"Professor" - (detail) mixed media on paper, wood panel, 16x20 in. -R. Michael Fisher (c)2024
Art(s) and aesthetics as means of expression and evolutionary development of consciousness are my constant practices and interests and I often blend that with my study of fear/fearlessness. This artshow "A Lot To Do About Nothing" is Aug-29- to Sep. 1/24, @ Denny's Gallery, Nanaimo, BC. I wanted to share my updated CVArt RMF.DOC here for anyone interested in my art career.
Go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8xISZRzxLk
For Dr. Narvaez's 2024 article (that we talk about in the video above), download narvaez-2024-returning-to-evolved-nestedness-FINAL PROOF.pdf
HEY YA'll... I'm excited to share this link with you where I am interviewed by Integral Stage podcast (and Layman Pascal) 2024... as we talk about many things but focus in on the current USA election politics and the past, present and future of Marianne Williamson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9FE5ObwcEs
"Fear is beautiful Consciousness" (Desh Subba)
It's my immense pleasure to meet today with An esteemed retired DGP (Director General of Police ).
I'm Thankful to Mr. Desh Subba sir (FearismStudy Center, Dharan, Nepal) for introducing me Mr. Maria B sir.
Desh Subba and Maria B are very knowledgeable, keen, kind and Down to earth personalities.
Desh Subba is the leading Fearism spokesperson in the East, and Co-founder of the Fearism Study Center (Dharan, Nepal, 2009).
Subba has published his first book " Philosophy of Fearism " (2014), He started Fearism as a literary movement in 1999 with fiction and in 2011 with line poetry.in his service subba has achieved International Book Award (2015, Finalist), Dr. Shyam Karki and Indira karki Award in 2015 and National Indie excellence Award (Winner , 2015) and many more.
Mr Maria B who is a honorable retired DGP from Madhya Pradesh, India has gained many achievements during his service. In his service he was deputed by the Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI, in 1996 to Visit British Police establishment, in london to explore the possibility of training collaboration between UK Police and Indian police.
Maria B was honored with Sahitya shree Award, Vidhya vachaspathi , Acharya, and Bharat Basha Bhushan Award, and many more...like Indian Police medal (GOI), president's Police Medal (GOI), Singhast Medal (MP, govt) and Raj Basha Gaurav ( Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI).
Maria B has been contributed and still on going in contributing his knowledge regarding fearism and other aspects which are nation facing issues to the newspapers like Andhra Prabha, Times of India, Telangana today...
Both Maria B and Desh Subba are very actively connected with philosophy of Fearism and have published many books together.
To understand the subject Fearism, we must need to understand what is fear??
Subba has beautifully described fear that "Fear has completely surrounded all living creatures, especially man, all things, natural things, human beings, and invisible things produce fear all the time.
The fearist perspective is a new dimension to look at life and the world. The question strikes the mind, how does the Fearist perspective look at life and the world ?
The purpose behind fearism is to conduct continuous research, investigated invention in order to make life more comfortable.
To understand more about fearism the following books will be helpful which has been published by Desh Subba and Maria B.
1. Philosophy of Fearism by Desh Subba
2. India, A Nation of Fear and Prejudice: Race of the third kind - B Maria Kumar, R. Micheal Fisher and Desh Subba
3. Fear, Law and Criminology- critical Issues in Applying the Philosophy of Fearism- R. Micheal Fisher, Desh Subba, B Maria Kumar
4. Hidden dimensions of Human existence - A fear fearlessness perspective. -R. Michael Fisher, B Maria Kumar
5. Resistance Fearlessness: A Philosophy of Fearism Approach- B Maria Kumar, R. Michael Fisher
6. Philosophy of Fearism: A first East-West dialogue. -R. Michael Fisher, Desh Subba
FOR MORE INFO: go to https://www.swc.edu/dr-r-michael-fisher-phd/
A volume in the series: Studies in the Philosophy of Education. Editor(s): John E. Petrovic, The University of Alabama.
In Press 2023 and for sale: Information Age Publishing
The author, with over three decades of focused research on fear and fearlessness and 45 years as an emancipatory educator, argues that philosophy and philosophy of education have missed several great opportunities to help bring about theoretical and meta-perspectival clarity, wisdom, compassion, and practical ways to the sphere of fear management/education (FME) throughout history. FME is not simple, nor a luxury, it is complex. It’s foundational to good curriculum but it requires careful philosophical critique. This book embarks on a unique transdisciplinary understanding of The Fear Problematique and how it can be integrated as a pivotal contextual reference for assessing the ‘best’ way to go in Education today and tomorrow. Educational philosophy is examined and shown to have largely ‘missed the boat’ in terms of responding critically and ethically to the insidious demand of having to truly educate ourselves when we are so scared stiff. Such a state of growing chronic fear, of morphing types of fear, and a culture of fear, ought to be central in shaping a philosophy of fear(ism) for education. The book challenges all leaders, but especially philosophers and educators, to upgrade their own fear imaginary and fear education for the 21st century, a century of terror likely to grow in the cascading global crises.
CONTENTS
Preface.
CHAPTER 1: Introduction.
CHAPTER 2: Philosophy and a Fearturn.
CHAPTER 3: Education Philosophy 'Misses the Boat.'
CHAPTER 4: Fear(ism) as Philosophy: A Transformative Paradigm.
CHAPTER 5: Fear Management/Education for the 21st Century.
CHAPTER 6: Fearlessness as Educational Philosophy.
CHAPTER 7: Recommendations.
Glossary. References. Index.
As some of you may know, and others not, I have been studying systematically the essence of reality, and Truth, Beauty and Goodness since my early twenties. I pursued much of that way of knowledge as a "naturalist" and "life scientist" and Darwinian evolutionist--but my curiosity always led me into other fields beyond biology and natural history and then into the interior depths of psychology and philosophy, mythology, spirituality, arts/aesthetics and so on. At age 71, I can reflect on these travels I have made into Knowledge, Knowing and Understanding. I am an integrator of 'big synthesis' patterns within patterns and connections within connections...
Okay, there's my brief bio, rather informally of why I become a "fearologist" eventually, as to be then equally interested in "fearlessness." The Fearlessness Movement is one of the terms I have coined along this journey of journeys to invent and discover 'better' ways to live on this planet. This beautiful earthly existences of course is also filled with suffering and construction and destruction are part of our everyday experience. I am well aware not I, nor ideology, nor ideals and wishes can change the fact that 'I' am not in control, nor is anyone else nor is our social structures and cultures. Therefore, with all these things in mind as backdrop to the play... Let me very briefly introduce you to my Big Four Inventions (again, they are really discoveries, uncoveries, models, theories, practices, ethics)--all part of my growing and developing a generative and healthy philosophy of LIFE.
Note: The below summaries are only bare minimum sketches (I have included some resource links to my work that goes into them more deeply)
These are somewhat linear and historically accurate in their 'evolving' to the surface as expressions (findings)--yet, I am well aware that my inner creative and emergent thought around these four inventions are highly interconnected and no one comes before the other).
INVENTION ONE (1982-3): Uni-Bicentric Theorem
Although I did not know what to call this theorem (which was a drawing at first), in the early stages, it was a mock-up image of FLOW in the universe (or, more accurately, the Earthly world experiential and theoretical relationship to the Universe). I was in a sense ready and searching for a big pattern to 'map out' and display of how things flow in an order of things, you could say. That the universe, and our experience as humans (and all living things, perhaps even non-living things) does operate in a pattern, not chaos in any total or random sense, but there 'is order' to what is going on. My entire eco-biological and natural history observing and study prior to 1982 was steeped in this admiration for 'design' in Nature--and yes, for 'intelligence' in Nature. I loved that with passion, and found it beautiful, true and good, in some sense. But it was only in this 1982-3 period when I first discovered the philosophy of Ken Wilber. I did not know anything about him and his work at the time. I discovered one book, and I saw a diagram in it of the Flow of the Universe (from an interior perspective of consciousness). Wilber is primarily a Zen (and beyond that) consciousness theorist and practitioner and had published many works since 1972. And, it was seeing this one diagram he had in the book that made me study it and modify it over several years, but ultimately it came back to the same place. I was also influenced by the philosophy of the 'seer' Rudolf Steiner and Carl Jung (to name a few) prior to 1982, and "pattern" as "form" and deep within the invisible interior of consciousness and evolution, this was really interesting to me. I am always looking at "form" of things not just content on the surface. The diagram I stuck with was a great 'story' of how LIFE and HUMAN existence (in particular) goes through patterns, some healthy, some pathological.
The basic resource (form) of this is articulated on the FM ning (and other places, e.g.): https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/blog/reconfigurations-of-the-love-fear-problem
As you can see, I was later to add "Love vs. Fear" problem to the original diagram of the Flow.
INVENTION TWO (1984): Thought Experiment A-ness/D-ness
After massive study of many fields of knowledge, and a deeply engrained and instinctual attraction to aesthetics/arts and making, I came finally to a way to depict a lot of the intellectual and philosophical and value problems I saw that were 'killing us' here on this planet. It was the year 1984 per se, as I recall, when I was attracted to put my artistic skills together with a method of "philosophical" work, more specifically often referred to as a "thought experiment." I was thinking in meta-patterns (meta-cognitively), and attempting to understand general ways of creation-making (i.e., of solving problems, of creating solutions): "How would God (a Creator) go about creation object x?" The most simply object x (standing for literally anything), would be simplified in this thought experiment to something I could draw and color with simple art materials (e.g., colored pencil and paper--later, I added black felt pen and ruler). I won't go into the long description and subtelty here of what all transpired but I basically was able to arrive at only four (paradigmatic) distinctly different ways of coloring and drawing a rectangular shape (i.e., object x). I have displayed this as a model called A-ness/D-ness (visual metaphoric assessment tool) in many publications and talks over the years. You can search the FM ning site in the upper right corner search box "A-ness/D-ness" or just "A-ness" or "D-ness" alone and it should bring up some more information for you to get a better flavor of this first of my discovery/inventions--and, in many ways, I think it is my best one overall in my career as a thinker/designer/inventor/educator. You of course, may or may not find this so interesting. It has never been to me without a great curiosity of all that it can teach us humans.
Some links to more on A-ness/D-ness (e.g.): https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/blog/fearless-intimacy-an-aesthetic-assessment-tool
INVENTION THREE (1990s-2000s): Love-Fearlessness-Fear Trialectic
This is an invention hard to pin down to an exact date of appearance but it was most importantly post-ISOF. I mean after the arising spontaneously of my co-visionary experience with Catherine in late 1989. We birthed the In Search of Fearlessness Project (ISOF). It was to be a counter movement to undermine the Fear Project (as I called it then) and to offer new vision for a better way to live e.g., "path of fearlessness." That's a long story to be found elsewhere for those who search for it. The more refined theory that came (again, a model of meta-patterning of the way Life works)--came as a trialectic model of Love vs. Fear as the problem I was trying to solve. It's a long time problem in the wisdom traditons not unsimilar to the Good vs. Evil problem on this planet. Anyways, the short of this invention came by using the Uni-Bicentric "form" (see Invention One) and combining it and creating a simplified relationship between Love, Fearlessness, Fear --as dialectical and trialectical as a dynamic of growth and development (of movements in life forms)--and, underlying this was to assert that the "path of fearlessness" is extremely important to understand if we want to shift the world from a world dominated by and toxified by fear-based living with love-based living. Again, this is an ethical project and fearlessness was the key, I thought to solving the binary division of Love vs. Fear.
Some links to more on this trialectic (e.g.): https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/blog/fisher-s-four-paradigms-human-condition
INVENTION FOUR (2000's onward): FEARANALYSIS
Fearanalysis is probably my most basic invention, and it is a take-off variant of psychoanalysis. Fearanalysis is my unique way of studying fear(ology)(ism). I have been since late 1989 and co-founding In Search of Fearlessness Project (another fifth invention really), and a Research Institute by that same name, always looking to develop a new and needed (critical) methodology to study fear (and fearlessness). Every other discipline and approach to studying fear that I had found in the literature, was inadequate to my mind. This is still so to this day. So, I'll call it fearanalysis as my fourth big invention, with a closely related term feariatry (see below).
Some links to more on this (e.g.,): https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/blog/fearanalysis-2-wilber-s-induction-to-terror-management-theory
https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/photos/feariatry-and-tmt
***
Some people have asked about my most updated cvRMF2024.doc (professional academic resume). So, I will make it available here. I have also an CVArt RMF.DOC
Note 1. WIKIPEDIA buffs out there, you may want to create a Wikipedia page on my name and/or "Fearlessness Movement," or "In Search of Fearlessness Project". This still needs to be done in order to recognize this fearwork for historical purposes in a vast encyclopedia form. [p.s. I'd be happy to help organize this but someone else will have to take it on as a project and ; contact: r.michaelfisher52 [at] gmail.com
Note 2. Also for Wikipedia there is a need for pages on "Fearology" ; some other links on the FM ning show some of the early work I did in 2015- onward trying to start a Fearlessness Movement Wikipedia entry; go to for e.g.: https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/blog/new-wikipedia-entry-fearism
and https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/forum/fearlessness-movement-wikipedia-version-summary
FEARIATRY, is a play from the book of "psychiatry"--as an overt word-game and conceptual connection between the two. "Feariatry" first coined by Desh Subba, the founder of philosophy of Fearism (see his 2014 classic book), knew on the one hand exactly what he was expressing with this 'call' to begin a new theory, study and practice of feariatry that would complement, if not some day replace, psychiatry as we know it. On the other hand, he did not know what feariatry would actually shape out like, and he wasn't going to lead that formation.
Subba is no psychiatrist or psychologist, and this raises the question: Who is he to be so rebelliously confident that the entire domain of psychology and psychiatry need to change?--and more so, need to transform their very identity and ways. It's a grand sweeping gesture for anyone to make. I loved it when I read it and had already intuited in my own work on fear and fearlessness that, indeed, there was something fundamentally wrong with these two fields and the BioMedical Paradigm they rely on, that is, if we ever want to truly have liberated humans and societies on this planet. Like Subba (and others), I was a quiet advocate for years to revision psychiatry and psychology--as they are accepted legitimate in the mainstream and by the State. In fact, they are 'the State' and its long-arm of intervention into how human beings 'should be' and how they should be fixed when they are no longer 'normal' (i.e., how they should be). This for me, is a very contested territory, and reaks with ideologies of "normal" and the control systems to maintain such. Yes, a politics of psychiatry and psychology cannot be ignored, in our search to better understand human behavior, etc.
I encourage people to read the reasons for Subba (2014) making the claim for a lot of changes in concepts, fields of inquiry and disciplines because of his discovery of the core nature and role of fear in life and human life in particular. Philosophy of Fearism was his beginning articulation of that primacy of "fear" and the valuation imperative that discovering fear as such one ought to revise everything--even change our language which has gone away from acknowledging this primacy of fear (e.g., see also the fearist Samuel Gillian's (2002, 2005) work on this loss of fear from the English language as a cover-up of distortion due to mind conditioning, propaganda and ideologies). The primacy of fear is the central philosophical and theoretical driver behind Subba, and myself, and our work in fear management/education.
BACK TO SUBBA and a fearism perspective (a fearist lens)--and, one now is reconfiguring psychiatry and psychology--based on the fear findings. It is a new awareness, a new paradigm of fear, that is being 'called' to bring about a better (hypothetically) psychiatry and psychology to the 21st century. I have totally got on board with this project too. FEARIATRY is particularly intriguing to me. You may search that term in the upper right box of the FM ning and you'll see some of my posts on feariatry over the years.
BACK TO PSYCHOANALYSIS--AND OTTO RANK (a post-Freudian psychoanalyst and theorist)-- as I have always liked Otto Rank since my reading of his work in the early 1980s, and off and on, I am now reading his 1941 book "Beyond Psychology" (also once named, in the text "beyond individual psychology"--but he also meant beyond social psychology as well)-- the Preface and first chapter pages of this book are intriguing. I kept writing in the margins just tonight that "this sounds like a good place to start a theory of feariatry" --and so on. Indeed, I find a good deal of his thought, experience and theorizing fascinating as grounds for a fearist-revisionist accounting of what psychiatry and psychology need to change. I will do another blogpost on this soon, but just wanted to give you all a heads-up, and to get you maybe starting to think about Feariatry with some seriousness--as it is one of the least developed paths/areas/pillars under the Philosophy of Fearism and Fearology trajectory (i.e., Subba-Fisher's work)...
A small hint: Rank is very big on bringing back to center (or at least to 'balance') "irrational" [1] along with "rational"--and, he believes that is the only way to human health, sanity and a good life worth living. He is a psychoanalyst who actually undermines psychoanalysis (and psychology generally) by the time he wrote this last very honest and penetrating critique in 1941--his last book before he died. For me, I see his 'call' for "beyond psychology" as exactly a route to foreshadowing a "feariatry" (and fearanalysis), etc. But Rank saw through this problem, and named "fear" and "fearless" as key players in his revisioning--so that very much excites me. Again, I'll write out more and cite his work in another blog soon.
End Note
1. By "irrational" he means just the same as "the natural" (e.g., "natural self"); in my theorizing, with my partner Dr. Barbara Bickel, we often call this "arational."
Here is a brief look at the Table of Contents for my new book coming out in the next few months, published by Xlibris. Thanks to support from Desh Subba. My goal with this project was to create a 100 pp. book as a basic introduction to most of the important aspects of the philosophy of Fearism as it has evolved to today. I look forward to sharing more of this book in little bits and creating discussion around it in the months ahead. Glad to share this sneak preview with you here:
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION: What’s in a Name?, Why Focus on Fear(ism)?
Time For a Primer on Philosophy of Fearism
The Search for Fear-Plus
Fearism Complicates Fear
Risking to Care Deeply for Fear
Fearism: A Mixed History
Fisherian Fearism
Subbaian Fearism
Subbaian-Fisherian Fearism
Founders: From Dyad to The Triad
Desh Subba
Samuel Nathan Gillian Jr.
Vignettes of the Three Philosophers: Discovering Fearism
What Philosophers Would Think of Fearism?
A Few Fearists’ Imperatives
A Few Theories Within Fearism
Some Philosophical Assumptions and Principles
Some Critics of Fearism
FEARIST’S QUOTES
Basic References
Brief Glossary
Index
Glad to announce this new book, initiated and led by B. Maria Kumar and most of his essays, and I respond to them. (Indra Publishing House, 2022)
I think readers will find us as two fearists in a creative exchange that was a lot of fun for me to be involved. One may even learn something new about the "human" from this book.
To Listen to this 40 min. interview go to: https://noliesradio.org/archives/172012
[RMF note:] Likely THE MOST COMMON assumption in looking at the “great divide” of ontology, epistemology and axiology in world history, especially in the historical era of documenting human behavior, is probably the divide between “materialist” vs. “spiritualist” worldview perspectives. Much of philosophy and theology has been particularly involved in this debate. In many ways each of us lives out this dynamic, more or less consciously, each and every day--influencing who we think we are and what is most important. It ought not be ignored today as still very complex and important in our growth and development processes.
More and more others (like Luke Barnesmoore) are questioning the structure of that debate itself and re-visioning a more useful, and arguably more “nasty” debate that we ought to be having in terms of going from an ‘old story’ to a ‘new story’ of human reclamation and re-building a ‘new’ society that is truly sustainable. Barnesmoore, over several years of his graduate work on philosophy intersecting with geography and his own contemplative experiential journey of discoveries has synthesized a somewhat coherent way to categorize the distinction he thinks is crucial to the future of our species and to guide the necessary changes in our worldviews that then will help change our behaviors individually and collectively. I think there is much merit to his work, and, most particular I am interested in his adoption of the “Fearlessness” and “Fear” distinction(s) he often makes, which are evident below:
“The Natural Worldview: 1. The order of (human) nature is inherently good. 2. Natural order as the basis for virtue and wisdom. 3. Order through emulation of natural order. 4. Power with. 5. Order through reciprocal collaboration between sun (breath, active, relatively masculine1516 [from the finite human perspective], pollen, sperm, mind, etc.) and moon (blood, latent, relatively feminine [from the finite human perspective], flower, egg, emotion, etc.). 6. Rooted in being. 7. Deliverance through return to natural order. 8. Fearlessness (love) as guiding principle of action. (Four Arrows)
The Artificial Worldview: 1. The order of (Human) nature is inherently evil (sic. fallen). 2. Natural order as the barrier to virtue and wisdom. 3. Order through domination (sic. ‘improvement’, ‘completion’, ‘destruction’, etc.) of natural order. 4. Power over. 5. Order through hierarchical domination of moon17 (blood, latent, feminine, emotion, etc.) by sun (breath, active, masculine, mind, etc.). 6. Rooted in privation of being. 7. Deliverance through conquest and colonization (Warrior 1989) of the ‘other’ (sic. the natural, the feminine, the heart, etc.). 8. Fear as guiding principle of action. (Fisher and Barnesmoore 2018)”
[Note: “Where the above tables attempt to differentiate between the Artificial-Domineering Worldview that extends back through the history of hierarchical civilization and the Natural-Indigenous Worldview so as to illustrate that the essential worldview divide is not along the line of spiritual-materialistic but along the line of whether order is to be manufactured through hierarchical domination (the Colonial Modernist materialism that rose out of the hierarchical domination side of this essential worldview divide has surely increased the stratification between the natural and indigenous worldviews, but this was not the original divide)...” (Barnesmoore, p. 18-19).]
Reference Cited: Fisher, R. M., & Barnesmoore L. 2018, “Hierarchical security: Problem of fear of the Eternal”, In R. Michael Fisher, D. Subba & B. M. Kumar, Fear, Law and Criminology: Critical Issues in Applying the Philosophy of Fearism, Australia: Xlibris.
Title: Nomadic Explorations V1: Essays in the Craft, by Luke R. Barnesmoore Founder/Co-Director, UBC Urban Studies Lab Founder/Executive Director, Center for Critical Interdisciplinary Studies PhD Student, UBC Department of Geography. This V1 is available at:
Author Trio:
B.Maria Kumar, R.Michael Fisher & Desh Subba
Here’s the book back-cover note:
“So many nations today, large and small, are faced with compelling global and local circumstances, breaking acute crises, and lingering long-term chronic problems that demand leaders and followers to cope as best they can. However, there’s a growing suspicion in most everyone’s minds—from the higher classes to the lower classes, across races, religions, and various differences—where there is a deep feeling that something big needs to change. From real threats and tragic events like violence, crime, wars, global warming, mass extinctions to more specific problems of population densities to health concerns and economic near-collapse, people know that living in fear is not a quality way to live. India is a unique and great nation, with its tragic realities in the past and present, haunting its future. B. Maria Kumar, born and raised and having worked all his career in the streets, knows India well and knows what needs to change. He writes from great intellectual acumen, an understanding of history and mythology, and with vision for a better India. He has invited two colleagues to respond to his analysis of problems and solutions, each of them (Subba, a Nepali philosopher and poet living in Hong Kong, and Fisher, a Canadian philosopher and educator) to respond to his views. This book brings a trifold synthesis of how the nature and role of fear is critical to the shaping and destiny of India. Not enough development theories or thinking have invoked “fear” as a major construct to analyze, as a new way to interpret culture, religion, policies, plans and governance overall across the world. India seems the perfect location to start a new critical and creative consciousness that sets goals that the three authors believe are essential for India to make progress into the twenty-first century. Growing insecurity, uncertainty, mistrust, and corruption that accompany them is no way to build a nation resilient for the major challenges coming. In the face of a daunting task, the authors step-up boldly into the dimension of vision and realities facing a nation. They don’t shy away from saying what needs to be named, for only then will such honesty clear a path of fearlessness forward. This book will serve as a guide for many in India and its allies to rethink the ways they have understood the problems in India’s development.”
This is the latest update (2018) of the diagram in Fisher & Subba (2016), Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue. We invite further ideas on this ever evolving integral model as we look for all the ways to apply the philosophy of fearism to large domains of societies and individual's lives. The latest addition is "Fearcriminalysis" (all issues to do with law and order). For full definitions of these all, you can consult our book for some, but there will be an upcoming FMning blog that will define these.
For full length article (and rest of this issue of Participation (journal) click onThe True Gift of Education
Over a year and half ago I sent a copy of these notes on working philosophical premises to Desh Subba, although he has not responded, I think they are still worth more inquiry, whomever is interested. I'm sure if I thought more about these today, I'd add more new ones, but this is lots for starters. As a serious scholar and proponent of the philosophy of fearism since late 2014, I wish to see more philosophy and less rhetoric, opinions, and such... as this philosophy is going to need a good deal of rigorous thought before it will be accepted seriously by an real philosophers or graduate courses today in higher education, and in the future. The aim I have is to make philosophy of fearism justifiable through testing it empirically, as well as arguing it rationally. The high gold standard in this I have witnessed over the years in watching Ernest Becker's existential philosophy be eventually translated into social psychology (i.e., terror management theory) and 'proven' that his philosophy has some valid truths that are very important to our world today.
PHILOSOPHY OF FEARISM: 9 Premises (version 1.0)
R. Michael Fisher, Aug. 18, 2015
[Note: none of these premises are fixed in stone; I chose them to build common ground in each of our diverse understandings of fearism and its philosophy; they are presented here only as working ideas to be changed and grown as we gain input from various sources/research, experience and good critiques.]
A philosophy of fearism has the basic agenda of raising conscious awareness of the nature and role of fear in our lives and helping us to understand it better, in order to improve the quality (happiness) in our lives along a path to potential “fearless” existence. To do so, claims are made, often with premises that are not yet fully examined—this is the underlying purpose of this philosophical exercise. Volumes could be written on any one or a few of the premises, and sub-sections, as well as the interconnectivity of all of them together. Other premises and sub-sections also exist and can be added, but this is at least a start of examining a core of them more closely.
Premise 1 – Fear actually is the predominant motivator of the foundational aspects of human existence/behavior.
1a. Should we not therefore build a philosophy (e.g., fearism[1]) around the predominant (if not, the greatest) motivator?
1a (i). What if Love is the predominant motivator? How do we know?
What implications do the Love vs. Fear dynamics portend?
1b. Humans are always, more or less, for better or worse, managing fear(s)
1c. If 1, 1a, 1b are true, then, what kind of fear management/education (and socialization and governance) is best suited to these truths?
Premise 2—Humanity, in general, is experiencing a precipice of extreme fear at this time in history, of which it is thought to be a most serious crisis that cannot be put off analysis without grave danger to our species and the planet’s ecosystems.
2a. What reliable and diverse (cross-disciplinary) sources can we accrue in order to reasonably invoke the crisis of the current Fear Problem, without panic?
Premise 3—The current state of knowledge about fear is inadequate to the demands of the Fear Problem, and this has caused a great deal of unnecessary suffering
3a. Philosophy of fearism is the best way to remedy this crisis and better than alternative philosophies, myths, religions and other ways of trying to manage
the Fear Problem—in that sense, how can we justify a “dephilosophy” agenda within the current philosophy of fearism critique?
3b. Contradictions in our society’s general knowledge of fear need to be revealed and arguments (based on the philosophy of fearism) made that
respond to them and “correct” them if possible
3c. Where is the philosophy of fearism most weak, philosophically? and/or scientifically?
3d. How can a philosophy of fearism self-reflexively “correct” itself in order to avoid becoming an ideology (embedded in ideologism)?
Premise 4—A philosophy of fearism is unique (and important) because it recognizes the Fear Problem not merely as an individual psychological problem, but as
central to evolution itself and developmental conceptualizations of human nature, the human condition and human potential.
4a. As with some other perspectives, a philosophy of fearism accepts there is no one and only right definition or meaning of fear, but it is multiple and will
likely always be such.
4b. What is a substantive ontology of fear that is useful to, and consistent with the defining and making meaning of fear within a philosophy of fearism agenda?
4c. What is a rigorous epistemology of fear consistent with the philosophy of fearism agenda?
4d. What is a rigorous axiology of fear consistent with the philosophy of fearism agenda?
4d(i). How do we know whether fear is positive or negative in value?
4e. the dialectical nature of fear and fearlessness ought to be understood within the evolution of the global concept of a “spirit of fearlessness” and the world’s
Fearlessness Movement(s)[2]
Premise 5—The critical determining unit (expression) of “fear-based” brings forth the ethical axis upon which the philosophy of fearism rests in terms of usefulness
for discernment of quality, if not liberation.
5a. Is there a way to accurately discern and evaluate “fear-based” feeling, thinking, acting? If so, how? What practical applications as well?
Premise 6—Fear evolves (develops) “naturally” towards Fearless (i.e., a telos), at the level of individuals, groups, and entire eras of history
6a. We are currently (globally) in a peak of an “Extreme Fear Age”
6b. Is a philosophy of fearism a ‘natural’ response to the Extreme Fear Age?
6c. Is there a precedent for what we are going through in history, that may be useful to us as a global community?
6d. Is the East or West more matured (evolved) generally, to best assist us through this "Extreme Fear Age" (a la Subba)? Why?
6e. Are the less developed nations less fear-full than the developed nations? And Why? And, what implications does this have for world developmental theories and practices?
Premise 7: The evolution of consciousness, like fear, is moving toward a "Fearless Age" and Society (a la Subba)—not that it will occur all at the same time in the same
places but it is at least probably, expectable, but not totally inevitable.
7a. On what substantive, and diverse grounds, can such a positive claim of telos be defended by a philosophy of fearism?
7b. And on those same grounds, what arguments can be utilized to counteract the predominant discourses that suggest no such movement or telos exists?
Premise 8: The greatest fear is humanly created, in the mind, and thus, the greatest corrective to fear is humanly created, in the mind.
8a. On what substantive, and diverse grounds, can such a claim be made?
8b. And on those same grounds, what alternative arguments could also be put forward that are different but complementary to a philosophy of fearism?
8c. What alternative arguments would go against (and/or modify) Premise 8?
Premise 9: The philosophy of fearism (as currently articulated) is adequate to being called a legitimate, new, and essential philosophy to the betterment of
humankind and the earth ecosystems.
9a. What arguments are for this and what arguments are against accepting this
[1] Through out these premises, as building a defense for this philosophy, I am using Desh Subba’s (2014) version of a philosophy of fearism (sometimes, he refers to as a theory of fearism)—this, is an exercise intended to ferret out the thinking and support for claims he has made, of which I mostly agree but realize they need at times to be filled-out in creating a better convincing defense. My own theory of fearism-t is not included here.
[2] This is particularly (if not uniquely) important to Fisher’s philosophy of fearism conception based on the groundwork of his research on a philosophy of fearlessness.
I finally received a first published hard copy of my new co-authored book Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue (of which I have written previously on this FMning). I glanced it over and opened the book randomly at a few places and started reading. It's a little shocking to read one's own published work sometimes: "Who wrote that?" The overall impression is positive and that's a good sign. I happened to think (with all modesty and objectivity as I can muster) that there is no book more important on the topic fear and its management on the planet right now (that I know of). This short blog will say a few words (and quote from the new book) about why I think this is true. Btw, I thank my co-author Desh Subba (a Nepalese philosopher, novelist, poet) for his dedication to developing a philosophy of fearism and his openness to include me in that conceptualization and project. I see myself dedicating the rest of my working years (maybe 15 left until I'm 80) on this new philosophy.
So the pages I happen to open to at random come from Chapt. 4 (pp. 98-100) which is unique in the book because Desh encouraged me to re-vise but basically republish a 2014 essay I wrote on a "Theory of Fearism" (Technical Paper No. 51) (note: theory of fearism as distinct from, but related to, a philosophy of fearism). I begin with a Foreword to Technical Paper No. 51:
p. 98: "In Chapter 3 of this co-authored book there is a controversial message: "There is something wrong in the field of fear management" [a phrase I penned in my first major scholarly book The World's Fearlessness Teachings in 2010, p. xxvii]. I go on to talk about why we need various theories of fearism (mine, which I call fearism-t) in order to have a healthy philosophy of fearism, and from that a healthy set of practices of fear management (and fear education). Yes, I could just have easily written: "There is something wrong in the field of fear education" (i.e., fear education used in a positive way, analogous to sex education). So, how controversial is this claim? What do I back it up with?
Let me first say, the phrase "something wrong" is hyperbole in a sense to attract attention on a problem in the field of fear management. In retrospect, I am not sure this is a good way to get attention, because the very discourse of labeling something "wrong" is highly problematic in terms of its long history (especially in the West) of being a way to put something, some group, some policy, some person (and their behavior or values) down. It is a criticism. And it carries a lot of fear-based baggage (garbage, toxicity) that tends to easily slide from saying "something is wrong" to "someone is wrong" and I would not want to perpetuate such a notion. I think it is too partial of a claim and it tries to paint the entire reality of something or someone as "wrong" in an absolute sense. And, it immediately raises the question of who (and from what perspective) can anyone judge that anyone is wrong--same applies to something. The use of the label "wrong" (often with emotional discharge behind it) is clearly an attack to putting something down and "diss it", more or less. I won't go on and on with this but to say the use of the term (hyperbole or not) is a dangerous one of bringing more injury into human society--and that means concomitantly bringing more fear with it. Arguably, it is "fear talk" to blame, shame and make someone or something "bad" (the opposite of good, and it may even mean making it "evil").
So, I used the phrase as hyperbole, and I could have (more sensitively) said: There is something wrong in the field of fear management, even though there is a good deal of something right in the field of fear management. Then, that would be both more fair, and less re-stimulating of our hurts and fear itself. Especially, in that I am not intending to attack anything or anyone per se who practices fear management as a professional, theorist, etc. Nor, would I want anyone who teaches and designs fear management curricula to feel I am attacking them and their work and their motivation. Criticism alone is usually not very useful and does more harm than good. Critique however, in contrast to criticism, is when you point out the negative and positive at the same time, in proportion to a healthy engagement with someone, rather than trying to put them down. I intended to offer a critique in my new book re: the state of the field of fear management (or, equally of fear education). I think if anyone reads my books they will find I can get passionate and critical and even slip into criticism but that if they read on it is more critique I offer overall. But I'll leave others to assess my work overall, as I am too close to it to tell.
Returning to the point of this blog, I am taken with my clarity in the new book (scanning pp. 98-100), of how simple (and controversial) the message is that I have argued. It is worth repeating again but maybe I'll do it in a more readable way here in this blog. Things need to be said many times, and in many ways, in order to communicate. Sometimes a reader will hear it anew, from a different time and place and with some different language. As an educator myself, I am dedicated to not giving up on anyone, even when they tell me "I read your book and I don't really understand it." Okay, to the basic simple message in these couple pages, which really well represents my overall project--it all boils down to something like this:
1. there is something wrong in the field of fear management; and that is skewing how we understand best how to know fear and thus, manage it well
2. that something wrong (or missing) is ....... a "harmful violent ideology" (p. 98) that over-shadows the entire study of fear
3. a theory and philosophy of fearism (e.g., Fisher and Subba) can address this ideology and ensure a 'correction' to what is missing (wrong) in fear management
4. no one else has pointed out the above problems (gaps, errors, "something wrong" or missing), until now, in this new book .... etc.
Okay, there's the basics of the my work I am so passionate about. Would this excite anyone else, to the point where they would dedicate some time, or a lot of time to helping clarify the problem in the field of fear management (and, in every day life as we manage fear, more or less consciously)? With this new clarification, we could then develop interventions more healthy re: fear, and its study and management. We could create a re-evaluation of everything we think we know about fear, and run it all through a new deconstruction and reconstruction--that is, through a new theory and philosophy of fearism.
On p. 99, I have a sub-title: Fearism-t and Epistemic Violence: Reconstructing Fear Management. That speaks to a greater articulation of all of the above. And, about now, one gets the creeping feeling that this all is about to impact the way one perceives, thinks, and acts in regard to fear. That's pretty major in implication to our everyday life. That involves being a lot more consciousness and self-reflective (and critical) about everything to do with fear--and, especially what others tell you about fear (e.g., authors, teachers, parents, ministers, psychology clinicians, policemen, lawyers, government leaders, business corporate heads, and so on).
The simple notion is there. But will we talk about this further, or merely read about it? Will we talk about "a 'harmful violent ideology' surrounding the study of fear--and, in particular, the construction and dissemination of the knowledge about fear and its management and education" (p. 98)? Another way to put the problem is something like this:
A lot of authors/experts on the topic of fear management (and researchers) often say: It is not fear that is the problem, it is how we manage it that matters most. Such a claim has become ever-popular in layman and professional circles today. It is partially (in my view) good wisdom but to a point. I (and Subba) tend to stretch this quite a lot more to a critical perspective on that claim itself (which, btw, those who utter the above predominant wisdom of the day, never reflect on themselves and offer readers some opening (cautionary) of critical inquiry into the claim and its potential limitations, if not distortions--they seem to not be aware of a perspective beyond their own favorite one--which gets repeated by others who think like they do). So, on p. 98-100 in the new book, I offer another entirely different angle (and I think a much better one): The problem with fear and how we manage it is that we lack a critical awareness and vocabulary (i.e., guiding methodology) that operates outside of the fear-based structure of the field of fear management. And thus, we return to the 4 points I listed re: the basic problem--which, you can see is articulated much differently than the popular wisdom problem articulation above. Introducing a notion of a harmful violent ideology surrounding the study of fear--becomes a very simple but also complex intervention I throw into the soup pot. The main ingredient missing in the popular wisdom is a notion of fearlessness (but that's a much longer story, of which I write about in my other WFT book).
From this point forward, my work (and Subba's) is essentially different from anything else out there. It is also in that sense, critical of anything else out there. Now, in the long-run, time and experience will prove if it is better, as we both think it is. And, any such "proving" will only occur when others (beyond Subba and I) take serious interest with the necessary support of resources to help test the theory and philosophy of fearism. There's no doubt in our minds, that many theories and variations of philosophies are required to cover the huge territory of fear (and/or 'fear')--or what I like to simply call The Fear Problem today. So, I am not looking for only "followers" (yes, they are helpful for the cause), I am looking for allies who think critically (and have healthy doubt) about everything--including everything I just wrote in this blog!
Give me a call or email [618-529-1166 r.michaelfisher52@gmail.com] if you want to talk seriously (or even playfully)... and co-create with me and this work.
It has been an intense 10 mo. working on this new book Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue (2016, just published by Xlibris International). I have written a few prior times on this blog site about the book, and I just posted a photo and short write up as well. The following is going to be something more raw and fresh as I have been writing today about the 'birth' of this book, and how I see it is significant. I know everyone who encounters the book will make up their own mind about its significance. I hope you write me if you want to tell me and others what you think. This blog can be a location to document those conversations.
So, the writing about the book here is from my journal, writing unedited, and spontaneous for the most part:
On the simplest concrete level one merely sees an image of a book cover, Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue, and if they don't take time to dwell with it and better yet read it, they are going to likely be missing so much. It's a shame that will happen, inevitably, as I have known it to be the case with my other prior book, published 6 yrs ago (The World's Fearlessness Teachings). I wish I could be there to encourage everyone to dwell with this new book and see beyond the surfaces of words and images, and imagine deeper. It is troublesome I know for most to do so. Philosophy and fearism together as words, concepts, is a strange mix but then there is the purpose of the book, perhaps even stranger.
The book is intended to outline (epistemologically) the necessity for a new kind of philosophy (practical and social) that human history has not seen before, and in that light it is so incredibly radical. For me, a lifer-kind-of accomplishment. I am most curious what it will do for the reader, layperson, academic, philosopher but that is all unknown at this point, other than the few folks who reviewed the ms before publication. It is going to be an odd book for me in that I am interpreting Desh Subba's work a lot (Philosophy of Fearism, 2014) and he comes from another culture and part of the world (the East, Nepal, and living in Hong Kong)... he's a poet, novelist, writes in Nepalese... and all these factors, now, bring his work as a philosopher of that 'strange' part of the world into my life and writing and thinking... philosophizing... and this book is the outcome of all that, including my original work on a philosophy of fearlessness. But, now I return to think about the reader of this book. I realize now, which I didn't realize before when writing it, that this book is not so much for the individual. It is for the World Soul, the collective-social-communal aspect of our psychic-soul reality. It is hard to say that. I didn't write that in the book itself. But it is there.
Fear has never been treated at the center of a philosophy before, not anywhere near the extent as in this new book. It marks a new awareness and calling in the World Soul of which is mostly unconscious. It is important in that the time has arrived, as Subba and I have written for decades, to make fear this important. We are needing a new philosophy that recognizes this, and develops these ideas we present. We are in (as Subba says) an Extreme Fear Age historically, and collectively. That tells me of the 'pressure' that is building in the World Soul dimension. Feartalk is "ego-talk" and Fearlessnesstalk is "soul-talk"-- this book is all about the latter, and it is articulated, unbeknownst to most everyone, that it is crafted from a Fear Management System-7 (i.e., Integral). I also made sure this was the case in the gaze I brought to The World's Fearlessness Teachings book in 2010, and most everything I have written on the topic since 1989. But, most people will look to see what the book offers individually, and yet, that would mis-interpret the scale and register of the purpose of this book --for the World Soul.
How could writing a book for the World Soul, make a difference globally, as we are on the cusp (as Subba says) of a Fearless Age? These and many more questions are lurking in the new book, even if we don't bring them to the surface for discussion. I guess, that's what I am most curious about in the next months and years ahead as this 'soul child' of a book enters into the world and energizes the World Soul-- and, in that, the soul of which everyone cannot tap from their individuality to their collective meshworking... gravity, history, geography, and all the psychophysical and emotional and philosophical threads are there--and like a web of eternal time and space, perhaps, I believe (or am only guessing)--this book will hold a weight in that net--across time and cultures, universally... and ... and... and...
Words run out at this point... the World Soul does not operate on the Symbolic Code (the phallic lens)... and, now, it is all poetry, art, aesthetics... at least, for me and for those who may dwell with just the 'strange' combination and emphasis which this book brings forth now in human history (herstory)...
