Contemplative educator, Dr. Parker J. Palmer (1939- ) internationally famous and award-winning author/teacher/mentor of alternative and authentic education, has never impressed me with his understanding and teaching(s) on fear management/education. If anyone ought to be interested in "fearlessness" and the emancipation of teachers and school systems and parenting, it would be this guide. But, I find his work often brilliant and wise, and then quite dull and ignore-ant or reductionistic when it comes to the topic of "fear." I have long been one to embrace his work (like, "The Courage to Teach" in 1998, when he critically named the "culture of fear" in Education, especially in higher education at that time when no one else had done so from within the education system)--see his Chapter 2 in that book. But, then I tried reaching out to him several times to explore fear more deeply and to analyze what "culture of fear" means to education as a meta-context, and I did also challenge a graduate adult ed. student who loved PJP as well, and I have challenged other educators who idolize this man and his work. Yes, he has a large following of acolytes. But none of them are interested, or they are intimidated by my critiques and offerings. This has been so disappointing and tells me a lot about what kind of consciousness and values these educators have, of which I sense are quite fear-based themselves. But that is another topic for another blog. [note: Some yrs. ago, I have written about Palmer & Wilber in another blogpost here]
My larger contextual critique of Parker, characteristic of people who are generally contemplatives, meditators, 'spiritual-types' and 'mindfulness' advocates is: their thinking is boring and unoriginal--and, that won't do sufficiently for a very complex/novel world of change and adaptation that our primate species is going through.
In this blog I merely want to point to a recent quote I found from PJ Parker (2004) where again, I am so disappointed in where his discourse goes with fear--it is so incomplete and quite distortive because it has no real theory to it. He wrote,
"I follow the thread of true self faithfully for a while. Then I lose it and find myself back in the dark, where fear drives me to search for the thread once again. That pattern, as far as I can tell, is inherent in the human condition. Yet its grip on my life has weakened as I have explored it in circles of trust. Today, I lose the thread less often" (p. 90).
Okay, fine, this sounds like basic recovery practice, name it, claim it, deal with it face-to-face, kind of fear management (or just like one does this kind of work when working with an addiction). But you can read his entire 2004 book, for example, and there is no further insights he has into fear. He doesn't explore it but prefers trust, love and courage and soul and concepts like that. He has no notion of the praxis of fearlessness or fear praxis, as I have articulated. And he never cites my work on this all. He is off on his own tangent and is in the above quote telling people (a lot of people) that basically fear is his motivator to get back on trust/faith/love path, etc. He doesn't define fear for us or theorize it in complicated ways, or speak about the "culture of fear" and politics of fear and how getting back on track/trust isn't just an individualized therapia from his circles of (psychological) trust-making and sharing. I find this all too pithy and under-theorized and not up on the latest knowledges or holistic approach to the study of fear (e.g., like critical developmental fearology as I offer). It also is not a good sign that fear is the best motivator either. That's pretty much what he concludes on this page after all his life experience and work. Hmmm... something missing there!
Of course, PJ Parker has lots of guidance to offer those interested in transformation, but I am merely saying, it lacks in some critical areas--and, thus we have to think carefully about what transformation even means in the meta-context of a culture of fear today. Parker admited that context but I find he never kept up the research into the implications of it--and, it's the latter that has been my speciality. [Note: added later Sept. 21/24-- after reading some of Palmer (2004) "A Hidden Wholeness" there was quite a breakthrough in my configuration and analysis. It occurred that Palmer was not doing transformative learning (transformation was not his focus ever)--rather, he was doing restorative learning, within and through an eccleasiatical (Quaker-Christian) lens of wholeness and healing. His focus is thus such of an important type of learning, "in solitude together" in addressing the "pathology of the divided life" (i.e., "role" vs. "soul") and so on... my earlier comment above in bold therefore was me looking for something good in a transformative context but now I see that's not really Palmer's gift. His gift is restorative learning (processes, like the "circle of trust"). We need both restorative and transformative learning as Elizabeth Lange has argued in her good research and article: Restorative & Transformative Lange.pdf. ]
