Dr. Ramala Sarma and Dr. R. Michael Fisher
MY LATEST INTERVIEW(Jun/2024) by Dr. Sarma, has some really good exchanges you may enjoy--especially philosophy buffs. At the end, we talk a little about "fearlessness practices" but that will be more in a Part 2 of this set of interviews by Dr. Sarma.
To see complete review go to: https://kcsunbeam.wordpress.com/2023/10/30/book-review-fearmorphosis/
Over 20 yrs ago, a really important work on "Fear" appeared out of Europe by a Hungarian sociologist [1]. His name Eleme'r Hankiss. This book sat on my shelves for nearly 20 years as well, because when it first arrived, I was looking at it in a superficial way and it seemed that the focus was on a study of fears in human history related to religious, mythological, anthropological, philosophical, and literary arts and tradtions--which included indepth study of fears in jokes, plays, myths, religious beliefs and symbols, housing and cities, shopping malls and rationality etc.
Recently, having pulled it off my shelf, I began to realize what a gem of a socioogical study of fear (which is actually quite interdisciplinary, even transdisciplinary somewhat)--was going on and that the author was creating his own variant theory of fear/anxiety (used interchangeably) to explain the entire civilization process--and, he develops that theory in this book starting with a great synthesis of sociologists and anthropologists writings and how they support his theory but that the major theorists in those disciplines tended not to talk explicitly about fear as core motivator for humanity and civilization but they implied it was so. He discusses this as a problem itself in that fear thus remains hidden more or less when it is so critically important to study and know its massive influences. I agree. I agree. I agree. I and many other fearists have been saying this for decades.
So, Hankiss is no longer alive (died in 2015 in Hungary). He had written a fascinating book also with implications for Fear Studies in 2006 [6], though I have not found a copy to read yet. But this "Fears and Symbols" is more accessible and lays the ground for his critical thinking of fear within the symbolic interactionist tradition of critical theorizing in sociology. He is critical of the psychological schools of thought for often disregarding the social sciences overall and how they have theorized about fear and motivation and civilization processes. Ultimately, Hankiss marks a huge territory of understanding that fear within the social sphere of relations, is always a power in movement and constituted for a longer shelf life. Those are my terms on what happens to fear as it is phenomenologically passed in and through the social symbolic order of knowledge making (and ontology itself). Symbolic Fear in other words is made to last longer on the shelf (shelves) of human experiencing because it has potent creative and constructive (and destructive) capacities that regimes of power in history wish to manipulate--and, that's when history of fear becomes really intriguing and demanding. That's when Fear Study becomes very demanding. Only existential philosophy and psychological or theological discourses on fear really miss far too much information and phenomenological reality, says Hankiss, and I agree--especially with the construct of fear--that is symbolic fear.
I highly recommend this text. And, of course, there are a lot of areas where I think it needs upgrading and improvements, but I would label it a proto-fearist textbook essential to the new Fear Studies I have proposed for decades. From what I can tell, this book is little known around the world nor is it cited by most authors who write and/or theorize about fear.
Notes:
1. Former Director of the Institute of Sociology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and fomer fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford.
2. His two major books: Hankiss, E. (2001). Fears and symbols: An introduction to the study of western civilization. Central European University Press. and Hankiss, E. (2006). The toothpaste of immortality: Self-construction in the consumer age. John Hopkins University Press.
James, host of Hermitix, does interesting 'beyond-the-box' podcast interviews with philosophical types; and, I was glad to have this chance to chat with him:
R. M. Fisher new video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g7AsApU3gU
Fear and a General Social Theory[1]
-R. Michael Fisher [notes: June 16/20]
Introductory Issues of the Social & World
Recently, it occurred to me that no one will really ‘get’ my work adequately until they ‘get’ that my work is foundationally a social theory of fear (management/education). I am deeply a social thinker/theorist and philosopher and educator, who has, unfortunately, not helped the waves of mis-understandings of my work for 31 years because I have not systematically written out my general social theory as context for my work. I am beginning to take on this daunting project. This essay consists of beginning shreds of what is on my mind and is by no means a ‘finished’ work. It is noticeably somewhat nostalgic, at least for me, in that to recover the ‘social’ in my work, and in my life, I have had to return to the past of my first systematic studies of knowledge and disciplines when I was 20 years old to my 30s. If these references seem ‘old’ or ‘out of date’ to readers, I won’t apologize for how important and relevant they are in ‘messages’ for today—but, certainly, this general social theory I am attempting needs up-dating with newer thinkers for sure—yet, all in time. I want to keep things relatively simple to start with. I appreciate your patience with my somewhat nostalgic turn.
As part of Social Sciences, social theory seems essential to my fearanalysis project [2] on the Fear Problem. It is an approach to all phenomenon (e.g., especially fear and its management/education) primarily through the lens of the social sphere of reality. Social theory today, in the Anthropocene era, also has to be part of Biological and especially Environmental Sciences, because global cascading crises are putting the survival and quality of life on this planet at-high-risk, moving existence regularly into emergencies. COVID-19 is the latest episode showing how vulnerable Homo sapiens is.
The basic purpose overall of these Sciences seen through my own value-based lens, is that of “making man [sic] more aware of the consequences of his actions.”[3] Awareness has to do with learning, and that is why my profession is Education. I turn now to explicate my evolved, yet still evolving, social theory as a synthesis of many others’ critical thinking and research. It is not too embarrassing to say my social theory is quite unique in the history of thought.
Theorizing: Natural Sciences Are Social
It is essential for humans as a whole, and for me to remember that the aim of the knowledge quest (i.e., learning and education) is to,
....establish the process of human development as the goal of the process of social evolution, both the process and the goal being understood to be open to further transformation as we advance in the practice and understanding of them.[4]
And furthermore, there is a search still going on across large domains of societies functions, and within the inner searching and reflecting that humans do at times, to find a better “image” of our selves—of our nature, of our potential—and to do so, as crucial so that we don’t become crushed by harsh realities of the everyday human condition (i.e., of a good deal of suffering). Markley & Harman (1982) spoke to this in a way that made sense for me in my youthful scholarship days, and still resonates today:
It seems evident that the characteristics we postulated for an adequate image [of the human] cannot be fulfilled unless such a new type of policy paradigm comes into existence—a paradigm that provides a far closer reconciliation of C. P. Snow’s ‘two cultures’ (the sciences and the humanities) than has heretofore seemed feasible [in modern times]. Central in this pursuit would be the reconciliation of the objective inquiry methods found suitable for learning to manipulate the external/physical environment and the inquiry methods which are emerging to similarly explore the subjective/internal/psychical environment of our living. Likely such an umbrella paradigm will not be possible without the emergence of other, somewhat more specialized but nevertheless holistic [-integral], paradigms to support it.[5]
In Markley & Harman’s profound search for a “moral science,” “moral economics” and politics for a sustainable, healthy and sane future, they know that a “moral paradigm” lies below them all, which is something I have always been interested in but I am not a “moralist” or “virtues” prophet/teacher or thinker. That’s a topic that arrives much later in this essay and social theory. Suffice it to say at this point, my approach to ethics and morals and the ‘good’ and ‘true’ and ‘beautiful’ will be strongly tainted in this work with the social as environment—and, it is this environmental emphasis that is most conducive to pulling out and foreword why I think the social is so critical to any good fear studies (and fear management/education) today and in the future. To note, the marriage of objective and subjective that Markley & Harman recommend, not totally radical, is very important to my own holistic-integral approach to knowledge and living, of which Wilber (1995) has added another vector of polarities to build a more adequate and complete (and moral) epistemological quadrant analysis. He adds: individual and communal sphere. When I speak of the “social” so forthright and as forming everything in human affairs, I am not excluding the other quadrant inputs into the social sphere of reality but including them, even if they are lesser focused on.
I more or less ‘hated’ public school. I was born and raised poor working class. The whole system seemed rigged, even though I am a white guy (Canadian), to benefit those who already were privileged by class. The more would get the more and doing well in education was seemingly their way of greasing their wheels of progress (success). Post-secondary schooling nor societal success meant anything important to me until my 19th year of life (after graduation from high school in a technical curriculum stream for the ‘dummies’). One course in grades 10-12 really was a place for me to shine—Biology. I was a budding naturalist (thanks to my dad, my uncle, my older brother). Learning science was hard but I did it and learned things I cared about—that is, how Life works. By my 19th year I was dedicated to pursue secondary education and make a career in science (e.g., forestry or something). The rest is history. As I went through careers and more and more degrees, “Science” grew in scope and dimensions in ways I could have never predicted back in my late teens or early 20s. Today, I reluctantly, would call myself a “scientist” but at-heart I really am. I am a little more comfortable being called a “philosopher” at-heart, an “artist”—and yet, my graduate Ph.D. training ended with a doctorate in Education.
Fear is Social
A most basic premise of my life’s work is that fear is social, or more accurately, that the nature and role of fear for humans cannot be understood without a social perspective. At some level, thus, my hypothesis is that: social fear is the best descriptor for all fears and fear itself. Contentious perhaps. I’ll return to that topic later. Now, I wish to claim that science is always social—and, the corollary, all science is social science. Let me explain.
Scientists are Social
It is no surprise that from anthropology to ecology and evolutionary studies, many scientists have concluded that “Homo sapiens” is a social species. It sounds simple to conclude. It seems true. What it exactly means and the implications are much more profound, as I have found to be the case over the decades. I think most people don’t really think about this.
Despite the history of Science being diverse, with all its twists and turns and shifts in its role and the ways scientists themselves saw their efforts to build scientific knowledge, it is likely true that at the end of the 19th century most scientists were relatively “unconcerned as to where they ought to be going. They saw no point in formulating social goals for their professional work, because they regarded science as an end rather than a means.” And many then, as still now, do not want their scientific work determined by social (e.g., economic and political) agendas of interest groups or the public at-large, according to Dubos (1970, p. 229). More characteristically, the scientists overall have not seen their own profession as a social enterprise itself—that is, shaped overly by influences from the social sphere including by non-scientists.
It is hard for the vast majority of scientists (maybe less so today) to believe that what they do intellectually may be socially-determined—in whole or in part. Kuhn’s (1970) classical analysis of the paradigm shifts of the scientific enterprise validates just how social science communities are. Scientists likely find that thought of socially-determined, socially-responsible or “mission-oriented”[6] science rather loathsome, and beneath their self-integrity. They are very proud of their elite scientific training. I remember, the same feeling when I was fully in science education processes and working as a scientist of sorts. To get a masters or doctoral degree in some science adds to their privilege and sense of self-esteem. They see they are in a scientific establishment and career in order to best perform good (or even ‘pure’) science. No one should be telling them or even much influencing them who isn’t a scientist.[7] The very reason of bringing this issue of Science to the foreground to begin my general social theory explication tells you something about how important I think Science is today; And especially, it tells you that I agree with Dubos (50 years ago) that the best way to talk about the current (at least Western) society is under the umbrella term “scientific civilization.”[8]
Civilization Types: Evolving Fear(s)
As civilizations, many humans have thus evolved from tribal, to agricultural, to industrial—all because of an advance in Science (and technologies). Since late-modernity, that’s been recognized as a mixed blessing for those of us in the latter forms of civilization. Myself included, we have begun to realize the paradox of progress via Science that is now creating some of the worst nightmares of which are capable of extinguishing all civilization (e.g., nuclear weapons, anthropogenic accelerated global warming, clear-cutting forests, mining, etc.). It is arguable, that there have been new fears created and overcome at each level of civilization type listed above. However, it is also arguable, the current chronic level of fear(s) in the highly scientific civilization type is accumulative (post-traumatic) and worse than other civilizations. If so, it is another hypothesis of my social theory that with increasing progress, comings increasing social fear (of the most destructive kinds). But let’s return to my thinking on Science before focusing on other aspects of my social theory (of fear).
Need for a Social Theory of Science
It has been a great gain to knowledge generally to develop the history of science and open-up the world of Science to historians and the public. It may well be, as Dubos suggested, that it is more important for citizens in a true democracy to be critical in their literacy of how Science functions than needing to know all the facts of science and its applications.[9] It is great to have a grasp of both, but at least it is important to learn about science as a social activity that ought to serve social purposes, as well as intellectual purposes. For example, to learn about science is to learn as a layperson that “scientific knowledge is never absolute or final, yet it remains valid when considered in the social and intellectual framework within which it was developed.”[10] Another example, “scientists hardly ever disagree on the validity of the facts themselves, but only [mostly] on the interpretation and use of the these facts.”[11]
The argument I am making, as did Dubos 50 years ago, is that all science operates with shifting “fashions”[12]—that is, it is socially contextualized ‘not an island to itself’ and visa versa “all social decisions now have scientific determinants,”[13] whether we recognize them or not. Snow’s (1959) lecture on The Two Cultures—of facts (science) vs. values (social morals and/or religion)—raised critical questions of the long modern separation of these realms; and, suggested how they ought not be fully disengaged from each other. Integral philosopher, Ken Wilber, notes that Snow called both facts and values inherently “cultures” and thus serve as social phenomena. He argued knowledge is best for cultures/societies when they are not totally battling, competing, and thus end up dissociated and divorced; but rather, today we have to work to repair their ancient marriage[14] so that a higher holistic-integration of knowledge can once again yield wisdom and guidance for the modern, late-modern and post-modern times. There’s a need for a new thinking today—and, more so than ever it will have to be around the notion of fear. I am calling my version of this, as core to my methodological concerns, integral social thinking.
Methodology of Integral Social Thinking (IST)
As I attempt to introduce this emergent sense that my social theory itself has to be based on integral social thinking—troubling questions of knowing arise. Philosophers call this ontological and epistemological issues. I’ll start with the “integral” part of thinking—which, comes from a long venerable tradition of integral philosophies and theories in history,[15] of which, for example, Wilber (1995) is one of the most prescient of these thinkers, and has influenced my ways of thinking since the early 1980s.
Yet, there is a further problem not so overtly dealt with as an epistemological problem in integral thinking and style, which I must mention. In the study of fear itself (meaning, the human-fear-self-social relationship dynamic) there is a problem of attempting to know something (perhaps, a prior conceptions that are faded or invisible) that is escaping its very knowability. You open a black sealed box to study something locked away inside for generations, but in assuming the light you shine on it will reveal its essence, you more or less destroy the operation and object/subject you are analyzing because it is not the proper ‘method’ to disclose the essence of that which lives in a ‘black box.’
Using this ‘black box’ as metaphor or analogy, this is what I learned in my youth when I (and others) first encountered the nascent field of “ecology.”[16] I cannot help but be an ecological thinker, but that gets massively more complex than approaching an ecological problem of studying Nature when one brings the light of investigation to Culture—in this case, my pursuit of a social theory and a fear theory simultaneously—things get very tricky, to say the least. I’ve hinted at this problem (part of the larger Fear Problem) in my earliest works in the late 1980’s into the early 1990s and why I demarcated my subject of study of fear as ‘fear’ with (‘) marks[17] to signify something I really didn’t know even what it was I was studying or what methods would be best for doing so). The progressive futurists Markley & Harman (1982) touched somewhat on the enigmatic attitude and sensibility in which a researcher has to imbue when after a topic, with humility, with the arational and rational modes, as they articulated one way to capture the same troubling question I am now explicating:
How does one study a priori conceptions which, by definition, are fundamental to and lie beyond the [standard] rules of inquiry of any particular discipline [of knowledge, and knowing, and understanding]? (p. xxi)
I chose to assume “fear” (and ‘fear’) as already embedded in a black box of a prior phenomenon/conceptions and no one discipline or even a couple disciplines could unravel the hidden subtle nature of fear (‘fear’). To be playful, I enlisted a neologism of “fearology” to act as a transdisciplinary approach to the topic. However, there was more I had to deal with in Markley & Harman (1982) and what they called “bricolage thinking” – and my attempt to:
....discern fundamental and usually unrecognized influences on our societal problems, on our social policies, and on our hopes [aspirations] for the future....our aim is to break out of set patterns of thinking (and hence recognize useful new ways of thinking and imaging” (p. xxi)
More specifically, my nascent methodological rationale was built upon both a defence against, and an offense for, a better knowledge about fear (‘fear’) that was already socially embedded in culture—which I soon would discover other scholars talking about how near everything today is embedded in a “culture of fear” (which by 2000, I talked about as a ‘Fear’ Matrix and/or a decade before that, I talked about a largely invisible ubiquitous form of oppression called “fearism”). I felt intuitively, and theorized from my reading, research and phenomenological experiences, that fear was already ‘hooked’ into living inside a black box that for many good reasons could not be opened or if it was it might yield more than the investigator could handle anyways (e.g., you may note the analogy here with the myths of Pandora’s Box, Icarus, Prometheus from ancient Greek as ‘warnings’ to human hubris—likewise, in psychoanalytical theory and practice there is the cautionary of any inquiry into the unconscious).
The invocation from the start of my study of fear to be in search of “fearlessness” was not by chance, albeit, I knew little of what complexity and black box I would bump into as well on this latter subject. In a nutshell, I assumed (sometimes concluded) that the deep territory of fear was an a prior social taboo (and ‘fear’ was even more elusive, denied, repressed and dangerous territory). All fear is a priori social—social fear (i.e., we humans are sociophobic,[18] in other words, and I do not just mean this term like contemporary clinical psychiatrists would use it—as “fear of the social”—although, in part that is applicable too). Thus, I had stumbled in my early years in and around this troubling situation of the social sphere and how much or how little to let it into my investigations of fear. It seems that transdisciplinary study pushes one into creative synthesis of methodologies and multiple ways of knowing, and asks us to be not overly disciplined in trying too hard to control your subject and tools of inquiry....
[to be continued....]
References
Dubos, R. (1970). Reason awake: Science for man. Columbia University Press.
Fisher, R. M. (1995a/12). An introduction to defining ‘fear’: A spectrum approach. Technical Paper No. 1. In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.
Fisher, R. M. (1995b/12). An introduction to an epistemology of ‘fear’: A fearlessness paradigm. Technical Paper No. 2. In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.
Kuhn, T. (1962/96). The structure of scientific revolutions. [3rd. ed.] The University of Chicago Press.
Markley, O. W., & Harman, W. W. (1982). Changing images of man. Pergamon Press.
McIntosh, S. (2007). Integral consciousness and the future of evolution: How the integral worldview is transforming politics, culture and spirituality. Paragon House.
Odum, E. P. (1972). Fundamentals of ecology [3rd ed.]. W. B. Saunders.
Scruton, D. L. (Ed.) (1986). Sociophobics: The anthropology of fear. Westview Press.
Wilber, K. (1998). The marriage of sense and soul: Integrating science and religion. Random House.
Wilber, K. (1995). Sex, ecology and spirituality: The spirit in evolution [Vol. 1]. Shambhala.
END NOTES
[1] Cf. to Skoll (2010) “Social theory of fear: Terror, torture, and death in a post-capitalist world.”
[2] Overtly, I co-founded the In Search of Fearlessness Project (1989-) for this work, more implicitly this is a fearanalysis I am doing on the entire phenomenon of humans and fear and life. I have several short publications on "fearanalysis" but the book on this is still to be finalized and published (with the first draft of "An Introduction to Fearanalysis" still sitting on my shelf from 2016).
[3] Dubos (1970), p. 229.
[4] Quote from Dunn (1971), cited in Markley & Harman (1982), p. 156.
[5] Ibid., p. 157.
[6] Ibid., p. 219.
[7] “[M]any scientists are more interested in the advancement of [scientific] knowledge, than in its possession [by non-scientists]” (Dubos, 1970, p. 209).
[8] Ibid., Chapter 5.
[9] Ibid., p. 215.
[10] Ibid., pp. 217-18, 219.
[11] Ibid. p. 220.
[12] “Rapid and profound shifts of emphasis [on what and how things are studied scientifically] have repeatedly occurred in the scientific community, in part because fashions change in science even more than in other types of endeavors, also because social [and economic] concerns inevitably affect intellectual preoccupation” (Dubos, 1970, p. 217); see also Kuhn (1970).
[13] Ibid., p. 207.
[14] Wilber (1998).
[15] One could make a massive long list of ‘integral’ thinkers going back to ancient times; they are the ‘renaissance’ types that integrated vast domains of different spheres of knowledge, arts, sciences, religion etc. More recently, in philosophy, one can identify several thinkers and lines within philosophy itself that have the qualities of the holistic-integral thinker (and/or “integral consciousness” and/or “integral worldview,” according to McIntosh (2007) some recognizable leaders of this integral movement are Georg Hegel, Henri Bergson, James Mark Baldwin, Teilhard de Chardin, Alfred North Whitehead, Jean Gebser, Jürgen Habermas, Ken Wilber (pp. 151-54).
[16] Odum (1971) refers to this (after G. E. Hutchinson’s notion) ‘black box’ conception as hololgical (p. 22) and which refers to complex systems that one can only study by realizing the “internal workings...are but vaguely known” (and may not be known) (p. 105).
[17] Fisher (1995a, 1995b).
[18] It is not by chance the first major initiative (I know of) in academic work to bring “fear” study out from under the umbrella of the hegemonic dominating grips of the biomedical and psychological fields (i.e., Natural sphere), into the Cultural (social) sphere—via anthropology/sociology/social psychology was called sociophobics (Scruton, 1986). The Spiritual (religious, theological) sphere, including much of philosophy also had taken on “fear” study but that is beyond the scope of the discussion here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hATcs4Zpdqo to watch Thomas Hubl and Otto Sharmer in recent dialogue...
I have always taught that the significant area of Fear Studies (include 'fear' studies) has to be linked to evolutionary theory, defense psychology theory (e.g., Freud's defense mechanisms, and Ernest Becker's views as well, as found in Terror Management Theory)--but my teaching has always been that why "fear" is so important (and often toxic) is because of humans being "hurt" (i.e., traumatized and not yet healed from past hurts). Hubl puts forward his 3 "Forces" (or "drives") in his own evolutionary theory of transformation, with the last one "trauma" being critically important, if not the most important to understand better than we usually do.
International Journal of Fear Studies
Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Approaches
Call for Papers and Creative Submissions:
Theme ISSUE: “Living and Learning in Pandemic Times”
Submissions Due Aug. 1, 2020 for the 4th issue of IFJS.
Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic dynamics have really changed our lives. What are we learning in this context of such pervasive fear... and more...? Are there better ways to handle all this?
IJFS offers space to share the kinds of work (theoretical or practical, complete or incomplete) you are doing on fear that deserves international recognition. The primary criteria is that works have an interdisciplinary and/or transdisciplinary approach, while at the same time are progressive and open-minded works that instigate insight, healing, liberation, creative thinking, critique, and synthesis. IJFS uniquely offers a much called for place to focus on fear as a subject matter as no other journal to date.
All authors retain copyright of their works published in IJFS. The journal will consider re-published submissions as long as copyright approval has been made. This peer reviewed journal is published bi-annually, at minimum, with final editing by Dr. R. M. Fisher (Senior Editor).
Articles and creative submissions may include large technical and philosophical works, research studies and results, essays, opinions, poetry and other art forms, etc. You are welcome to send a proposal for feedback ahead of time to the editor (r.michaelfisher52@gmail.com). Otherwise, send completed work. Citations of references are essential in papers where appropriate and should follow a standard style format (e.g., Chicago, APA, Harvard, etc.) to avoid any copyright violations. Creative style formats are welcome but require a rationale for any such deviations from standard formats. There is no word-length requirements of submissions. If all goes well the 4th journal issue will be published in early Sept. 2020.
Dr. R. Michael Fisher[1], Ph.D., founder/editor of IJFS, developed this on-line journal to promote academic scholarship, professional explorations and popular educational, activist and creative works for a variety of serious readers interested in fresh thinking and ideas about the nature and role of fear in societies.
Issue archive links:
1st issue https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/110106
2nd issue https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/111125
3rd issue https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/111681
To serve on the Editorial Board (and/or be a Reviewer) make your interest known to Dr. Fisher as soon as possible. Archived editions are available in an open-access pdf format and housed at the University of Calgary Library on PRISM for international access on research search engines. On average 200 downloads/views internationally are made of each issue. In addition, each article has separate download/views statistics.
A journal that operates in the gift economy-- gift donations to IFJS are most welcome, please contact R. M. Fisher.
[1] CV available on request. Dr. Fisher is an independent scholar, educator, fearologist with many publications available on Google Scholar. See his Youtube channel for more of his views: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC01OHEXhSuxnyilmkV0f95A
R. Michael Fisher, Director, Instructor, The Fearology Institute... is looking for a new cohort of students to take coursses and pursue a certificate in Fearology. Want to find out more about it, go to this new video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oisrTrOR2to
Michel Foucault: "knowledge is power and social structure is constituted by power."
DeshSubba: "Knowledge is fear and any kind of structure is constituted by fear. Existence of fear precedes power."
-Desh Subba
Houses are essence of our fears and it stands on the mixture of cement, iron, sands and concrete etc. These essences are for protecting life and house. Strong materials are primary and boundary is secondary protection. 'Self' stands on the base of 'body self', and religion, culture, politics, tradition are protection of 'body self' as boundaries. 'Individual Self' is combination of body self and boundaries. 'Fearomenon' (fear and phenomenon or fear/phenomenon) is attached with it.
The most invisible power is power of fear. Cat doesn't show power until he/she has options. Generous man doesn't show power until, he/she has options. Foucault's power theory's motive is a perspective of analyzing everyday life and history showing that knowledge/power tends to create fear and rule over individuals, families, societies and nations. Some are ‘in power’ to control or manage knowledge production and consumption. Same could be said of fear. Like other philosophers, typically, Foucault’s knowledge conception tends to veil fear beneath it—that is, it obscures more than it reveals, in terms of the fearomenon of existence. It is this latter substrate of existence where the real-power is.
Size (or quantum) of fear is like the (unconscious= 99%) hidden part of an ice berg. The conscious part above water level that is visible is about 1% quantum of the total size. Foucault focuses on 1% ‘Knowledge’ aspect and misses 99%--thus, his understanding of ‘Power’ related to both fear/knowledge is highly understated, and distortive. Fear is in a place of unconscious means in langue and power is in the place of conscious means in parole.
In the Fear System, fear is in the place of sun and other parts are in the revolving form of planets.
We can understand knowledge/power theory by parole and longue. Parole is power and longue is fear, means fear is important like heart and paroles are body parts. Forms of power are punishment, sovereign power, disciplinary power, surveillance, panopticon, law; prison and watchman are paroles of fear. In the Fear System, fear is in the place of sun and other parts are in the revolving form of planets. Fear has attraction gravity. Concept of surveillance is the watching—and fear motivates it. Some places we can see photo of two eyes. It means we are being watched by someone—watched by discourses of fear and the knowledge/power that accompanies it. Foucault ought to have better derived a unit of analysis for a critique of history as in fear/knowledge/power.As in institutions disciplining their ‘subjects’ we find the religious always circulating upon an eternal recurrence of fear of being watched by god. Fear of power(god) controls them to do sin.
Amygdala is biological fear brain-center like epicenter. It generates amygdalary fear and makes a structure within the body. Fear existence precedes essence that is structure. Individual, society and nation are structured bodies of amygdalary fear generation. Family, government, judiciary, parliaments are examples. Every individual is structured and generated by amygdalary Fear System—as biological (Natural) foundation is re-appropriated for psychological (Cultural) architectures.Collective body is society and collective society is government. Collective body of society and government is nation. Direct fears are in conscious part(1% quantum) and indirect fears are in (the 99% quantum) unconscious parts of ice berg. Fear Studies are intended to look to the ‘below’ the ice berg and include the studies of direct, indirect and silent fears—which remained largely veiled for Foucault, but also most all philosophers.
Amygdala is biological fear brain-center like epicenter.
It generates amygdalary fear and makes a structure within the body.
(The Lord Vishnu in Universal form)
Foucault's knowledge/power is like sandwich between fear and fearless. For individual; more fear blast in mind as mental problems but in society blast as revolt. His great contribution is fear management through his books. First monitors by supervisor (fear), later themselves (fearless).
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, as written in the Bible. I say knowledge is fear and god is a fear too. The details I’ve written in Philosophy of Fearism(2014). Game of knowledge is on the hand of religious and philosophical players. They are wrestling since the dawn of knowledge in the ring. Challenging and exercising question is coming to juxtaposing, that is death. To know death is it power, god or fear? How does fear of the Lord and power become the knowledge? We are as humanity in a great whirl of confusion. Keeping aside these grand narrations of existence and history, we practically need to ask our self:are we right? Doctor said, "You are suffering from cancer." After knowing diagnosis, name of cancer then what we really feel power, god or fear? The dilemma is hovering in our mind. Who is telling the truth? It is very hard to attain clean philosophical solution because too much soot.
There is plenty of space to do contemporary discourse/criticism in power theory. I have chosen power and related matters because these are face to face core matter of fearism.
Key critic notes;
a. Physically fear starts from amygdala, which is first developed part among four parts of human brain. Amygdala is a primitive part; its main function is look after processing threats and modulating fear quantum. There is no special part in brain to look after power.
b. Amygdala generates amygdalary fear and amygdalary fear constructs structures of man, society and nation.
c. Source of power is existence of fear, it precedes essence,discipline, punishment, prison, control, Juridical and repress, resistance, apparatus, biopower, and ethic etc. USA has fear with enemies, then stores powers and bombs fear based on fear.
d. Power is primary dialectic of fear.
e. Civilization history starts from stone tools and civilization is history of fear struggle.
f. Consciousness- knowledge- social consciousness self (person like house)
g. Source of production is fear (termination, lose income, dark future etc.)not power.
h. Power remains until it creates fear. We have seen dictators, countries, Institutions, law and heads of institutions. People feared with them until they had power, when public stopped to fear they became powerless and collapse.
i. Relation of government, society run in circle of fear but family runs opposite pyramid of fear.
j. Power hierarchy is dominated by double fear hierarchy (i.e., Fear System).
k. Concept of Plato's 'Gyen Ring' was image for fear purpose.
l. Scientific, cultural, political, religious truths were established using fear. Hitler's truth, Roman Catholic's truth, gender truth, myth truth, Hindu truth, Muslim truths were established by fear. The sun revolves around the earth was religious truth. When Giordano Bruno said, "The earth revolves around the sun" he got execution for punishment(i.e., bringing out the hidden fear of knowledge in The Church). This punishment was not just showcase of execution; it was fear for them who dare to challenge Catholics.
When Giordano Bruno said, "The earth revolves around the sun"
he got execution for punishment
m. Does prison just keep prisoners at jail? No, it has more duties and responsibilities. It is for creating fear [not in excess] to all who are against the law. When every citizen is afraid of punishment, prison, law, then people enjoys happy, peace and success.
n. In many communities people not openly express sex, method of sex, enjoy of sex, effect of sex because of cultural, religious, traditional, legal fear. If fear is open, everybody enjoys talking and doing.
o. In the structuralism god, myth, will, desire, pleasure were decider for society, nation structure and reform etc. Myth, God, will. pleasure and desire were replaced by power theory of Foucault in post-structure. Silence fear has active role in decision making and truth making process. Many structures were made in keeping silence fear. Silence fear may require power or not, depends on situation. He said structure of society, nation is decided by power but I said from the lens of fearism, it is not decided by power it is decided by fear.
Some witness of fears first or power;
The god realm is the biggest realm in human life. The god is delivered by fear not by power. It proves that most of structure is decided by fear.
Do you know appearance of disease is like a light? When click a light switch on, light disperses everywhere in the room likewise when disease spread out in society, it disperses in insulin, medicine, doctors, treatment centers etc.
External looks like power circle, internal circle is fear circle. Fear circle is heart circle. Power is based on fear, but fear is based on fear.
This is a fear circle of family. Mother and child fear with father, child fear with father and mother. In this circle father's power is preserved in his traditional, physical, patriarchy, income and culture. When he became old and retired, no income, nobody fears with him. Child grows up, becomes strong and earns then, father starts fear with son. Same case is repeating again. Power is parasite and dependent upon fear. Fear depends on fear not in power.
Every action of the human being is conducted by fear and existence of fear precedes essences. Fear of killing, murder, violence insists to law, court, and prison is fear and binary powers. So I put them as binary powers. Government/power of government, court/ power of court, police/power of police is simple examples of binary power. But it is not extended like fear. We cannot say power of sick, power of unconscious etc. because sick man and unconscious has no power.
Most cases binary power and binary fear goes side by side. Power of government means fearing power. Government's binary is power of government. Under it there is binary fear. Practically we never use power of unconscious but we use fear of unconscious.
Binary fear, I mean every position has fear even transgender e.g. transgender/fear of transgender, computer/fear of computer, life/fear of life, Happy/fear of happy but we cannot find binary power everywhere. Sick has binary that is fear of sick. During the time of sickness, to make binary power that is power of sick is unreasonable because we never use power of sick and it never happens.
Lower caste, race, transgender, poor people, workers, colonized countries why they didn't exercise power because they were the place of using the power.North Korea experiments new long range missile in the sea. Powerless people were same as sea. Power theory is one side of coin, other side is avoided.
The fearologists are the thinkers of other side which is dominated by power. Monarchy, bourgeois, high class and the priest exercised power over powerless. Power cannot use to powerful, power doesn't measure in power, it is measure machine is fear. If people more fear, it means more powerful. Super power dominates power and power dominates powerless. If over throw them from power of monarchy, high post and make them powerless, then what happens? If they have no power/post, first they experience fear. Power is like jokes of commander Nadir and Hitler. It is a joke that Nadir was brave army commander in the history but he never let friends to put hands on his shoulder because he feared his friends may kill him. Hitler was brave too but he hid in the bunker because he feared to die. Under the braveness (bravado power) fear is hidden fact.
Foucault argues power can be additional, subtract and make zero-sum. Zero-sum is utopia of power theory. How can exercise in the person or institution which is in bankrupt? Lower caste, colonized, sick person how can, they exercise power? Power theory is not on behalf of marginal and dominated people. Fear is the one either powerful or powerless it can add, subtract and divide. For example a person is sinking on the debt. How can power exercise because he is powerless and fear-based person? He has a fear of 10000 dollars. How can calculation by power? It can calculate by fear. 10000 can divide to make piece fear (installment), can be subtract to minimize, and face with creditor.
Generally social welfare can be promoted by the best management of fear.
According to Foucault life is power-centered. How? One man was standing bare, naked 2.5 millions year ago. He was in center of grass land, bust, wind, rain, animals and reptiles. He had a fear of much kinds-killing, starvation, sick, nature etc. This fear motivated him to tend to use stone, hut, stick, hide and pray. Fear provokes to develop more advance apparatus. As a result; ancestors developed technologies and reach in our age. So, life is not power- centered it is fear-centered. Fear is the best mechanism to normalized life. When fears minimize and reach to fearless condition that is normalization. We can say fear-based normalized society is the historical outcome. Apparatus are the technology tools of fear-centered life.
Foucault's power types are many kinds. Function of all power has almost same meaning that is work around fear-centre. This center must be magnet for all surroundings.
Micro level hard to convince it lays like unconscious. How can we prove quantum of unconscious it is almost same. Macro level can be somewhere like weather reports, traffic signal etc. Highly educated person has more knowledge than uneducated. In the sense of employment being educated is power but in the sense of atom bomb; it is opposite because educated has more knowledge of atom bomb. In most cases knowledge doesn't make powerful, it makes more fearful. This conclusion is not the typical one in philosophies and commonsense because they conclude “knowledge” is the vaccine against fear.
Fearism uses fearist lens. Foucault looks at humanity with a power(ist) lens, like so many others. We must ask critical ontological questioner: the existence of power precedes fear, or existence of fear precedes power? We are in a philosophical fearcourse (analogous to discourse); we always look at front and back reasons. Source of power was fear struggle, when our ancestors were in nomadic condition; they had many fears-external and internal. Even today humanity has big fear struggle. Fear struggle is a new machine which builds, grinds handsome society and individual. Origination of fear goes back to first step of civilization, earlier than stone tool. Stone tool was first power invented by man over animals before birth of enemy. Later it was used to kill enemies. Basic need of power was fear of starvation, animals and enemies. Feudal system, industrial revolution, capitalism and communism are developed form of stone tools. One point is common in all ages and that is fear of hunger (the threat leading to dis-ease and death). Fear has diverse incarnations in different times. According to its needs it appears like incarnation of the Lord Vishnu. Sometimes it appears multi-hands octopus, sometimes multi-heads Narsinha (half man and half lion) and Vishvarupa (Universal form of Vishnu).
Under the fear it has many faculties. Fear births power and power birth fears. Fear is a mother of power and power births baby fears. Is it not only the case Sovereign power1757 tortures and execution of Robert-Francois Damiens who attempted to kill Louis XV? Is it not the case of disciplinary power of 1837 house of young prisoners in Paris ? Killing is the surface of fear; in womb it hides fear universe. Killings are paradigm of fears. In the Bible the Lord gives punishment to sinners and other people afraid to do sin. This is its own particular form of a systematic (fearology) psychology part.
Power of united workers in Marxism was to overthrow the bourgeois, power of Foucault was exercise throughout society, university, hospital, prison and school sectors. Field of fear is not limited, it is unlimited, in this sense. In fearism, fear is using fear in all living things.
I use this term 'death of fear' synonymous with terms of fearless.
Power theory cannot make fearless. It provokes more fear.
Good example of power is gun. Gun represents all powers (political, intellectual, money, discipline, rules etc.). First why do we keep gun? We keep gun because we fear somebody. Gun is our power. A targets to B. Gun is visible power, invisible power is fear. It has one visible target and multiple invisible targets. B must follow/order/discipline/law what A wants. If he not obeys, he will punish B. A has gun, he is powerful and B is fearful. If gun goes to B, B is powerful and A is fearful. If both are powerless, they are equal normalize. When balance of power goes to one side other side goes powerless (fear). Racial, communal, gender, religious, political, capital, colonialare using power and dominating (fear) other since thousands years. Power is like rolling stone which down from top to bottom. On the way it is suppressing, torturing, and killing powerless people.
I use this term 'death of fear' synonymous with terms of fearless. Power theory cannot make fearless. It provokes more fear.
Death of fear, we must ask, is it possible? Can death of fear be possible by power theory? No, it is impossible. Motive of power theory is to produce more fear and rule over innocent people and nations. It is against humanity. It can bring the curse of violence to humanity. Silent of fear has existed in society for million years. It is the mechanism to structure society and nation. Theory must be harmony and peace. Harmony and peace theory produces peace and happiness. At least, utopia of theory must follow towards peace and happy.
(Narsingha Killing Hirnyakasyapu)
Theory of Derrida's under erasure can be applied in Fear Studies. Under the world war, war is erased, but it is fear that continues as remnant on the mind of people. We can add upper erase, it is before war. Before war there is war cloud. War cloud gives upper erase fear. Upper erase, erase and under erase, before war, being war and after war gives war fear. Under war erase fear goes long, but it depends how fearful war was. In these stages, where is the place of power?
Sounds like alarm, siren and red color, warning, notice, threatening have silent fear. Sometime silent fear can appear in dangerous dog, high voltage, very steep edge, danger; some pictures of danger have silent fears too. We can see injurious to health, low fat, no sugar. Safety notice, items, accident, loss, fail, bad weather, heavy snow/rain also keeps silent fear. We have many safety precautions. Presence of silent fear is very silent. There are no such items to show silent of power.
Fear can be applied to subjects and objects but power cannot. We fear with Ebola. We are subjects here. We fear with Ebola. Ebola is object here. Again we fear with Ebola. How can power be applied here? We power with Ebola. wrong. Again we power with Ebola, wrong. Power cannot apply to subject and object. In Power as a subject sometimes use to threaten object.
(Octopus's main work is to protect master. )
Why do thinkers forget, Glaucon the older brother of Plato and founder of social contract? Glaucon discussed with Socrates regarding justice. He argued, "Every member of society has to follow principles and rules of society because it serves to maintain law and order in society. It keeps peace, security, happiness in society. Who doesn’t follow, he will be punished." Meantime he gave concept of Gyges Ring who has ring he doesn't fear of being caught. It was invisible ring. It is myth for ubiquitous hidden fear—invisible 99% quantum in the Fear System.
This article is edited by Dr. R. Michael Fisher
https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-knowledge/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tOf5XuURno&t=39s
https://michel-foucault.com/key-concepts/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X31ayDsG67U&t=6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tOf5XuURno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhfMMx0i1wM
