simon estok (5)

Hi All,

I've just completed a lengthy Technical Paper No. 79, "Fearlessness Psychology: An Introduction"... it is long over-due as I have been pursuing to clarify my 'new' psychology project that seems imperative in our troubled times. I have been a critic of Psychology (therapies, etc.) for a long time... and, I think this will help you understand my work better, as no doubt many have found my work still difficult to get their head around--and, many have rejected it. I believe this paper will make it all more clear but who knows. 

Enjoy,

M.

Abstract (to Tech Paper 79):

The author tells of his resistances to and his love of “psychology” since his youthful years until the present. He sets up the most basic (inadequate) starting place for his new psychology or psychology in a ‘new key’ by placing his inquiry and explorations upon the reference of an “Indigenous Perspective” (or worldview). He calls this “fearlessness psychology” of which it immediately by name alone challenges that most all other psychologies available to humankind are fear-based in their conceptualization and in their offerings and thus no wonder the Fear Problem continues to blossom. He lays out the problematics of all he is doing here and claims that his entire exposition in this technical paper is necessary to go through—he believes it will communicate itself with a wider audience because of this—but his critical philosopher-self is constantly critical of just about everything he sets out—and, yet, there’s no room in this introductory paper to deal with all his philosophical critiques of his own work (and others). This he suggests, a conflictual tension throughout the paper, is probably a really good way to proceed creating a new psychology—which, he wishes he didn’t have to call a psychology per se. With that, the author proceeds to engage a fascinating array of ideas that potentially will change the way “Psychology” is conceived in the first place. The future, if it is to be at all healthy, sustainable and sane, ought to take this Fisherian path and the sooner the better. For it is worth, an improved universal ethical referent is needed, says the author and fearlessness psychology is one way to nourish that imperative and transformative option. A better wisdom and compassion, he argues is likely a consequence of this new psychology—which is not really a psychology.

 

 

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Here is the 5th (last) of the series on ecocriticism as related to my work on Fear and Fearlessness. It is entitled: "Ecocriticism, Ecophobia and Indigenous Criticism" - Technical Paper No. 70

Below is the abstract for this paper:

R. Michael Fisher

Technical Paper No. 70

Abstract – The author addresses some of the ways he has come into the field environmental education and the study of perceptions of humans towards nature, noting that fear of Nature is paradoxically situated with love of Nature in most people. He summarizes, using a brief fearanalysis, the Indigenous perspectives on ecocriticism and then proceeds to show the great influence of Four Arrows’ provocative de-hypnotizing method to help us get beyond the worst aspects of “ecophobia” (Estok’s hypothesis). He makes a few cautionary recommendations in the Conclusion as to how we can reclaim “indigeneity” by listening to and studying the more than human being (Nature) as guides to becoming “connoisseurs of Fear.”

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Here is the 4th Technical Paper in the series of five articles on ecocriticism: "Fearanalysis and Ecocriticism in the Light of Terrorcriticism" (Technical Paper No. 69). See Abstract below. 

R. Michael Fisher

Technical Paper No. 69

 

Abstract – After a brief review of the author’s conceptualization and praxis of fearanalysis (different but analogous to psychoanalysis), he applies this method to ecocriticism (especially, Estok’s “Ecophobia Hypothesis”) in the “Age of Terror.” A study of books using “Age of Terror” in their title and other discourses on “terror” (especially, but not only post-9/11), convinced the author that there was need for terrorcriticism a new branch of literary criticism contextualized within ecocriticism (but not restricted to it), that could offer useful critical analysis of the “Age of Terror” discourses and representations of terror and the human-planetary future. Fearanalysis as previously configured is being challenged to expand to a greater inclusivity of excess-extremes for the 21st century (e.g., an “Age of Terror”), of which terror conceptualization and its problematics provides a most useful platform to the author’s agenda of promoting the global Fearlessness Movement for manifesting a “Fearless Age.”

 

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This Technical Paper No. 68, "Eco-Philosophy of Fearism and Ecocriticism: In an Age of Terror" is the 3rd in a series of five Technical Papers on ecocriticsm and how it interrelates to my work on fear and fearlessness. In this paper the focus is on how ecocriticism, ecophobia, and eco-issues are relevant to Desh Subba's philosophy of fearism. I propose an Eco-Fear Problem concept throughout this series of papers and end up herein sketching out the beginning of a new branch I am calling "Eco-Philosophy of Fearism." See Abstract below: 

R. Michael Fisher

Technical Paper No. 68

 Abstract – This is the 3rd technical paper in a five part series on “ecocriticism” as it relates to the author’s work on fear and fearlessness. Technical Paper No. 68 addresses both his focused engagement with Desh Subba’s philosophy of fearism in the last three years, and with his attempting to link Subba’s notion of “fearism” and the “fearist perspective” (lens) with ecocriticism (especially, Estok’s view). The synthesis is one that has led the author to propose herein a very basic description and outline of what is a new branch of thought called Eco-Philosophy of fearism. 

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Continuing on with the series of five technical papers on ecocriticism, I am pleased to offer this 2nd one: "Ecocriticism, Ecophobia and the Culture of Fear: Autobiographical Reflections" (Technical Paper 67). 

R. Michael Fisher

Technical Paper No. 67

 

Abstract – This second of five Technical Papers on ecocriticism, and in particular with a critical focus on discourse(s) on ecophobia (e.g., Estok’s “Hypothesis of Ecophobia”), is intended to assist the author and reader to integrate the basics from the postmodern field of ecocriticism. The author utilizes a brief autobiographical and historical ‘coming out’ as an early ecocritic and eventual academic critic of the larger phenomenon of the “culture of fear” as central to the author’s project (since 1989). He contends that despite not having accessed the ecocriticism scholarship over the past three decades or so, he has been attracted ‘naturally’ (from his late teens) to critiquing the very environmental and ecological (‘green’) movements he so loved. Though, mostly, he critiqued the mainstream society and media in how it depicted these movements. Within this autobiographical narrative the author brings in several theoretical guides (e.g., primary influence of the integral philosopher Ken Wilber) and shares his own theorizing on the “culture of fear” (and its critics), and ‘Fear’ Studies.   

 

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