Dr. Randy Auxier, SIUC University, Philosophy Department
Randy (an FM ning member), a philosopher of personalism with a spiritual infusion, has been an appreciative and progressive supporter of the philosophy of fear(lessness) work for the past few years. I am pleased to witness his commitment to social justice work and willingness to step up to the plate of American politics. Here's one piece of wisdom from his campaign website (on fear):
Comments
Sweeden’s New Kind of Political Party Platform
Better yet, [Michael] Wernstedt wants to reinvent politics. The Initiative’s most important innovation is launching a party without a program but with two lists. One is a list of six values that the Party espouses: courage, openness, compassion, optimism, co-creation, and actionability. The other is a list of three crises that the Party must address: the crisis of faith in democracy, the environmental crisis, and the crisis of mental health. Last year, according to Wernstedt, Swedes missed more workdays for being mentally unwell than they did for being physically unwell; the leading cause of death among people under thirty-five is suicide. Starting next week, the Initiative plans to begin holding workshops around Sweden to develop a political program to address the three crises in ways consistent with the six values.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-invention-of-a-ne...
[Clear to me: if “courage” is your first of six values, great, but you better understand its dialectical relationship with fear: and, next, if you want to deal with the growing significant crisis of mental health, great, but you better understand its relationship with fear—and, feariatry is even more potentially important now and in the near future -rmf]