Dr. R. Michael Fisher is an artist, writer, counselor, human development consultant and public intellectual. He is a co-founder and director of the "In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute" since 1989. He is a Canadian citizen. He is one of the leading Fearist writers of world. He has been writing on fearlessness and fear management/fear education since 1989.

His book "The World's Fearlessness Teaching, A critical Integral Approach to Fear Management/Education for The 21^st Century" is master piece book for fear management. It was published by Universal Press of America in 2010. I have never seen such a deep book on fear. There are many technical books of fear. This is one of the best. It will serve in the future guidance as a core textbook on fearlessness and what he calls “fear education.”

There is not only fearlessness as the focus topic but there are some detailed explanations of fear education and fear management. He introduces child fear as well. Since 1989, he is persistently devoting himself to introduce this theory and philosophy of fearlessness. He offers important discussion on “culture of fear,” and a unique notion of the ‘Fear’ Matrix is important to the framework for his book.

His primary focus is on an improved fear-free education and life. But nobody can obtain a fear-free environment when surrounded by a fearful environment. Which unfortunately is so common today. To have a good quality life and education our fear must now need to be properly managed. He is one of the profound thinkers of fear and his offers graphic and artistic presentation of his models. He has tried his best to provide proof of fear in its complexity in this world. After reading his book, I felt, he has taken fear as overly negative at times, but that is because he uses a culturally-modified understanding of ‘fear.’

He has published another book "Philosophy of Fearism- a First East-West Dialogue" with Desh Subba in 2016. During my study of Philosophy of Fearism, I didn't have any idea of fear management and fear education and management systems. It is missing in my research. His scholarly theories can be quite difficult to understand for general and literary readers, yet, there is always something to learn.  This is the best book for fear education and fear management, and would serve as a good textbook for upper levels university students and other serious readers.

Earlier I wrote about my "health turn" as I call it (see under FORUM) for my 65-80 year elder period of life. I mentioned I would begin drafting a health and development policy to sort out the connections I've been thinking about, and even may write some kind of manifesto. So, attached here is the link to the "Preamble"  DEVEL%20HEALTH%20FEARISM%20manifesto.docx (3 pp. Draft Only) for such a manifesto. -enjoy,

Not too long back I posted a Photo of The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community book cover, by David C. Korten (2005). I am re-reading this again, after many years having left it and not followed through with patience and depth of investigation that this book is well worth.

I won't write a lot about the ideas in this book here, other than to give a few highlights of why I think it is one of the most important books for the 21st century, as a guide for both the critical diagnosis of the "truth" we as a species have to face (sooner the better) and as a prescription for a way out of the mess we have got ourselves into on this planet. Sure, there are lots of these kinds of books, and I've been reading them since in my early 20s. Korten's is unique amongst the Eco-type and Community-type books. And, it is unique because it includes (in an important but still inadequate way) two of my fav. theories of liberation:

(a) he gives due credit to the Love vs. Fear worldview problem and how we have to make a choice to get beyond the fear-based worldview or what he describes so well as "Empire Culture" (a cultural consciousness that is based on domination, violence and the fear cycle) and move toward the "Earth Community" (a cultural consciousness based on partnership, nonviolence, and a trust cycle of care and love)

(b) he relates this Love vs. Fear worldview problem to the work of developmental theory (using Robert Kegan's analysis primarily) whereby he positions the Empire Consciousness as 2nd Order Consciousness, along a spectrum of five potential Orders of Consciousness (at least) that human can access (this is very similar to Ken Wilber's integral philosophy and theory of which I have studied, and, it is also the very spectrum of what I label as fear management systems)

That's the 'taster' for you if you want a good read, and/or if you have read Korten's work, then we could have a good discussion. I highly recommend this work, at least this 2005 book which I believe is profound because I know of no other activist writer of the Eco and Community type who is using these two theoretical frames above, and my guess is those who read an even like Korten's work do not understand or pick-up on it. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not. These two theories will, if we choose to pay attention to them and bring them into practice, really can transform the planet, and, it will do it in small developmental steps, for the most part. As Korten and I and Wilber know, you don't get to the higher levels of consciousness just because you choose to identify with them (which the map of the 5 Orders of Consciousness does help). It's a long tough soul's journey out of the 'Fear' Matrix (i.e., Empire Consciousness).

Oh, the other thing that so impressed me as the end of the book was his citing Vandana Shiva, a great wise woman scholar from India, environmental activist and leader of the community-based movements to "save natural seeds" and not let corporations control the seeds of the world. He cites Shiva saying that "When I'm feeling discouraged by the seeming inadequacy of my efforts, I find comfort in the wisdom of Vandana Shiva, whom I mentioned earlier as a partner in the initial framing of this book." (p. 357). Wow! That is so impressive to me that he got guidance for the book from her. That's a bonus. White old men, like Korten, rarely listen that carefully to the guidance of women never mind a woman from color from India. And, then, to end the book he quotes Shiva in a great passage that I read to my friends Greg and Kate last night just before New Years arrived. Korten is founder and editor of Yes!: Positive Futures magazine and an important leader himself, but here he is citing Shiva (from an interview in that magazine back in 2003). Shiva remarks on her fearlessness practice as so important in doing activist and liberation work around the world for some 50 years or so... I share it with you for the New Year and to inspire 2017 to start in a 'good' way, a 'good' spirit for all:

Vandana Shiva: "Well, it's always a mystery, because you don't know why you [sometimes] get depleted or recharged. But, this much I know. I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness, no matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that in itself creates new potential. And I've learned from the Bhagavad Gita [in Hinduism] and other teachings of our [Indian] culture to detach myself from the results of what I do, because those are not in my hands. The context is not in your control, but your commitment is yours to make, and you can make the deepest commitment with a total detachment about where it will take you. You want it to lead to a better world, and you shape your actions and take full responsibility for them, but then you have detachment. And that combination of deep passion and deep attachment allows me always to take on the next challenge because I don't cripple myself, I don't tie myself in knots. I function like a free being [not one in the 'Fear' Matrix]. I think getting that freedom [from fear] is a social duty because I think we owe it to each other not to burden each other with prescription and demands. I think what we owe each other is a celebration of life and to replace fear and hopelessness with [the gift of] fearlessness and joy." [1]

End Note

Shiva, V. (interviewed by van Gelder, S.) (2003). Earth Democracy. Yes!: A Journal of Positive Futures, Winter. Retrieved from http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=570

Marxism
De defines by
Philosophy of Fearism
It's book project in 2017.
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I had the privilege yesterday to attend (with an overflowing crowd of 1500 others) the last public speech by the very popular and powerful humanitarian UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, at S. Illinois University. I came to tears several times listening to his words and aware of the immense energy of attentiveness of the audience. This blog is not to summarize that speech, nor try to capture the amazing work and commitment of this great person of the 21st century, now having served his 10 year term at the UN in the top position of authority.

Ban Ki-moon

I wish to focus on one of the most powerful things I believe Ban Ki-moon said to us all. He has been saying it for a long time, and it is part of the UN unofficial mission. Paraphrasing Ban Ki-moon: Especially in regard to young people, now 50% of the world's population is under 25 years of age, it is time to put away nationality and nationalism as the highest value, and time to turn toward becoming a global citizen. We require a new sense of unity that we are all living on the planet earth as 'one' --as global citizens together. If we do not make this turn of identity and value toward such a global unity, we are sorely heading for the worst 'hell' on earth in human history. Climate change (global warming) must be solved together, with no boundaries.

I totally agree and salute this wisdom of Ban Ki-moon. Of course, it is not only his wisdom that has thought of this idea, but many many great thinkers and visionaries throughout history has more or less called us to such a task as well. I sat there and wrote notes, and asked myself: "Yes, to be a global citizen is a first shift of identity that is a great leap for many who cling to narrow-mindedness and nationalism identities. There is too many wars happening because of this nationalism at its worst levels, especially when it is fear-based, security-based, and will attack any 'Other' because it feels threatened."

It is an odd paradox I found in Ki-moon's speech, and in the UN mission, because there is both the UN position of keeping nations sovereign and not invaded by dominator nations. And, at the same time, he is asking us to abandon the boundaries and become 'one.' Of course, the latter, is a high ethical calling and one that just doesn't happen in reality because one calls themselves a global citizen, a global organization, or a global nation with all good intentions. More than good intentions is required. And then we have the problem that there will seemingly always be one or more such individuals, groups, organizations or nations that will resist this call for global unity to solve the world's problems and they fight against any such unity. Then what?

Yet, this is not what I wish to focus on in this blog. Conflict is definitely destroying this planet, and no one is as informed as Ban Ki-moon on global conflicts and horrors going on today, and ever since he took office in 2007 at the UN. He said, "I have served during a decade of turmoil.... conflicts are growing more protracted" globally and putting the whole world into great danger, with massive immigration of refugees and starvation, disease, crop failures as only mentionable among so many other global crises we could name. He concluded, "big fires are still burning."

Now, to my point, re: conflicts ("big fires")... and letting go of nationalism, ethnocentricism, group chauvinism, racism, regionalism, religionism and ideologism behind them, to become unified as global citizens. What Ban Ki-moon did not talk about, and I would have liked to seen talked about, is how to foster the essential shift to a new awareness or consciousness required today to solve the worst global crises. It is a shift to a "world perspective" by any other name. Today, I am reading again, a favorite short essay (Epilogue: What World Perspectives Means" by Ruth Nanda Anshen, c. 1963). This essay shows up in some 30 volumes that were written and published in the early 1960s under the name World Perspectives Series, planned and edited (with others) by Ruth Nanda Anshen. This Epilogue she wrote I have seen every time I buy a copy from that series, and today it happens to be a book by Erich Fromm on Sigmund Freud (1963). Anshen writes of the series purpose, as it sought to bring together the most powerful critical minds of philosophers, scientists, and spiritual thinkers of the time (East and West):

" This volume is part of a plan to present short books in a variety of fields by the most responsible of contemporary thinkers. The purpose is to reveal basic new trends in modern civilization, to interpret the creative forces at work in the East as well as in the West, and to point to the new [holistic] consciousness which can contribute to a deeper understainding of the interrelation of [hu]man and the universe, the individual and society, and of the values shared by all people.... This [time] is the crisis in consciousness.... This is the new awakening.... Knowledge, it is shown in these volumes, no longer consists in a manipulation of [hu]man and nature as opposing forces, nor in the reduction of data to statistical order, but is a means of liberating mankind from the destructive power of fear.... it is the thesis of this Series that [hu]man is in the process of developing a new awareness which, in spite of his [her] apparent spiritual and moral captivity, can eventually lift the human race above and beyond the fear, ignorance, and brutality and isolation which beset it today. It is to this nascent consciousness, to this concept of [hu]man born out of a fresh [holistic] vision of reality, that World Perspectives is dedicated." (pp. 126-9) [bold added for emphasis]

I have taken only a small slice of this essay, and pulled out the important points Anshen makes about knowledge and fear, and the purpose of research, thinking, education in the world. I am astounded how she describes the world in the early 1960s and its imperilment of crises pending, as one feels like this is written for the 21st century. Let me close this blog for you to reflect on, and what it means to take on a "world perspective" as Anshen articulates so well. Yet, even she does not go far enough, as I see it. We have to move as a world, differentiated and developmentally distinctly, into a certain small percentage of people chosing to become global citizens, and adopting somewhat a world perspective on life and reality and their values and actions.

Emerging into Worldcentric Consciousness and Research on the Spirit of Fearlessness

Clearly, as I see it anyways, Anshen and Ki-moon are talking about a shift in consciousness from a fear-based cosmology/worldview to one of fearlessness-based or some call love-based.

Holistic unity is great, but for humans, and cultures, this evolves and develops, it is not something just decided upon and then works at the level of world perspective consciousness, or what Ken Wilber calls worldcentric consciousness, and then beyond that to the even more advanced stage of kosmocentric consciousness. I will not detail this spectrum evolutionary theory of Wilber's (called "Integral theory")... but to suggest it is better (more advanced) than holistic theories of unification and has to be looked at seriously. I have argued, elsewhere in my work, that the creative spirit is many things, even mysterious, yet, there is tremendous knowledge to be yet synthesized on how the spirit of fearlessness is core to the Defense Intelligence system of all organisms, at all levels (see my book The World's Fearlessness Teachings, 2010). The Fearlessness Movement ning is a dedication to thinking, ideas, people who are interested and moving toward a worldcentric consciousness that interprets the creative spirit of the universe really... as a spirit of fearlessness (at least, in terms of organism systems). This will give the structure and processes some reality when one utters terms like "global citizen" and/or "world perspective." We have a lot of work to do.

For another perspective on this talk see my partner Barbara Bickel's blog post

MAO ZEDONG, DESH SUBBA AND SVIKAROKTI

Some parts of Philosophy of Fearism in Spanish Language translated by Tony Iñiguez‎ taken it from facebook page of Tony Iniguez. He has translated many page for facebook fans.

Filosofía del Fearismo. ( Parte XI )

Ver una serpiente es igual a ver una piedra en términos de eventos. Ver una serpiente crea temores, mientras que viendo una piedra no crea ese temor. Para ver tanto de terma es ganar conocimiento. Sin embargo, algunas de las serpientes son venenosas como peligroso. Recitamos que las serpientes son peligrosas y venenosas como Pavlov gestiona señales regulares al perro. Tenemos señales regulares en nuestra conciencia que las serpientes son temerosas y venenosas.

Debido a las señales recurrentes, el miedo, como la saliva del perro, se produce en nuestras mentes. Cuando vemos y saber sobre la serpiente, nuestros órganos sentidos envían la señal de algo peligroso a nuestro cerebro. Entonces, nos sentimos miedo. Nadie nos ha enseñado que las piedras son peligrosas y venenosas. Nunca nos sentimos miedo cuando vemos una piedra. Una vez más, ven algunos temores de mentalidad y la herencia. René Descartes, dice que tenemos una naturaleza innata.8 También ayudan a maximizar y minimizar el miedo.

Hemos pasado por diferentes civilizaciones desde tiempo prehistórico hasta la actualidad. El miedo era poderoso, pero permanecía invisible en el conocimiento. Solía existir como comprensión de vez en cuando. Los filósofos acuñan términos como disgusto, dolor, hambre, amor, compasión, tensión, ilusión, problemas, etc. en vez de temor. Pensadores filósofos y religiosos interpretan miedo simplemente como comprensión. Por lo tanto, el miedo seguía siendo invisible en la mente de las personas. No aparecía como un sueño en su sabiduría. Un filósofo llamado a Immanual Kant "ha presentado 12 características" entender los objetos.

Sin embargo las características no dan completos significados a los objetos. Un nombre y un objeto es una señal solamente. Una serpiente es una señal, pero su significado es diferente y el reflejo condicionado es también diferente. Nuestras palabras no significan las características precisas de objetos. Como alternativa al significado, utilizamos una serpiente venenosa y temerosa, que es reflejo condicional, no el significado. Nuestra conciencia no podría desarrollar significado fundamental. Si en caso que se desarrolla, se funda con el contexto, pero aún buscamos señales para indicar un reflejo condicionado. En primer lugar, entendemos la mayoría de las palabras de la misma manera –guerra fantasma, asesinato, violencia, etc.

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"Fearism", The Philosophy Coined by Desh Subba

Interview is taken from Texas, USA By Bishwaraj Adhikari.

http://http://bishwarajadhikari.blogspot.hk/2016/12/fearsim-philosophy-coined-by-desh-subba.html?spref=fb

Interview is taken from Texas, USA By Bishwaraj Adhikari.

Pauli Murray (left), an African-American woman, and Eleanor Roosevelt (First Lady) during the 1930s-50s, had a long letter writing friendship. Barbara just finished reading this book and gave me a good quote on Pauli talking about fear (as a social determinant of her health). See the Forum post I just put up with this discussion re: my becoming a health critic and wanting to reform health policy by including a serious analysis of fear(ism).

Before the quote (see below), one ought to know a few things of important historical background. Pauli Murray struggled under combining forces of oppression, she was poor, black, a lesbian, and extremely smart and spoke her mind. All of which, one could say she was courageous for sure, and yet, she paid an enormous price because of the chronic condition of intersectional oppressions (i.e., inequity due to social determinants of health that were not of her choosing; she was born into them). Eleanor Roosevelt is important in the battle against fear and health and justice inequities in the USA (as was her husband F. D. Roosevelt, famous for his speech on "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."). Eleanor, assisted FDR with developing the "four freedoms" early in the 1940s, and Eleanor was eventually a delegate to the UN and began to work on this and make it a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (of which "freedom from fear" is one of the most important of those four freedoms). See the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights.

Now, to the quote from Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice – Patricia Bell Scott (NY: Alfred Knopf, 2016):

 p. 221-22 – Murray: “I cannot live with fear, and [yet]  the doctor has just told me I have a nervous heart.”  Murray: “I call it a frightened heart.”  “It has been frightened all of my life because of race. Now it is frightened because of something deeper than race—the atmosphere which threatens one’s integrity—an atmosphere of fear.” [she is referring to the McCarthy Era "Red Scare" campaign of which she was accused of participating in, wrongly--she shared this with ER, admitting she herself was having to seek a doctor for this condition and her brother was lobotomized, and left with no initiative after that, Murray herself had been in and out of mental psych wards off and on]

p. 221 – “For Murray, the McCarthy hearings were ‘like garbage thrown upon the shining surface of the Supreme Court decision.’ That the questions witnesses faced were often based on misinformation, outright inaccuracies and ‘derogatory material’ unnerved her. ‘As a serum against fear,’ Murray committed herself to writing one letter of personal faith each day to some friend or person.” [she also smoked a pack and half of cigs a day, exacerbated by her general ongoing anxiety]

[bold added for emphasis] [Note: Pauli Murray's strategy to manage her fear/anxiety is brilliant and very much reinforces the fear response continuum that feminists have come up with doing research, whereby there is not merely a fight or flight, or freeze response built-in, but a 'tend and befriend' response when fear is present, and this is the letter writing/reaching out strategy that Murray employs so well, including how effective she was in persuading Eleanor Roosevelt to speak out on African-American issues among other things in the struggle for social justice.]

---------

As a fearologist, I am always critically examining the discourses of (particularly white men) who like to talk about fear and how they are so courageous and so on, and they like to use their formulaic approaches and tell the rest of the world this is what you can do too to overcome fear, be brave, be heroic, be courageous, and even fearless.

Such simplistic discourses, based on the psychology of individual fear and its management, do not speak well or accurately to the larger context of the social determinants of health and the role of chronic fear (and constructed 'fear') amongst the marginalized--that is, those who are not white privileged males. This is why womanist and feminist perspectives are so important to take into account when we make any claims about the "truths" about fear and its management/education.

[I asked Desh Subba to write about his Fearism tour; here is what he wrote:]

Philosophy of Fearism- Long Travel in USA by Desh Subba

Weather was cold as I landed at Dallas-Fort Worth International airport in Texas, my first time to that part of the country. I arrived with a prominent writer of India, Bindya Subba and Dr. Kabita Lama, Nepali Department Head, of Sikkim University, in N.E. India. We had met in Dubai before flying into the U.S. They were coming from Calcutta, I was coming from Hong Kong. During transit fortunately we had same flight to Dallas. It was their first visit in USA and my second. Last year I went to receive an award for  my Philosophy of Fearism book (2014) in Washington, DC.

We came as invited guests to take part in the “Grand International Creative Ceremony III” organized by the Global Bhutanese Literary Organization (GBLO). Bhutanese have been continuing this program since 2009. My interest was to meet energetic Bhutanese writers, artists, musicians and intellectuals. My priority was also to meet face-to-face with Dr. R. Michael Fisher, who is my co-author of Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue (2016). I had never talked with him before, as we chose only email conversations. Most Americans I meet seem to give priority to use email rather than phone and social media.

It was also interesting how we originally came into this close relationship. My book was published July 2014. After that I started to promote it. Monitoring progress of Fearism and philosophy of Fearism comes from using Google. I frequently checked Google. Dr. R. Michael Fisher was coming up on websites everyday when I searched “Philosophy of Fearism.” When it came many times, I printed and read. From start to end there were many references taken from my book. In particular it was his Technical Paper 51, “Towards a Theory of Fearism” (25pp). It is still available in Google. It made me delighted. I wrote him and thanked him. He replied. It was our first conversation. Then we started to share ideas. After some 2 months, he sent me another Technical Paper 56 “Fearanalysis: Further Notes from a Forensic Craft” (60pp) and it had many interesting references. I was fully fascinated by his knowledge and devotion. I thought, we have to publish these two papers as one pillar of Fearism in some form. After, I shared this co-authoring idea with him. He agreed and we started to work on this project. Now we are working in the field of Philosophy of Fearism but had never met. It made us curious. This opportunity, we are so grateful for, was provided us by GBLO in Texas.

At the Dallas-Fort Worth airport members of the organization, including chairman Denzome came to welcome us. They offered a very warm welcome with Nepalese traditional Gamchha and garland of flowers. Our first impression was enthusiastic. I realized, they had a cheerful mood. It means they were so happy in our presence. They dropped us off at the chairman's home and somebody came to receive Dr. R. Michael Fisher. He had to come from Illinois, USA. His plane was 3 hours later than us. I felt, it is my duty to be present at the airport when he arrived. Photos were taken.  

Participants arrived from different states around the USA. Ceremony was 25- 26 November, 2016. Organizers provides us a global platform to present on the “Philosophy of Fearism” and it was streamed FB as a live broadcast. It was the first special platform for Philosophy of Fearism in a global media way. Dr. Fisher presented an introductory talk, by-passing the paper he had written, which we passed out 20 copies. Our preference was to invite the audience to ask questions. People were very curious, excited and asked some good questions. Most of the answers were given by Dr. Fisher. He was our special guest.

Dr. Fisher was not from Nepalese language and culture background. Even though I am from Nepal, the Bhutanese from Bhutan have a common platform, and that is Nepalese language and culture. There were many paper presentations, songs, poems, speeches, and literary discussion including some on Fearism. In my analysis of the program it was a grand success and good publicity. I respect their effort, patience and dedication. Success for any program it must have effort, patience, ordered structure and discipline. No doubt, the Bhutanese community has high degree of hospitably as well. 

After the “Grand International Creative Ceremony III” I went to Nebraska with Bhutanese friend Karna Gurung, Bhim Gurung, DB Tamang  Khadka Gajmer and some others. It was almost a 14 hour drive crossing 3 states, Oklahoma, Iowa and Kansas. It was an adventure travel for me. We reached Omaha City on the 27 November afternoon. 1^st of December, there was a program on Fearism. To make more colourful we included the singer Khadak Gajmer. I spoke half an hour about Fearism. Dr. Kiran Bastola, a scientist, was listening carefully. He later asked me questions. His concern was: What is genetic relations with Fearism?

Rita Gurung Mrs. of  Karna Gurung did a lot for me. Similarly mother of Khadka Gajmer, family of DB Tamang highly served me as guest. It was an unforgettable memory this time spent in Nebraska.

Weather was getting cooler. Light snow started. By the 3^rd of December, I left for Connecticut. as Khadka and DB came to see off at the airport. I said bye to Omaha. I traveled again on an adventure by plane. From Omaha to Connecticut, I changed 3 planes OMA to CLT, CLT to DCA. DCA to BDL. By 16: 40 PM I landed in Bradley International Airport, Connecticut, where Dr. Bidya came to receive me. She took me to Mrs. Shanti Singh’s home. Dr. Bidya called local friends, and immediately there was gathering, a spontaneous program. Cold was influencing us but the hot tea and exuberant discussion were impressive. My dear friend Dhan Lama and Mr. Ed Smith were at work, so they requested Dr. Bidya to pick up me. Every one was very frank.

Dhan Lama has introduced me to Mr. Ed Smith. Mr. Smith and his friends have a local philosopher’s club. They discuss philosophy every week. Mr. smith and Dhan Lama are interested in philosophy. Because of it, we became family at once. Mr. Ed. Smith and Dhan Lama worked hard to ensure success for the Fearism program. Mr. Smith booked an expensive room and offered dinner. I want to thank them for their support.

We had a pleasant program. Around 15 Americans and 10 Nepalese Americans were in the audience. Some of them already had read Fearism books. From within the book they asked me questions. With their keen philosophical background, the audience paid great attention during my lecture. Mr. Ed Smith sang a song. It made the program more attractive.

I think it was one of the highest standard program events I have ever attended. After, I hurriedly left for Boston. I had to attend another evening program. Some of my friends put me on a bus and I went to Boston wondering curiously what was next. Last year I was there. So I had some idea what to expect. Poet Deepa Rai Pun guided me on the phone how to get to her home. I took a cab and went. When I reached there, it was half past eight in the evening. Some friends were already there and more were coming. I started to speak. Our program lasted until 3 am. Some read poems, some sang a song. The night was joyful. 

5^th morning Poet Deepa and I left home together. She had to go to work and I had to go to New York. We called a cab and waited outside. That night it started to snow. By morning time there was some snow on the road. Deepa left me at the Boston bus terminal. I took a bus to New York. 6^th December which is my birthday. This time I planned to celebrate in New York. According to my plan everything was fine. By afternoon, I reached New York. A son in law of Mr. Biswa Thapa came to receive me. We reached their home around 3 o'clock. That night I took a rest. My plan was to take a rest in New York. 6^th December my birthday day. Mr. Biswa told me to visit Manhattan and take some pictures. We went to Manhattan and Barnes and Noble bookshop. I checked for my books. I asked the salesman. He said Philosophy of Fearism was not in stock and they needed to order more.

When we were having a coffee in Barnes and Noble coffee shop, Mr. Biswa received a message from Madam Marcis McBroom. She is a retired teacher of Manhattan Comprehensive High School, New York. In the message, we were invited to give lectures in Manhattan Comprehensive High School New York. I found it very important. In the heart of New York, on my birthday, I had a great opportunity. We spent almost 2 hours there. The students were very curious and asked me many questions regarding Fearism.  

7^th of December, afternoon, I went to Virginia, Washington. This was my last program before returning to Hong Kong. Mr. Lekhanath Bhandari did his best effort to organize the program. There were prominent Nepali writers, like Krishna Dharabasi, a World Bank employee and a retired professor. We held the Fearism program in Thomas Jefferson Library, Virginia. Time was limited but questions and curiosity was greatly appreciated. 

Weather was getting very cold and windy that evening. After finishing the program I went home. There was my cousin brother and sister. Brother is my mom's younger sister's son, his name is Deshraj Sangyo Limbu and his wife Sarita Limbu, same like my blood. Both of them are very gentle. Sister's mom my aunty was there too. Last year also I stayed two nights in their home. After returning home we had dinner together. We ate and had a light drink. The night was wonderful. Next morning Mr. DeshRaj’s brother dropped me in Dulles International Airport Washington and then back to my home.

Grand International Creative Ceremony III, I consider as Philosophy of Fearism door to the West. Now this philosophy and discourse is going worldwide. I highly appreciate all the friends of Bhutanese community, my friends, relatives, who supported this work to open to a new sky. I thank Dr. R. Michael Fisher for his valuable presence.

I look forward to new adventures in 2017.

 ****

The following Technical Paper #60  is written, for the most part, as a one-act stage play. This is one of the rarer occasions when I engage in literary writing to teach about my work. See "Ideological Underpinnings of Colonial Domination in Understanding Fear Itself" (Tech Paper 60.pdf) and I look forward to further dialogues on this topic. I add this paper to the collection of creative literary writings applying some part of a philosophy of fearism (and/or theory of fearism - that is fearism-t).

Here is the book review I just posted on amazon books:

"Huge Circle of Fear": How Shadow Walks With Us For Liberation By R. Michael Fisher on December 5, 2016

Figure 1  Basic Curriculum Design (Map) for a Philosophy of Fearism

[Note: I have attached a curiculum%20fearlessness.mp3 sound file of myself reading this blog]

The above Figure 1 is my first attempt to take a piece of philosophy of fearism text (e.g., Desh Subba's recent novel; see Photo as well) and put it into a practical curriculum application that could be used by teachers, or anyone else wanting to actualize the philosophy of fearism teachings and ways of thinking  (i.e., in regard, to a new way to enact fear management/education for the 21st century). 

Mostly Desh Subba and I have been articulating the philosophy and theory behind a philosophy of fearism (also, philosophy of fearlessness, in my earlier work). More and more people are asking us how to "apply" it to usefulness in diverse settings with real people and groups, organizations or even nations. We are excited by that challenge, and it will slowly unfold. Others like Rana Kafle in Nepal and N.E. India are likely already doing this, however, that applied work has not been translated in to English. I personally am not sure what their applied education in the field has been for the past several years as they teach aspects of a philosophy of fearism. 

So, the skeleton outline (a working draft in progress) in Figure 1 gives a critical integral approach to the curriculum design for philosophy of fearism. I will actually spend time trying to apply this outline to Desh's new novel per se. Then, that ought to be interesting and lead to writing something like a "curriculum guide" to The Tribesman's Journey to Fearless. 

Now, I'll give you the basic orienting reference points you'll need to know to be able to understand how this design/map (Figure 1) works. Also, anyone can apply this as well, not just me or Desh. First, notice the quadrant design template I use, with four "directions" on the map, by which the four double-arrows are pointing toward INDIVIDUAL and COMMUNAL on the vertical axis, and toward SUBJECTIVE and OBJECTIVE on the horizontal axis. This comes fundamentally from the meta-mapping of knowledge work of the integral philosopher Ken Wilber (see AQAL Matrix), who was searching for a simple template in which to organize (map) all knowledge so as to be attentive to its variation spectrum of how knowledge is gathered and classified by these four quadrants (at least, that begins a holistic-integral approach to knowledge). The integral theory behind the quadrants suggests that information and/or knowledge and knowing ought to be arrived at from all four quadrants (if ideally possible) before we can make strong claims about the "truth" of anything. Our methodologies, and epistemologies, likewise ought to come from all four quadrants, to make sure we have a holistic diversity of ways of knowing. There are many complications about this theory and use of quadrant analysis that I won't go into here, unless you ask me about more. This will serve the purpose for then arranging the 10 Components of the Curriculum that fit into the quadrants. One would now have to use these 10 Components as "themes" on which to focus on when reading Desh's novel, for example. Then, there are the META-SKILLS and SKILLS Elements which generally are of interest in a practical curriculum of any kind. So, a combination of looking for the 10 Components and the 2 Elements will produce a cross-hybridization of interesting lens to bring to analyze Desh's book and teachings on a philosophy of fearism. 

There are other lenses of course that one can bring to a book like Desh's, and that would be a "fearist" lens, a fearanalysis methodology, and so on. There is no limit of lens and methods to bring to analyze a text and then bring that out to help construct an application as a workable curriculum guide, for example. 

Okay, that's lots for this introduction to the next evolution of the philosophy of fearism practices. I look forward to anyone interested to dialogue with me on the ning and/or on email (r.michaelfisher52@gmail.com). 

Four Arrows, a colleague and friend, and sacred warrior, sent me this link to an article where he talks about the Indigenous way of courage and fearlessness, and its relevance to an upcoming resistance action at Standing Rock, ND, where Veterans for Peace and other activists are standing with the Indigenous people who are challenging the Dakota Pipeline transgressions on their territory.

See http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/38558-the-loving-contagion-of-courage-veterans-standing-for-standing-rock

https://heroismscience.wordpress.com/

The following reflections come from my recent experience living with the Bhutanese community in Dallas/Forth Worth, TX for the 2.5 days (Nov. 24-26, 2016). Upon an invitation to speak as a guest about the philosophy of fearism and its implications for their diasporic community development, art and literature and general literary criticism in regard to the Oriental (East) and Occidental (West) complementarity and contestations, I immersed myself by living with some of the organizers and learned much that I wish to share in this blogpost of their good work and my interests therein. 

Their theme for the event this year was “Peace, Progress and Prosperity,” their 3rd time holding this yearly event called Grand International Creative Ceremony-III, in Forth Worth, co-sponsored by The Global Bhutanese Literary Organization (Dallas/Fort Worth) and Bhutanese Legacy Youth Club-Fort Worth. This conference is put on every two years.

            LARGER CONTEXT: POLITICAL CASCADE OF CRISES

All of us, the Bhutanese community living in the US diaspora, or whomever, are facing what blog writer Charles Einstein put so well in reflecting critically upon the post-2016 US election atmosphere:

Anything becomes possible with the collapse of dominant institutions. When the animating force behind these new ideas is hate or fear, all manner of fascistic and totalitarian nightmares can ensue, whether enacted by existing powers or those that arise in revolution against them.

That is why, as we enter a period of intensifying disorder, it is important to introduce a different kind of force to animate the structures that might appear after the old ones crumble. I would call it love if it weren’t for the risk of triggering your New Age bullshit detector, and besides, how does one practically bring love into the world in the realm of politics? So let’s start with empathy. Politically, empathy is akin to solidarity, born of the understanding that we are all in this together. In what together? For starters, we are in the uncertainty together.

We are exiting an old story that explained to us the way of the world and our place in it. Some may cling to it all the more desperately as it dissolves, looking perhaps to Donald Trump to restore it, but their savior has not the power to bring back the dead. Neither would Clinton have been able to preserve America as we’d known it for too much longer. We as a society are entering a space between stories, in which everything that had seemed so real, true, right, and permanent comes into doubt. For a while, segments of society have remained insulated from this breakdown (whether by fortune, talent, or privilege), living in a bubble as the containing economic and ecological systems deteriorate. But not for much longer. Not even the elites are immune to this doubt.[1]

Yes, we live in very challenging, if not dangerous times now and soon to come, especially as global warming extremes put enormous pressure on human survival. At the same time, this larger context of crises on planet earth is going to bring us all to better see that we are all on the ‘same boat’ and we can work together to help each other, or fight to try to dominate. No doubt there will be a bit of both tendencies, and yet, the great opportunity is before us to cooperate and operate beyond fear, domination and oppression. I do think our collective fear and uncertainty can be managed and transformed to create a much better world. We’ll see.

            FEARISM BACKGROUND: MEETING of EAST and WEST

A brief background before I offer some detailed reflections on this amazing experience I had with this American-based Bhutanese community:

(1) my first meeting online with Desh Subba in late 2014 has led to a collaboration, and this conference (creative ceremony) was planned (in part) so Desh and I could meet and present in person for the first time. Subba is a well-respected philosopher-writer from Nepal (now living in Hong Kong). He is currently touring the USA speaking to universities and various Nepalese groups on philosophy of fearism. He is the first to have coined the term “philosophy of fearism” as a new philosophy and wrote the first substantive text (Subba, 2014) outlining his approach to such a philosophy, where “fear” is given central conceptual and real importance as the major historical and evolutionary shaping force. His work on this topic came from a broad curiosity about the human condition and how we can help humanity move forward, with less suffering, to a better human potential.

(2) various communities in Nepal, Bhutan and especially N. E. India, have been picking up on Subba’s work and enriching it, especially the literary communities of these areas. It seems the arts in general are very open-minded to adding a new “ism” of thought in the 21^st century to other isms that have been influential in shaping literature and art and have also grown out of art movements to some extent. Subba was positing that fearism, like other movements of philosophical thought (e.g., spiritualism, rationalism, existentialism, surrealism, idealism, etc.) has its place in history. These communities are, in some areas, at least beginning to explore how fearism may benefit the development of their nations, culture, communities, youth and the world.

(3) although Subba and I have communicated by email for two years, it was great to come together with the support of the Bhutanese diasporic community in Texas at this event. This allowed us to converse despite the language and cultural barriers (I am an English-only Westerner from Canada, living in the USA for the past 9 years). We gained a great deal from this time in Texas of which I’ll share some of our insights here. For those interested in our first writing collaboration see Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue (Fisher and Subba, 2016).

          GUEST: BHUTANESE STYLE

The Bhutanese at this event really know how to celebrate and treat people well. Before I return to that experience, let me say a few opening remarks of relevance to my being a “special guest” as it said in the letter of invitation I received on Sept., 17, 2016. I was addressed in the letter as “American Writer and Philosopher” and on the plague I received on the last day of the event as “a special guest and presenting on FEARISM, representing CANADA/USA.” So far in my career, being asked to present on my own work on the topic fear(ism) and fearlessness is extremely rare. I started this specialty of research and education in 1989, some 10 years before Subba began his work on fear(ism). I shared with the Bhutanese audience, in a dialogue format with Subba up on stage with me, that Westerners are heavily embedded, if not invested and addicted, to carrying on a fairly dysfunctional relationship with fear that is causing major local, national and global problems. They typically like to avoid talking about fear together as communities, societies, and as an Occidental civilization. At least, that is my experience. I’ve tried a long time to engage them. So, to be welcomed as a special guest to speak on the topic was overwhelmingly joyful and still is a surprise and bit of a shock.

However, I quickly learned that the Nepali-Bhutanese culture has a long tradition of treating the “guest, as god” as one young couple expressed to me in a half-joking way, but they really meant that, not literally, but sincerely. When these people meet each other for the first time in the day, or met with me, it was always “namaste” with hands palm-to-palm in front of their heart (namaste, more or less translated into English is ‘the divine in me greets and respects the divine in you’).[2] I felt highly valued and included from the beginning moment of my arrival at the airport. The young men in the car, who picked me up, treated me so graciously and respectfully and some said they had either read about my work on fearism or heard of me and the work and they felt very honored to be able to share time with me and my thoughts at this event. Again, like with Desh, despite the language and cultural barriers of communicating, what mattered most to me was the non-verbal communication of real action of caring for the other—in this case, the guest. I never forgot I was a welcomed and honored guest from beginning to end. I have never in my own country or in the Western world where I live and work, experienced anything remotely close to this respect and dignity of a people for each other, and for their guests. Although, I have noticed this is often the case in some Indigenous peoples’ communities as well that I have visited.

Because of this communicating at the deeper level of the “heart,” which several of them told me about as part of their tradition and culture, I never felt much of an alienated feeling being the ‘outsider’ (white person, English-speaking only). Truly, I will be thinking and reflecting on this experience for a very long time. The entire conference was held in the language of their own country of origin, Nepalese. I never expected what it would be like to immerse oneself in a community like this, where only minor bits of English translations were given for mostly my benefit. I respected that they honored their own language when they came together as a community. I was the guest, but in reality I was the visitor and observer too. It is not my community by geographic or cultural origin. Yet, by the last day of events, with various speakers and poetry readings, dance and singing, I noticed myself in a light semi-trance state, my heart-overflowing and emotions of empathy, sadness, and joy and respect flowing. I could have cried but I held back the tears. In the words of the Bhutanese poet, who was at the event, Narad Pokhrel a former refugee now living in the USA: “Tears drop, Tears flow; Tears remain within for long.”[3]

Again, I didn’t understand a word they said most of the time. It didn’t matter to me as a human being connecting authentically and spiritually with other human beings. Culture is not the most important thing for this greater connection in spirit. I did not feel greater or lesser than anyone. I felt a balance. I was in a mindset where mind no longer allowed divisions. I felt I was channeling much of their emotions and thoughts through me, cleansing me of my Western life experience and identity dysfunctions, privilege, and ignore-ance. I was being educating and I loved it. I sat. I sat. I sat. There were even moments I wanted to get up and dance with them.

        HEALTH & DEVELOPMENT THROUGH FEARISM

When I first talked with Denzome Sappang, the primary organizer and community leader of the Bhutanese in Dallas/Fort Worth, he was looking at what kind of accommodation could be provided for me. I mentioned that he need not bother with anything fancy, “I am a philosopher, and those things are of little matter. So, keep it simple. I don’t need much.” As it turned out, I stayed at the Bhutanese Community Center, a small half-sized unit at the same townhouse complex where Denzome and his family live. It is a lower-working class, multi-ethnic, gated community. I never learned the details of exactly what this housing complex was or who designed it but I had a sense it was for the more vulnerable and likely many were refugees. It was not the most well-managed environment and at times I wanted to go around and lure the children playing there to perhaps help to pick up the garbage litter.

The United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN Habitat) estimates that nearly one billion, or one-third, of urban dwellers in the world live in slums or near slum-like conditions or informal settlements or camps in 2007. I can imagine that rate is much higher since that survey especially with the ongoing waves of migration and refugees from war-torn and food-short environments around the world, often linked to global climate change and political instability. Housing adequacy and health environments are going to be a huge pressure humanity must face head-on in the coming decades to prevent escalating cascades of other problems, of which health issues is no. 1. I want to come back to this issue in regard to diasporic and vulnerable communities settling in North America, and especially in the USA recently and how a philosophy of fearism may play an important role.

In principle, I personally have always been against the trend of gated communities in North America especially. The main reason is because the rich people who build them and want to live in them keep themselves, more or less, isolated from the rest of the community. Many critics are pointing out that this trend is producing a class of citizens who do not have any sense of obligation to the larger civic mandates of all-taking-care- of-all, as an ethic of social justice. No, they live in a bubble and do not even care much about politics and voting. They like their segregation, their elite schools and privatized clinics and hospitals, and their own security forces, etc. I critique this because I see that all as fear-based by design; urban planners called it “white flight” for many years but it is moving beyond merely a racially-signified exodus from civic participation—it is very unhealthy and a way that continues the great divide of communities and cities by class status. Many gated communities build high walls between themselves and others. Now, the USA under a Trump leadership has a goal of building a great wall between Mexico and the USA. The wealthy can afford to live on the ‘right side’ of the security systems, which keep the growing numbers of poor and vulnerable away from them, unseen, uncared for by the wealthy. As I mentioned, racism traditionally is a significant part of the gated community phenomenon as “white” people take flight to the suburbs, leaving a type of inner city ghettoization encompassing many people of color and the vulnerable and poor in the USA.

My point is to say that I stayed with the way reality was during my short visit. If this is where Denzome and his family live and where they operate their community organization to teach ESL and Civics and yoga to new refugees and immigrants—then, I wanted to experience however briefly, the struggling to make it in America. I don’t care if it is uncomfortable and even a little scary as I was the only white person I saw the whole time there in that gated community.

I’m glad I was raised poor working class and was son of a mother who was an uneducated immigrant to Canada in the 1940s onward. I knew what my mom suffered in not speaking English and having to take jobs where she was given little respect. I saw the tears from her, and the anguish and anger. I know the shame I experienced when my friends and others made fun of our old run-down house, a lower-class neighborhood, and a car that was old and cheap and they’d stare at the patches in my clothes at times. Of course, as a young child, I never understood what was going on. I never understood the reason my mom was so unhappy and became alcoholic. Later, I put the puzzle together and realized how classism, racism, ethnocentrism, and sexism all intersect to create social problems that individuals suffer from. I learned that most everyone wants to blame to victim, the vulnerable person for their fate in life. I see the error of that kind of thinking now. I also see the error of treating people in the margins of society, like the refugees, as only “victims” because they certainly are not that alone. If you spend time with them, as I did, as a privileged white person, I could see a creative vibrancy and drive to be much more than a victim of circumstances.

So, I am now accepting of my lower-class background and my own struggles with poverty as an artist and as an independent scholar and philosopher. I guess, what I am saying is that I really ‘felt at home’ with these people I met at this event. I don’t mean to claim they felt ‘at home’ and comfortable with me, necessarily. I do not know for sure what everyone felt. What’s more important however, from the larger cultural, political context of contemporary America, is that the general public is still largely fear-filled when it comes to the concept of “refugee.” Call it xenophobia (fear of the stranger; the Other) or just call it simply fear of refugees and immigrants and anyone else who, in some people’s minds, “don’t belong here and are up to no good.” I don’t take that stance. But unfortunately, fear is still central in the lives of the diasporic communities in America because they feel often that negative association from the larger society. The recent racist-based headlines of the news reports “OSU attacker Identified Somali Refugee” and one could go on and on with the cases of how targeted populations are named in extreme violence cases like this one, rather than merely reporting a name of a criminal. If the attacker was white and “American-looking” (so-called) would anyone giving such a report in headlines say “Identified Irish-American” or such? Of course not! Targeting “refugee” in the headlines, in this case, easily generalizes peoples’ fear to include all refugees as dangerous like this one individual, who drove down and knifed several students on OSU campus. And this is what Trump’s agenda is all about, always was in the election campaign, fearmongering and xenophobia. I feel for my diasporic brothers and sisters who have to live with this kind of climate of fear, culture of fear, and its relentless unnecessary attacks on “the Other.”

       FEARISM AS POTENTIAL ‘CORRECTIVE’ TO FEARMONGERING

This leads to my last short discussion on how fearism is potentially important. Desh and I shared some of our thoughts in our dialogue at the event, but it was much too short, as many other people came up and told me. I agree, we had great questions from the audience[4] and we have a lot more to say in trying to answer them. But that will all come in time. What I realized from this event and in talking with Desh and so many others, is that fearism is still relatively hard to understand in all its implications and all its liminal and unknown mysteries. Much of it is still intuitive thought that makes up the philosophy and thus, more systematic writing is yet to come. It is often poetically described and speculatively derived. Desh and I plan to write a short Manifesto on Philosophy of Fearism to help readers and students of our work. Some people told us, especially a few young people, it would be great to have an online course on this topic taught by Desh and I. Yes, that would be great. I’d like to see the Bhutanese diasporic communities or any communities take on studying the nature and management, and transformation of fear, just like a basic “fear education” (analogous, to say, a basic “sex education or "moral education").

The one thing that kept coming out in my mind about this experience was how powerfully important the diasporic communities are to the rest of the world and global change processes. I will be only brief in sharing my thoughts here. It seems that the places of change and transformation of human beings and their societies always function best under difficult challenging and even oppressive and “crisis” conditions. There is no comfort and stability much in these sites generally nor in the diasporic communities—especially, when they are refugee-based and/or poor. How to keep these communities healthy and developing forward, rather than falling into fear-based patterns of apathy and despair and pessimism—loss of culture and dignity, etc.—this, is a great challenge. I saw how Denzome and so many others worked tirelessly for this conference to be a success. I also stayed in their little community center and saw how it is a place of adult education and development for their Bhutanese community members and others who wish to participate in some way. Volunteers. There is minimal resources available at this time to them, and they do so much good work for what they have. I felt greatly inspired.

I kept thinking that fearism, if they continue to study it and apply it, with my help and with Desh’s help if they want it, has so much to offer to the health and development of the diaspora. The Nepal-Bhutan connection to fearism and fearlessness, all the way into the USA, is a great site, in the margins of the greater USA society, for learning, restoration, transformation and liberation. These big types of change rarely are instigated from within the ‘center’ of a society of the so-called “normal” people. I for one want to offer my allyship to this movement along with my heart-felt thanks for all you did for me at this event. I feel I was transformed and helped to see the world-reality in a more realistic way, than before when I had not had such an enriching experience in Bhutanese-Nepali culture and creative thoughts. I wished there was more time to talk with people, but that’s okay because the event was for their community to celebrate their achievements and enjoy connections with each other.

At one point on the last day, three white Americans showed up, two of whom presented on their work with the Nepalese in Nepal. They were speech instructor specialists and philanthropists. As much as I was interested to see the good they were doing, I was also disturbed at times personally by their attitudes toward refugees and immigrants. I noticed how different the American attitude is re: “melting pot” approach and how the one speaker literally gave a lecture to the Bhutan community on how they ought to “assimilate” and then Americans will be more kind to them. More or less, that was what was implied. In Canada, this is not, generally, the way we look at “the Other” but rather we see they have gifts to teach us about being human in a globalizing world. This is a much larger topic I don’t have space for in this blog. I will say, I perceived a lot of fear from these Americans, and I’m sure they are not even conscious of it, when they are in the presence of people of color, difference, and who aren't speaking in English, and they are not in control of them and the situation.

My hypothesis, after talking with Desh and having this experience, has led me to thinking there is a particular diasporic learning site of change that could be a great model for others in diasporas but also beyond that. For example, the Bhutanese diasporic, say in America, could be leaders of human change and global transformation, showing alternatives of love and care for “the Other” and of better ways humans could do things—the latter, which are turning out to be very destructive to humanity and the environment we depend on—that is, how to do them without pathological and neurotic and despairing fear and terror motivating change, perceptions, thoughts, actions. But rather to make the creative changes based on a new relationship to fear and fearlessness—one that is healthy and constructive not destructive. This is the lesson the rest of the world needs to learn, in Desh’s and my opinion. Philosophy of fearism is based on this basic assumption.

I look forward to my ongoing connections with these communities. There is a lot of work to do. I am full of renewed energy to be part of the solutions. I also learned in my experience at this event to be a good listener, no matter what, even if I don’t understand all the language and some of the behaviors and cultural traditions and rituals. That is not so important, as to listen-to-connect, then we’ll be human together without fear getting in between our differences. That’s the future I want to live and pass on to the children for generations to come.  

****

I am not prematurely judging, but only taken caution as facilitator and manager of FMning, but it may be that some members at times sign-up for reasons not in synch with the FM mission, but more want to advertise their businesses. This is a common problem I have been told on all social media. So, in the next few weeks if I have no substantive evidence from these three new members of their larger interest in the FMning mission, I'll block them out from further membership privileges. 

The following interview I undertook with Barbara Bickel, my life-partner, as an after-effect of witnessing nearly two years of political campaigning in the US 2016 presidential election. We both feel we’ve watched an enormous “shake-up” in the consciousness of American society and culture, and it ain’t pretty. There’s a lot of fear and terror, and a lot of elation (depends who you talk to on either side of the political divide, the Culture Wars) with more than a little hate being propagated in virulent fashion. With Trump’s victory this unrest we both had, albeit, in our different ways, led to Barbara waking up early the morning after the election, and without knowing the results exactly, asking me to write down notes. That very morning she drafted her “Reality and Recovery” speech/letter, as I call it [1] and it sets the stage for the dialogue below which I had with her nearly a week after. In her speech, a letter to her faculty colleagues and students, she wrote

I begin to ask myself questions:

How can I step out of this rampant political binary and step into what can be clearly seen as fearism [2] now that all political correct hiding strategies have been blown up? How can I model something else more unifying with diversity for those who are part of my professional and personal life?  

M: Barbara, there has been a lot of talk about the 2016 US election with Trump’s victory especially, I also know that you are talking with a lot of people in your professional life especially as a Director of Women, Gender and Sexualities Studies at your university. There is also more than talk going on in response to what is for sure a turn away, a blow-back, from the progressive democratic agenda of the USA since Obama’s presidency, of which you are a citizen, as well as a Canadian citizen. There are actions being taken by you and your colleagues and others in America that are in resistance and pro-action in order to protect some of those gained progressive moves. Besides this activism you are involved in there is the equally important interior dimension of it all. You have been feeling a lot of deep emotions, like so many others. So, in this context, could you speak to some of these impacts current American politics is having, and respond to President Trump’s first big message to the nation since winning: “Don’t be afraid. Stop the hate crimes.” So, to start, how are you doing?

 B: I’m okay. Adjusting. Well, the responsibility I am fully taking in my newly acquired American citizenship, it is just not the same as when I lived in Canada as a Canadian. The choice to become an American, because my dad was, at first was merely convenience for reasons to work here and have two passports. However, since then, it is actually a huge responsibility that little did I know was going to change my life when I moved here in 2008 to work at university. You don’t have this same political and historical activating consciousness in Canada. I sure didn’t. In America, I choose very selectively when to attend to news. I don’t want to be overwhelmed by it. But, living here I can’t avoid it like I could in Canada. More citizens in America are politically conscious than in Canada, I think. And the media loves to blow up any piece of news that comes out. It also is a responsibility due to my work in a state institute, whereby I began to realize and feel the impacts of being an employee of the US government, at the state level but also highly impacted by the federal level. I’ve been feeling the bruising impact for basically 8 years. I feel the direness of it all. First, the state had the Rod Blagojevich fiasco in IL as he was finally impeached as governor and serves a long prison sentence for state corruption all part of a leadership in the state going back for years that has bankrupt the state. Then Obama was elected when we first arrived and colleagues were telling me, to my surprise, they were so glad to no longer be embarrassed because of being Americans under the Bush regime for so long and having caused so much destruction. Gosh, now I am American and feel some of that feeling but I am not embarrassed as such, more disheartened. I’m not angry, like many of my friends and colleagues, I’m just like overwhelmed by how much the whole system is fucked… and the lack of responsibility of so many leaders in this country in regards to Education… I really see how education is at the core of the stupidity of people being bamboosled by the media and these political games going on.

M: I know you are not in your angry phase right now, Barbara. Though, I will remind you just how angry you have been for quite awhile at the politics of this nation and especially since Trump was going to be the Republican nominee. I guess, you’re getting used to the reality and other than anger, sorrow is more the emotion arising. So, I get that it becomes hard to trust anything anymore with leaders. The social contract of care and responsibility from state to citizens and university leadership to students and faculty and the community—all these become more in question with time.

B: It’s a pathetic leadership, with no vision. They’re holding on hard to the same old… old boys club… which includes women supporting that same club. It’s making me realize how incompetent adults are in this country, in general, very incompetent, and sadly the truth is it rises to the top, as I witness in the university system, the political and economic system and so on.

M: It looks and feels like a circus or theatrical drama to me. Yeah, we came in 2008 with amazing corruption and incompetency, lack of sincerity and breach of public and mutual trust. I’ve never quite felt this in my life before either. What we are witnessing is the serious deterioration of the moral and social fabric of trust and security that any healthy state or nation requires for sustainability and sanity. I know I hear many critics calling out “neo-facism” as the shift that is going on. It’s a strong critique but I definitely can see elements of it. No wonder people are scared, that is, if they really admit what they feel below the surface of carrying on daily routines of life here. The reason security vs insecurity is so important is because it breeds fear and terror at all levels all across the board; no body escapes. It is not by chance that I have been studying the American “culture of fear” phenomenon since before 9/11. I say no one escapes this toxic fearism-t running, though, like all throughout history, some people, the elites with extraordinary power and those with lots of money can buy their security to buffer themselves from the declining sociality of mutual regard. This new ‘class’ of elites have become quite a concern for political analysts of the left, because they are basically a class that is choosing to live without a place in the public sphere. They live in gated communities and abandon the public sphere, public education, public health care. They live in a bubble. It’s very dangerous to see this in any society. The public sphere is being threatened by the bottom end, of excess poverty, ghettoization and crime taking over public spaces, there is more privatization of public spaces, and the upper class trend of abandonment to their bubbles. So, Barbara, tell me what kinds of fear have you been witnessing in your circles here and in Canada in post-election ‘wake-up.’

B: I get most upset by how it is impacting young people, the students mostly and especially the WGSS students. I was meeting with terrified students before the election. Trump and his rhetoric re: the LGBTQL and Hispanic/Latino, (not so much) African American is scaring a lot of people. The biggest impact and fear is from women and LGBTQ communities. They don’t feel safe, generally. And with sexual assault issues bad enough in the community and on campus, since the election they going to get worse, I predict. With the severe budget cuts and failure of the state of IL to protect higher education and diversity awareness there is already lack of real support for women. It has deteriorated badly. I’m continually working on that with a few others on campus but is going nowhere fast because of so many other issues that are grabbing attention of university administration, like whether the university is going to make payroll in the next 6 months. The immigrant DACA issue is arising rapidly as a crisis in that students born in the USA from undocumented immigrants could be deported immediately without a trial. California has implemented some good sanctuary statements, and I heard in Arizona university faculty are also trying to. They’ve at least sent petitions to get faculty to sign. I’ve taken initiatives to encourage the same here at my university. Though, I am not hopeful this administration and leadership will take this on, they tend to want to be nice and not disturb the status quo.

M: They seem so fear-based to me, ever since we got here in 2008. I’ve not been impressed. So, how do you keep going without getting discouraged? I really get that you care for the students you serve. It’s a big responsibility, I know. I too was a school teacher many years ago. It’s an all-consuming responsibility.

B: I’m just doing things because it’s right. I have no idea if it will go anywhere. Otherwise, I don’t know how I’d go into work everyday, and feel in integrity, if I didn’t act as an advocate on behalf of students rights, and for the sake of a healthy faculty and university organization that is supposed to be guiding young people.

M: So taking action on this sense of righteousness indignation is a type of healthy anger, a healing anger, and seems to be a way of dealing with fear and terror?

B: Yes, and then there’s my grief. I don’t feel like I’m in terror, I feel more grief. I was talking to a Latino professor the other day and he’s having panic attacks and can’t work as well as he’d like, he is not able to focus. I have had a few recent melt downs and get very emotional and want to just cry and cry and cry. I can’t at work too much because I have an open door policy. I’m available all the time to be there for others. It’s not the space for all my emotional reactions. I’m there to do work and take action not to cry.

M: Why not do both?

B: I do at times. I can’t succumb to it, I have to be there for others. As you know, I phone you to get unconditional attention in between the worst challenging times so that my feelings don’t overwhelm my effective functioning in the workplace. Young students and faculty don’t need to see all my despair and negativity.

M: And what about having them see your politics? I mean do you actively show your political stances to them? Could you be accused of using your state-employee-tax-payer-paid position, privilege and power to try to influence youth to side with your point of view? Perhaps, you could be accused by some conservatives at least, of doing this. How do you not affect your students that way? I know some professors you work with, are likely vigorous in recruiting students for political agendas, that the professors are dedicated to.  What’s your ethical view on this touchy topic and its relationship to the battle of faculty to secure intellectual freedom?

B: I approach the political situations by asking them questions, how are they being impacted in their lives and listening more than I tell them about mine. When they ask me questions then I answer them honestly with what my stance is. A few times a week I have to pass a very load broadcasting fundamentalist Christian preacher who sets up his platform outside the library. I hear his loud preaching when I am working in my WGSS office. He stands there projecting his well-trained preacher voice telling the students not to commit adultery and only god can forgive you or numerous other high ground preaching statements meant to guilt these young people into submission. Most students pass him by without seemingly noticing him as do I. Although sometimes he has Christian students join him and they work more to engage the passing students in conversation. I find this deeply disturbing on many levels. It shocks me how this invasion of ideology blasting is allowed week after week in a public educational setting. I know he has found his legal location to preach but I find is so invasive and condemning of these young people. Who are not the source of the moral crisis in this country or world.

M: So, do you think Trump’s first big message to the nation “Don’t be afraid. Stop the hate” is going do anything useful?

B: No. Because he just says things reactively. He always has, in the election campaigning, he just says what he needs to in order to get votes from a lot of pissed-off people; and now, he says things like that to just placate the nation. He’ll say what ever. He’s just a player in a big game, there’s no substance. He’s just now being politically correct. Paradoxically, and ironically, by not being pc in his campaigning, he actually won the election. But it may still turn around that many who voted for Hillary are protesting all over the country as she won the popular vote. Anyways, this is the first time I have been learning just how fucked up the US election process is. It’s all connected historically as this system emerged after the Civil War. It didn’t work well back then. It has not worked since. The same sex, racial and class conflicts. Nothing has really changed. The angry poor whites end up fighting with the angry poor African Americans and so on. They won’t unite. Hate spreads. We’re still in the mess.

M: So here you are a state-employee. And you could have this interview picked-up by some surveillance security folks, and you and I could get in trouble. You know we are risking to speak out regardless of this? I say, we have to be following a fearlessness ethical criteria for free-speech, regardless of what positions we hold. I know you are not here speaking for your university or the state or anyone officially. You are speaking as an American citizen, and you just happen to be a state-employee at the same time. You ought to have the right to speak out in this country or anywhere. Are you afraid of surveillance of this dialogue and how it may affect your travel at the US border going in or out of this country. I know you are going to Egypt soon?

B: Not really, I have come to a place of not caring any more. Ethics and care comes first.

M: So what transformation is going on, for you personally and collectively?

B: Really getting how I am privileged in a leadership role and stepping into that fully; and, unfortunately, realizing few others are within my university. Obama didn’t get to the core of this countries issues to help the reform and transformation of education, nor did he reform Wall Street and big money-power that limits healthy government in this nation. There were some good things with Obama but more symbolic only, in regard to benefitting women and African Americans. Nothing fundamentally has changed.

M: It’s like the repressed shadow-side of the progressives, since the great victory of Obama, kind of got hidden for eight years and now. It is really coming out with shocking vehemence to the Left, but a lot of people in general. There’s a lot of disillusionment in progress overall. I see this especially for young people, many who are protesting on the streets across this nation right now, who are not so used to the long history and inevitability of swings of political and cultural wars, especially in the USA’s history. We never seem to just progress in a straight line, there’s always regressions, don’t you think?

B: Symbols of progress and surface gestures of change are not enough. You can’t be a progressive country when you are in continual war; it’s like an oxymoron because you are still as a nation putting nearly all your money into the military. Is that progressive? Because you still have the country with the most child poverty of developed nations and your school systems are atrocious, is that progressive, and the horrible health care system? Look, the lack of love for Americans worldwide has not decreased under Obama. A year and a half ago, when traveling overseas, I still wasn’t telling anyone on my trip I was an American. The stalemate has flipped, that’s all; from one corrupt government party to the other—all of them still war-mongers. I don’t know, I don’t know… I don’t understand it. Trump proves how Americans operate in a game of delusions and images. It’s too much power in the hands of people who just won’t grow up. I guess all empire nations are like that.

M: Yes, I agree. The level of maturity, due to woundedness and fear, is astoundingly low overall here. Violence is the food they eat and, well, you can expect what will come out of the other end. It’s not like I blame any individual. It’s a collective pathology, with a long history. I don’t feel that same pathology in Canada but Canadians do collude, often blindly, with American society, culture, economics and politics way more than I like. Immaturity is everywhere in the adult populations in North America. Barbara, I know in the past you have not necessarily seen yourself as an educator, activist or academic per se, especially so politically engaged as now, can you comment on that, what you think about activism in terms of your professional identity?

B: No, I prefer to be an artist. That identity can incorporate all those pieces and yet keep them integrated in some sane fashion. Part of it is, I don’t really like overload of information as activists seem to thrive on information. I’ve been forced to pay more attention to information in my work here. It’s not where I like to live and dwell, details aren’t that important at some level. I’m more interested in what quality of relationships are happening; like how are we treating each other, everywhere? I don’t care all that much about statistics and all the information and I know so much of it is heavily skewed with political agendas. So those labels don’t feel like me. I feel the tragedy of future of generations. I grieve over the mess adults have created. I want to do something about it.

M: And, indeed you are doing something. It’s impressive. I know it is painful too. So, you’ve been part of the Fearlessness Movement, more or less, since you met me in the late 1980s, and I’m curious what you think fearlessness, my leadership, has to offer in these current times and the near future?

B: I think people need to come to a place of respecting wisdom not just information or knowledge about this and that. And knowledge about what oppresses us all, as in your emancipatory research and your teaching is more interested in drawing out wisdom than drawing out and blasting people with information and statistics. At another level, you’re not a good activist. You talk about it and claim you are an activist; but you really don’t do a lot of action out there for the amount of time you have available. Instead, you’re gathering threads of knowledge and trying to formulate it within theories, models and patterns, for critical praxis.

M: Since coming to the US, it is not like I haven’t tried to join up and collaborate with all the Left groups, and I’ve attended many meetings and workshops of various sorts to help out. It seems that I come from way too strong of a radical position. These people here won’t take me serious, or they are too threatened by what I teach and represent. I have had some really candid discussions with great people, and they are even anti-American themselves here, and yet, when it came right down to them and I working more closely, no way! I find them all quite coward-like and they just can’t get over their Americanism. They’ve been conditioned to not reach out to other nations for advice. I was willing to give it all. They couldn’t take me openly and learn from my Canadian perspective, let alone learn from my unique research on fear and fearlessness to help them climb out of the chronic culture of fear which they were born and raised in, and which they seem still to deny its full impact on them. What more can I do? They’re addicted to oil and gas, their fierce individualism and independence, their need to be exceptional and superior—and, their deep chronic fear, individually and collectively. That’s not easy to overcome and it affects all colors of people, sex, gender, class and religions. One needs a lot of resources to help an addict, never mind a nation of them.

B: On one level, Michael, you are out of the world and can observe it; at another level you are in the world and pissed off at it. That conflict gives you an edge when you approach people out in the world.

M: I suppose. Doesn’t that go with being someone who’s a prophetic-type of character, an artist, radical, liberational leader? They are not generally, all that loved. But, I hear ya.

 B.  It’s a disadvantage, let’s put it that way. Likely, you’d go farther to have other people put your work into action. That may not come in your life time, I don’t know. It might have to be someone else finding it and recognizing it and not having you personally attached to it with the edge. I don’t know.

M: Me either. I have been noticing in the last couple years more up-take of my work and the Fearlessness Movement is resonating with more people than In Search of Fearlessness. It’s a long-haul, no matter which way you look at it. I have to not blame myself for it not taking off 25 years ago as I had wished and had so much enthusiasm back then. Now, I am still strong on the mission, just haven’t the same enthusiasm. Hey, maybe that’s a good thing. Who knows. Thanks for this interview. I know your post-election speech/letter has had a lot of great responses. What have people been saying since reading it? What has been the best part of hearing those responses for you?

B: A reminder that I/we are not alone in our pain and grief and we can turn to each other and not get stuck in isolation and our own despair. Acknowledging that, we are in a huge crisis but that we can still take steps with each other to get out of it. Another was the reminder that it is okay to take care of ourselves and not to lose sight of the beauty of each day in the midst of the grief.  Most were grateful responses. I did have 2 people ask to be taken off the list-serv after this post. Surprisingly one was a law professor and the other a pre-law student. Not sure what this says about those who uphold the law and want to uphold the law in America.

M: In America, or any place of contested views, this is to be expected. I'm glad to see so many were inspired by your speech/letter.

End Notes

1. Dear WGSS Students and Faculty, (Nov. 9/16), 

I will be sharing the regular newsletter later today but felt the need to share these early morning thoughts in the aftermath of the election. I am a Canadian who chose to become an American 7 years ago after coming to teach at SIU. I have found it hard to understand American thinking and ways of being on so many levels. As a new American I have experienced the significance and responsibility of voting that I never felt as a Canadian.  There are many gifts to be found in America. May the peoples of American now become leaders in the recovery and healing of deep systemic institutionalized oppressions that perpetuate hatred and fear. May Canada and all the world allies come forward to join in. The presence of WGSS in institutions of education is an essential part of that recovery. The work is undeniable and we have the knowledge and tools. We teach them in our classes, share them our research. I echo many of my WGSS colleague words on FB. It is time to get to work. 

Reality and Recovery

Accepting reality is the first step in recovery. Last night I chose to go to bed before the final election results were known. Awakening this morning at 5am my thought was “Trump has attained the Presidency of the United States of American. This is a reality.” Immediately I moved into thoughts of what I would share in my weekly newsletter to the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies community in which I am the Director of at SIU. I realized what I do know is that a number of disenfranchised groups in America have risen and won over other disenfranchised groups in this current political system. The familiar win-lose binary that keeps racism, sexism, homophobia and every other oppression in place is alive and well. The backlash for the losers is excruciating, full of pain and horror. I feel overwhelmed and ill-prepared for what is to come. I wake my partner up in bed as I weep and shake and ask him for attention. Attention is what we can give each other as we do the conscious work needed to release the collective trauma that has surfaced so blatantly in this 2016 election. It is a trauma that invokes with its worst side the use of intimidation to silence us and keep us isolated and in fear. On its better side is asks us to keep moving from crying to singing. I know from my experience that it is crucial to not silence the voice even when words feel impossible and/or inadequate. As I sing, thoughts of how oppressed groups utilize singing in times of political, cultural and religious oppressions arise in my memory, both in mind and body.

I begin to ask myself questions:

How can I step out of this rampant political binary and step into what can be clearly seen as fearism now that all political correct hiding strategies have been blown up? How can I model something else more unifying with diversity for those who are part of my professional and personal life? The WGSS conference that I am in the midst of planning with students and faculty is entitled “Allies Across Differences.” We have been preparing to address the binary of win vs. lose, us vs. them. We have an opportunity to offer a hospitable space on campus for the collective trauma that this political election has brought to the world’s attention. The fall out from the election results calls for attention and healing. We have the opportunity to keep teaching truth to power in hospitable ways, and yet, not be cooperative with oppression.

I am grateful for my wise colleague Cade Bursell’s FB post in the hours prior to the final election results. Reminding us/me to continue the work; to not return hate that we feel directed at us as women, people of color and diverse sexual and diverse gender identities. Instead let us stay connected, give attention to each other’s fear but do not succumb to projecting it back out as attacks. Stand up for each other. Gather allies, strategize and continue to use your voice and gifts to build allyships across differences. I grieve for and with the young especially as they have been born into this legacy of fear.

I begin this day with a simple commitment to remind people to sing. To keep walking the path with allies and those not yet allies with love and compassion. From chaos and destruction eventually comes new order. Keep teaching and speaking truth to power in your classes. And remember that the formal political realm is one of at least three realms that make up our world. The others being equally important, the natural and the spiritual realms. Take time for recovery. Spend some time outside today and remember the unconditional life giving forces that sustain us as humans on this planet. 

Please contact me if you would like to set up spaces for dialogue. WGSS will do what it can to support initiatives and gatherings for recovering and generating creative and critical ideas and initiatives for the future. 

2. She is borrowing one of my own terms and how I have used fearism as far back as 1997 to refer to the form of ideological oppression beneath all terrorism (and other ‘ism’ dis-eases); and now, since 2014 and meeting Desh Subba’s work on fearism, Barbara is referring implicitly to the more technically precise term fearism-t (toxic form). For Subba and myself we are promoting in our collaborations a philosophy of fearism, where the term is used like existentialism, or rationalism, which by itself is not toxic per se but such terms can be twisted and become toxic and dominating violent ideologies.