[Prelude: the following is an excerpt from my spontaneous journaling and because of that I do not have all the references in here backing up what I am saying, as a scholar might do, and as I often do. Rather, I wanted to keep this less technical and formal and an expression of some of my intimate and philosophical thoughts as they run... feel free to contact me if you want more information and/or references. Note, most terms that have quote marks, especially when more technical terms, are the concepts of others, not my own]
Jun 2- the last full day of this trip to Winnipeg and my embedded relationships in the field space and mental-value epistemic space of what I would call the “Indigenizing Project” (which, in my own language is a part of the Fearlessness Movement and ISOF Project work for me. As you may recall the sixth ‘fear’ vaccine in the ISOF model was/is “Vision Quest.” Now, of course, these days in a postmodern and post-/neo-colonial critique, and hyper-sensitivity (dare I say “fear”) in identity politics land and politics, there is like zero-tolerance policies (nearly) floating in every which way to ensure that I as a “Westerner,” “Settler,” “White” “Eurocentric” "Male" "Heterosexual" person do not step over the line to enter into promoting a “Vision Quest” without "approval" of some Indigenous Elder or 'Indigenous' person (however, difficult and problematic those labels are, when it comes to issues of definition and authentication criteria, in the first place)--as anything other than a 'bad' thing (i.e., an act of violation called appropriation) from the point of view of that critique.
However, I am not going to be suppressed and oppressed by that critique and indictment alone, IF I think it is an oversimplified indictment without good evidence and without consulting me in the negotiation of that indictment, of which I am happy to give my case in equal argumentation, following the basic principles of a "Two-Eye Seeing" and “ethical space” argumentation.
I listen to the “appropriation” indictment, listen to it respectfully and engage it as much as the ‘other-side’ is willing; but I also do not adopt, necessarily, despite what the pc police would have me adopt and swear to, because I find typically their stance is still situated (Indigenous-Western) in a fundamentally postmodern response, if not a Romantic reaction (and retro-regression) response of cultural differentiation, protectionism, traditionalism, and an overall conservativism of the worst culturalism kind. I am much more interested in a philosophy of “cultural hybridity” as some scholars have carefully been arguing, along with a "trans(per)formative" approach to identity and pedagogy in general. The former traditionalism, with its odd postmodern garb, over-privileges an ontological and epistemological and axiological culturalism (primacy to the Cultural capital ‘C’ as meta-worldview) above and beyond the Natural and Spiritual domains—or what is intimately most accurately the Integral Standpoint (NCS) based on what I have argued in the Wilberian sense is a Fearless Standpoint Theory (FST). I believe this latter stance is the only way to ensure a freedom from epistemic violence perpetuated in under the flags of ideological reductionism that naturalism, culturalism and spiritualism are embedded in. In this sense, I am taking what Wilber has called a theocentric or kosmocentric perspective—which is something that the postmoderns and poststructuralists cannot stand and “hate” and will do everything in their power to maim and disavow credibility and integrity in the domains of knowledge-making and inquiry itself. Yes, my friends, this goes back to the “enemies of fearlessness” which I have argued all along soon after 1989.
I wish to write more of my own social philosophy of fearism, from FST and NCS, with its practical and theoretical threads, and in which the “Vision Quest” ‘fear’ vaccine is intended in these discussions to be revisited, extended, revised, as I have not given it the attention for some time. And in which I have come to see that my most recent work with Four Arrows (and the U of M Two-Eyed Seeing research team), is leading me to ask how it is that I can bring an Indigenizing lens (at least) to all of my conceptualizing, philosophizing, theorizing and practical work. Right off the top, is my interest to bring this to the ‘fear’ vaccines, and to an Indigenizing of the vision quest and a philosophy of fearism. The big debate that has to be worked through, not only in my own thinking, but so many others in and out of the Indigenous worlds, is how to define “Indigenizing” itself. That is what I think requires a lot of attention from me, at the least, before I proceed with the vision question and ‘fear’ vaccines. So, this is just a little ‘gem’ of my thoughts of late I wanted to share with you here at CSIIE for future inquiry and dialogues.
