Dr. Sheldon Solomon, one of the co-founders of Terror Management Theory, recently sent me this info. on this book out last year (he also wrote a book endorsement), in which it looks quite interesting as a synthesis of several streams of thought and practices--ultimately, it puts "fear" in a pretty important category in terms of fear management and social change. I'm ordering it and look forward to see also what it has to say about fearlessness(?)
Update: (Sept. 20/24) I bought and scanned the book (author is professor J. K. Rowe, Univ. of Victoria, BC) as I usually do, and within a few hours I could see the biases of the book's constructions. I wrote the following informal brief review and it is now posted up on amazon.ca (here is a copy of it):
Reviewed in Canada on September 21, 2024
I like Rowe's research systematization, his sincere realness and practicality but always leaves room for diverse philosophical and critical theory speculations and even some reasonable doubt: "If these thinkers [he draws on for back-up for his thesis] are correct, then mind-body practices that can access and transform these deeper fears are central to social justice, not merely a helpful add-on" (p. 11). Great!
As a critical integral fearologist, I also don't want add-ons to how we best understand and manage fear. I want radical new contexts, paradigms, worldviews to be explored and co-created so that we don't just look at the "White Problem" (aka Dominance Problem) as Rowe calls it--which I would call "Fear Problem" and end up not getting deep enough to the "roots" (i.e., the radical). I'm disappointed Rowe goes from talking about existential fear and its (mis-)management as culprit to White Supremacy (for e.g.) and ends up talking about "deeper fears" or "existential fears". As a fearologist I see this mistaken categorical error too often, and Rowe makes it (e.g., on p. 11).
So much to gain for this good book, but fearologically it lacks depth and theoretical and philosophical rigor--in terms of problematizing the conceptualization of "fear" itself. He has not cited my 35 years of research and publishing on an "ecology of fear" and other notions, and Rowe falls into the typical mindfulness discourse of psychologism more or less, even despite his interest in philosophy to help him articulate his thesis. He uses a basic (social) psychology of fear instead of a more holistic-integral formation of study that "ecology of fear" and "fearology" can bring to the root problems in our societies--and, with these latter notions, "fear of death" does not get the hyper-focus that Rowe falls into. This limits what he can offer to the human Fear Problem globally. To be short on this critique, I would rather he take his ecological and environmental studies background, and re-frame the very psychology of fear discourses (especially, that the Eurocentric traditions have historically left us with)--and, rather pursue a radically radical ecology of fear model (or meta-theory) where "death denial" (his conceptual focus) is put into an ecological relationship with a dynamic of equally potent "other denial", "nature denial," "body denial," "Real denial" (psychoanalytically) and "fear denial" --yes, the latter is essential because a lot of evidence points to the growing fear of fear itself--and mis-construing of fear management systems accordingly. Rowe simply accepts standard (mostly Eurocentric) notions of fear itself and proceeds along a psychology of fear instead of an ecology of fear. That's disappointing. I look forward to more discussions with him and his colleagues on this really important political theory revisioning he is onto --but mindfulness tends to high-jack things ultimately, in my experience--that is, when it comes to getting beyond hegemonic discourses on fear itself. I really wish also he would have written about "fearlessness" as it relates to "fear" (dialectically and otherwise) but he seems only to have used that term once (p. 1) where he classifies Dylan Thomas' (artist of book cover image) grandmother as having "fearlessness" towards her life/dying/death. There is an entire study of "gift of fearlessness" cultures in the East that Rowe has ignored, which is too bad, as we search for cultural tools to help us in these terrifying times.
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