The following article, just published in the International Journal of Critical Pedagogy (2017), I wrote as a critique of "radical love" (a la Paulo Freire) in critical pedagogy. It is entitled: "Radical Love: Is It Radical Enough?".
I introduce the dualistic (and sometimes) dialectical theory of Love vs. Fear and how Fearlessness is essential to the dialectic (even a trialectic) to make it effective in the current meta-context of the "culture of fear." Hope you enjoy it, and feel free to send me any comments [r.michaelfisher52 [at] gmail [dot] com.
REVIEWS:
In near 2 years since my article was published, no one has made a peep about it. Which is too bad, I'm not impressed with critical pedagogues in that sense of being so silent. Anyways, one of my colleagues from my UBC days, a bright younger scholar, Dr. Kent denHeyer, Prof. of Education, at UofA in Edmonton, responded having recently read my article in IJCP (2017). He wrote me,
Michael, there are two critical points for me in your text, they might seem obvious to you: first the opposition love-fear; is fear the opposite of love? I doubt. Of course it is one of them and I understand that in your framework it should be and it is but I think by privileging fear your leave aside so many other important dimensions; the second is that every time when someone says about anything something like "it should be treated this way" thinking suffers... it might be fearanalysis or whatever... of course in this case it is only needed accepting and following your assumptions but many other roads might be walked so I prefer to stay aside when someone says "you cannot approach this issue if you do not take this road"... just two maybe superficial comments and sorry I will not be able to follow this discussion...
regards, WK Feb. 10/21
Dear WK,
Your cautionary taken. Appreciated. Perhaps another time when you have space, we can go further. Just to be clear, a careful reading of my thesis will show "privileging fear" is NOT what my work is about period! I construct a systematic Fearlessness Paradigm (a whole other ball game)...
-cheers,
M.
