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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Note

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