anthology. I recommend you check it out and if you want to read more of my chapter I can also post a few more excerpts, or you can order the book for my full essay.  

Book Reference: 

1. Fisher, R. Michael (2021), pp. 91-114.  In R. Sarma (Ed.) (2021). Understanding mind, consciousness and person. New Delhi, India: Rawat Prakashan. 

The eminent early 20th century
American philosopher John Dewey... 

In this above quote, he is on his grand project (to restore "experience" to philosophy)--to debunk all binaries, so it seems. E.g., Life vs. Education, is a good place to start that deconstruction.

Then he goes on, in a passage analogously, where he critiques those that derogate the "lower" aspects of reality (so-called) vs. the "higher" aspects of reality (so-called) that have become so common by the 20 th century in philosophy, and education philosophy and psychology. He wrote of these sensory aspects: 

"Since sense-organs with their connected apparatus are the means of participation [with reality, with Life, with living organisms], any and every derogation of them, whether practical or theoretical, is at once effect and cause of a narrowed and dulled life-experience. Oppositions [i.e., binaries] of mind and body, soul and matter, spirit and flesh all have their origin, fundamentally, in fear of what life may--bring forth. They are marks of contraction and withdrawal [i.e., fear-based]." (Dewey, 1934, pp. 22-3). 

This is not the only passage I have been reading from Dewey, in my recent study of his writing, where I am reading into and between the lines, and sometimes reading explicit calling out of fear in our knowledge and knowing systems--like it is a massive weight on us and life-forces, it is like he is speaking a language of fearlessness. I'll be writing a chapter on his philosophy (fearlessness) and education for my new book The Fear Problematique (2022)... more  to come. 

[NOTE: for another of my FM blogs on Dewey and fear and fearlessness go to: https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/blog/holy-rant-john-s-dewey-s-fearlessness-project]

Reference

Dewey, J. (1934/2005). Art as Experience. Penguin Group.

I've just completed a short study and Tech Paper 125.pdf on Bonaro W. Overstreet, an American critical adult educator who wrote an amazing book on fear in 1951. 

This 1960 classic free-school alternative book is about child-rearing and education. The organization begun by A. S. Neill and others in the UK was a "school" by definition and that was to serve a parent community who wanted their children to have an entirely different experience of learning in and as part of a living residential community. They remained a "school" in order to get some funding from the government, and to follow the curriculum requirements to some degree re: the State, because they still wanted to hire teachers and be able to mentor the students/learners to achieve what they wanted to achieve if they wanted to go on to access the channels of higher education, which some children chose, while many did not. There was no requirement ever that the child would be forced to attend lessons. It was their choice how they wanted to spend the day as long as they did not hurt themselves or others or damage the community's property. In that sense, Neill believed the only radical way to fully commit to building a new society not based on fear, was to build a community not based on fear.

Some of you may know that I have long studied the alternative education movements since my late 20s. I also was a public school teacher for two years. All these experiences have led me to now working in a burgeoning new school, Nanaimo Innovation Academy (NIA), which started as a daycare (for 4 years) and is now a kindergarten, with a proposed grade 1-2 class starting this next fall in 2022 if all permits are granted and the parents show up to support our non-profit private school operation. My role thus far is "policy consultant", albeit, I have also just completed a five months artist residency at NIA where I worked from an artist's point of view, which included working with all members of the community in some way--I was interested in the whole organization and larger community and "everything was my medium" for artistic expression and exchange with all involved. I'm doing upcoming artist talks and websites on this project which I shall let you know about later. I had some lovely and interesting and not so pleasant interactions at times with my "medium" as one would expect in any community. But one of the things in the back of my mind during the residency was "How do we all deal with fear?" 

NIA founder and Director, Keely Freeman has been gracious in allowing me to slowly integrate and find my way into this new school community. She is someone very practical and in that sense not overly radical in her approach to a daycare/school culture, yet, at a recent staff meeting she held up this book by A. S. Neill, and said, with pride that this means a lot to her to be part of a legacy of trying to bring 'alternative education' to children and families in this world. I was touched. So, I'm starting to look at what might we at NIA glean from the "Summerhill" experiment in child-raising and education today. Note, several Summerhill-type schools have grown from the original movement started in the UK. A. S. Neill is no longer with us but has left a powerful message of possibilities and this book he wrote about his experiment in 1920s- onward is worth reading. I'm just allowing myself to dip into it and see what I think about it. As my first reading about Summerhill was back in the early 1980s and then late 1990s a bit but I didn't go further. I was aware of several educators as critics publishing about Summerhill and giving it a bad name in those years. I have not made up my own mind about that aspect of how good it was or bad it was empirically. That's really hard to assess.

As I turn to begin a brief fearanalysis of Neill's philosophy, I realize neither Neill and the faculty and parents may not have written and published or talked much about a "fearless school" that was their ideal for themselves, and as a model for the rest of society. I do sense they wanted to show society that it was possible and their school was an experimental case study. So, it was not perfect and they worked out a lot of the kinks in their system and culture by learning as they went. That is admirable. IF I was starting a school today, I would want to do the same. However, it is near impossible to find enough parents in the world where I live to be truly interested in entering into such a community and school experiment. People are way more freaked out these days, and thus more conformist, than the 1960s-70s, and maybe also compared to the 1920s when A. S. Neill began the Summerhill experiment. 

I find parents and teachers and just about all leaders very much caught in the "culture of fear" overall. This is a global cultural phenomenon I have written about extensively for over 3 decades. Education if it is to remain in its integrity (and much in line with a free-schooling conception as A. S. Neill argued for), is going to have to confront its relationship (i.e., its collusion with) the growing insidious culture of fear. 

Fearanalysis has many possible directions of starting to assess anyone or anything. For simplicity, I scanned the back chapters of the classic book by Neill (above), and saw on page after page of how he responds to many of the questions that came to him as founder of Summerhill, he often was talking in his answers to the issue of fear. In fact, I believe he was doing that because most of the questions he received, often had fear at their base of motivation for being asked. For example, the questions about the freedom of children and youth in the Summerhill community to have access to sex. Neill, answers, they are as an organization and school not telling kids not to have sex, not to masturbate. All humans have a right to enjoy the sexuality of their bodies alone or with others, and Neill is not at all interested in creating taboos and rules about that. He wanted to raise children who were not afraid of adults and/or the laws and authority of adultworld in general. What was truly educative for him, and I agree, is when educative experience transcends the dependency socialization of young people based on fear-induction-learning (or "shock learning" via punishment regimines). "Control" is such a tricky concept and Neill wanted as least amount of it as possible in regard to what children feel, think and do. Adults/parents/caregivers can be children's worst enemy, he would likely have argued, and I hear that as I scan the pages of his book and the answers to his questions. I and some others have called this adult-child relationship one that is riddled with adultism, oppression in one of its base forms, from the start--it is part of a culture of fear dynamic. I won't go into more details in this blogpost but if you are interested in more quotes and details from the book and want more discussion, I'll do so. Just post comments below, or sign-up or sign-in on the FM ning and write your own blogposts. 

Bertrand Russell, the great UK philosopher, wrote a 1926 book "On Education" with implications for especially early childhood rearing, socialization and education (e.g., schooling). Interestingly, I am just reading this for the first time, and I see some really good signs that this will be a useful book in the history of Fear Studies, and especially the history of fear in educational philosophy. 

Russell has evoked me several times to quote him (from this book), especially his line around wisdom and fear, and around fearless mothers and fearless children as well. For purposes of this blog, I want to focus on why he thought love and fear were so crucial to child rearing and society's health in general. He ends his book with "A thousand ancient fears obstruct the road to happiness and freedom." (p. 206) During the book he makes a distinction that irrational fears are the biggest problem, rational fears are important--albeit, a big problem can come when a child, for example, has not the adequate rational fears online and operative and that puts the child at risk to dangers it normally would rationally be afraid of. He talks about his wife and him trying out many of these things about fear management with their own two children in the earliest years 1-4 yr olds. 

Again, on the final paragraph of the book he wrote, "But love can conquer fear, and if we love our children nothing can make us withold the great gift which is is in our power to bestow." (p. 206). One has to realize that Russell was a secularist-humanist philosopher, yet, here he is articulating what all the great spiritual/religious teachings also argue as a basic premise/theory about love and fear. That's a whole topic for study itself. Is this true, that love can conquer fear? What does conquer mean? On p. 71 he describes how an irrational fear in children (or anyone) ought to not be left alone to just disappear or skirt around too much. Russell says it "should be gradually overcome" as an important aspect of healthy developmental growth and learning. "Overcome" as a behavioral and emotional aspect, seems to be what Russell means by "conquer" in other parts of his text. 

In helping his own children to overcome fear(s), Russell tells us at one point, controversial I am sure it will be: "A grown-up [e.g., parent, teacher] person in charge of a child should never feel fear" --meaning, express it it in front of a child and when trying to teach a child to have mild rational fear of a potential danger the child needs to learn about (e.g., like a sharp knife edge, or cliff edge). Now, if an adult around a child is to be fully responsible for the best interests and growth and learning for a child, and to make them feel loved and not afraid of the world around them too much, then Russell argues it is best to "never feel" or express fear in your teaching children lessons or warnings. I tend to agree with this because of the unpredictable (if not traumatic) ways a child may take in the concrete message from the adult but also the affect-tracing lingerings of the adult into their emotional (if not soul level) aspects of their being. Adults have that kind of powerful impact potential on children's psyche/soul, is my claim, and many others but here we see Russell the philosopher (and father) saying the same thing. His cautionary goes on to say: " That is one reason why courage should be cultivated in women just as much as in men." (p. 72). There's a few arguments he makes later in the book about the sexes and the dynamics of fear and timidity, etc. He wants both sexes to be hardy and courageous --and even fearless. Again, he focuses at times on women's major role here in child development of fearlessness: 

"One generation of fearless women could transform the world...by bringing into it a generation of fearless children".... and "Education is the key" to this accomplishment. On my part, that is true and is exactly why I offer an upgraded theory and praxis called critical Fear Management/Education or simply Fear Education for the 21st century. Russell's philosophy of education, it turns out, is very supportive of my initiative. 

Anyone have some thoughts about all this?

Reference

Russell, B. (1926/2003). On education. Routledge.

Fearologist, RMF tells in his new video of "why" the concept of fearism likely evolved in the 1990s onward and is here to stay. 

Dr. Darcia Narvaez, psychologist of child development, the evolutionary nest concept, and moral development. She comes at the ways to better understand what is human nature and healthy development from an evolutionary and neurobiological, psychological, anthropological and Indigenous worldview lens. This interdisciplinary thinker was recently giving a presentation and having a discussion with the gift economy (motherer) experts, and at one point she starts to talk about "fear" per se and how difficult it is to make the shift to a feminine-based gift economy and new paradigm of holistic health and sustainable sanity. 

She says, "There's a lot of people who are afraid in the United States, and when you are afraid it can lead you into directions that are good or not so good...not so helpful. So, I think getting through the fear is something...the fear of pain I think...if we suffered as a young child our...it's in our body, our body remembers the trauma, the pain and we don't want to go back there, we have some resistance to it....we need ways to help people not be so afraid of feeling the pain, because once you feel the pain it's actually quite liberating...it wasn't so bad. People go to therapy for this." [she then says once we do this a few times] "a whole new life [is possible], it's like being reborn. [to help people through pain and fear we have a responsibility of] "reassuring people that you can pass through this...primal wounds...you pull them off, and its painful at the moment at the time, but then once you pull them off you can be yourself...unlock your heart." [I takes a lot of support from others too]. 

Then she concludes with a hope she has: "Hopefully, somebody out there is going to come up with...a great way to help people get through the fear." 

--------

My quick comments are critiques of this explication and hope Dr. Narvaez offers, although, in basic idea and with experiences, she is talking of the truth, I have no doubt. It is just that her discourse on fear management here is so conformist and 'normal' as to be nothing outside of the domination worldview and paradigm basically. There are so many who have offered the same advice as she and the same hope as she. I was really looking for something more radical from her in this discussion especially in light of being in conversation on the radical shift of an exchange (capitalist) paradigm to a gifting paradigm that was the theme of the entire conversation. But what this shows me is that even the radical gift economy types have not yet got "fear" figured out or configured out is more accurate. They have no radical vision of a new paradigm of fear management/education. Sadly, I have seen this also in the feminist movement, and most spiritual movements, etc. over the decades. The thinking about fear is still back in the old paradigm (what Narvaez herself is concerned about and has critiqued in part as "colonized psychology") they wish to leave and transform and so on. The fear thinking hasn't changed and they don't seem to look at the literature that is out there on new 'Fear' Studies and Fearlessness Paradigm.

In particular, one can recognize the same "individualist" psychology and morality within Narvaez's discourse that she falls back on, basically a kind of existential modernist philosophy, and practicality, because she says we really need to deal with fear differently in our society--okay, that's great--and yet, her answer to that fear problem is her immediate default to talk about "fears" (i.e., she mentions the core "fear of pain" problem)--and she then proceeds her diagnostic and prescriptions from there. As I said, there is nothing new paradigm at all about that, even if she is offering a weak medicine better than not for fear management. 

Narvaez, defaults into her trained psychological and rather individualistic mind re: fear discouse. Even though, all her research is on interdisciplinary studies and community and social relationality as so important in the healthy development of humans and ecosystems etc. Her actual knowledge and theorizing on fear is however individualistic and typical of the modernist paradigm and of patriarchy (more or less) itself. So, why(?), I ask, over all these years of her knowing my work on fear and fearlessness, and knowing I am a fearologist with a transdisciplinary lens I bring radically to the topic of fear management/education, has she not engaged directly with my work with any depth and understanding [1], if she is saying that "fear" is one of the most important factors in a human beings life and a society (e.g., the USA)? Why has she thrown out a hope that "somebody out there" is going to find a solution to the fear problem--and, she is like waiting or something(?). That amazes me she seems dissociated from the vast literature and my work (including Four Arrows' work) on fear ('fear'), fearism, fearlessness, etc. I have found that she is like so many. There is a denial/blindness still operating even in the most sophisticated and mature academics and professionals in general (Dr. Narvaez is top-notch and very wise in my opinion)--and, "psychologists" have continually shown to be in this state of learning and training that they cannot receive the vast wisdom out there on fear already available. There is no need to hope for someone to come along with a magic bullet, Dr. Narvaez, there is only an opportunity and willingness to actually engage and study what is available already and then apply it sincerely. 

So, my first agenda as a fearologist has always been to question and critique the very way we (especially psychologists) frame the discourse on fear itself, never mind trying to figure out which fears are most important (e.g., fear of pain, or fear of death), etc. Dr. Narvaez, and the rest of you, still hoping... why don't you consult with a fearologist, for starters and go from there? The "why" they don't do this, is critically important. I have suggested in my latest book it is because of a "resistance to fearlessness" [2] built deeply into the self-social-political fabric of how people are perceiving the world's problems and the answers to its problems. I actually sent that new book to her upon her request so she might write a book review, of which she has not done so, nor shared anything with me about my book and her reading it. Instead, she "hopes" there is some one out there who will make a silver bullet. I think her troubling view expressed in the above discussion is that she herself in my opinion, is still caught in the "colonized psychology" she is critiquing. It is not anyone's fault per se that our fear management/education discourses (at least, in the W. world) are so unhelpful. 

Endnote

1. Granted she did engage somewhat in a Psychology Today blog some years ago, supporting Four Arrows' and my work on fear and fearlessness; go to: https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/moral-landscapes/201801/stories-heal-primal-wounds

2. Fisher, R. M., and Kumar, B. M. (2021). Resistances to fearlessness. Xlibris. 

I think this is a powerful extract from the teaching of the cultural historical theorist, Jean Gebser, from a 1972 talk on "Primal Fear and Primal Trust" re: his asking humans to continue to pursue the answers to the origin questions like: 'Where do I come from?', 'Who am I?' and "Whither do I go?' (the full quotation from this talk is offered in Georg Feurstein's (1987) Structures of Consciousness p. 30, and in Johnson's book in a chapter on "The Integral A-Perspectival World" (Johnson, 2019, p. 168). 

For those of you who know I am a critical integral theorist/philosopher, often following much of the integral philosophy of Ken Wilber, it is important to note that integralist philosophy is articulated by many other great minds of which Jean Gebser is one of them. Johnson names Gebser (1905-1973) "a German-Swiss cultural philosopher, intelectuall mystic, poet, and scholar of the evolution of consciousness." (p. 1). 

See also https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/handle/1880/112698/Tech%20Paper%20114_rev.pdf?sequence=5 [my more in depth article on "Cultural Theorist Jean Gebser Meets a Fearologist"). 

References

Feurstein, G. (1987). Structures of consciousness. Lower Lake: Integral Publishing [translation].

Gebser, J. (1997 ed.). The ever-present origin [Trans. Noel Barstad with Algist Mickunas]. University of Ohio Press.

Johnson, J. (2019). Seeing through the world: Jean Gebser and integral consciousness. Revelore. 

[art poster image by R. Michael Fisher]

Four Arrows (Wahinkpe Topa) aka Dr. Don T. Jacobs (a longtime member of FM ning and cultural warrior), gives a really useful interview (video) on his work, which I see as part of fearlessness path and its connection to re-visionist (corrective) Education today and the survival of this planet's ecosystems. He says, "I want to be human"... and he defines that in a very unique way in regard to the relationship with "hope" for change of this world and its hegemonic Dominant worldview--as he offers a 'reading' of a universal Indigenous worldview (sometimes called Kinship worldview)-- as a solution to our current crises on mass scales. The Indigenous worldview is based not on a fear-based cosmology and value-system--and, that's really important to note. He talks about decolonization and Indigenization as processes of re-socialization and re-education on a mass scale and how 'turning' things around from the current status quo is near impossible but that doesn't mean we ought not do what we can to "be human" in the midst of this tragedy and rather 'hope-less' situation in terms of actual outcomes of our work to liberate ourselves and come to our Natural-based (place-based) intelligence--or what he has called "primal awareness." He also says so interesting things on hypnosis and de-hypnosis in this regard of bringing change and transformation about. 

Note: at the 1:04:00 mark in the interview. Four Arrows is talking about the "mysteriousing" of existence, rather than a noun for "god"--the former being the Indigenous way. He says, it is this in touchness with the mysteriousing that is "getting in touch with that fearlessness around death" and he concludes: "I have never met a traditional Indigenous person who has a fear of death...[or] fear of life." 

For a concise write up on Four Arrows' Indigenous-based worldview on fear and fearlessness, go to:

https://coachesevolve.com/moving-from-fear-to-fearlessness-by-four-arrows/