Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue

By Desh Subba and R. Michael Fisher

This book is about a new philosophy that takes a specific focus on see the critical historical and everyday importance of the nature and role of fear in human existence. We seem to be at a time when fear has taken the lead and we are not yet able to understand it and manage it well enough. It is causing major problems from wars, to terrorism, to deterioration of our institutions which are operating in a culture of fear. Our health is deteriorating under the excess of fear in the world today. No other philosophy, not rationalism, existentialism or pragmatism etc., has given this focus to fear as does the philosophy of fearism. It is an original synthesis of an Eastern philosophy of fearism (developed by Desh Subba, from Nepal) and a Western philosophy of fearlessness (developmed by R. Michael Fisher). The book brings forth their unified vision of a Fearless Age that awaits humanity if we better learn how to manage fear and teach about it with a new lens. Subba calls this a fearist lens, and Fisher calls it a fearlessness lens. Together, working independently for the past 20 years, they each have recently met to collaborate on this global project and movement as "one philosophy of fearism."
This is an essential text for leaders, students, parents, professionals and diverse people. Although it is not a self-help book, is goes deeper into helping our entire societies transform their relationship to fear and fearlessness. A must read for those who love philosophy and thinking critically about the 21st century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jan 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514440766

Desh Subba

R. Michael Fisher, Ph.D., was born and raised in Canada, and is currently living in the USA with his life-partner. He is a researcher, educator, counselor, artist and integral human development consultant with over 25 years experience studying fear and fearlessness and their role in society, especially in education. He has published many monographs, book chapters and journal articles dedicated to improving the quality of life. In 1989 he founded the In Search of Fearlessness Project and has founded several organizations since that time. He is currently Director of the Center for Spiritual Inquiry and Integral Education. His opus work, published in 2010, is The World's Fearlessness Teachings: A Critical Integral Approach to Fear Management/Education for the 21st Century. Desh Subba is a philosopher, novelist and poet. He was born in Dharan, in the eastern part of Nepal in 1965 and currently lives with his family in Hong Kong. He started Philosophy of Fearism as a literary movement in 1999 with his fiction and in 2011 with the line poem. He’s published four novels in Nepali. His third novel Aadibashi is recently published in English, entitled The Tribesmen's Journey to Fearless. In this novel he experiments with the Philosophy of Fearism in literature. He has received three book awards in 2015: National Indie Excellence Awards (winner), International Book Awards (finalist) and New York Book Festival Award (honorable mention). He continues to write while speaking at universities, like Hong Kong University and elsewhere about Fearism. He the leading fearism spokesperson in the East, and co-founder of the Fearism Study Center (2009-) in Dharan, Nepal.

Book preview

REVIEWS

This book correctly identifies fear as a major contemporary problem, and uses crosscultural dialogue not only to improve diagnosis but also to propose some possible remediation. The focus is commendable.

Peter N. Stearns, Ph.D.

Profesor of History, George Mason University

Fairfax, VA, USA

Author: Guiding the American University: Contemporary Problems and Prospects and,

American Fear: The Causes and Consequences of High Anxiety

This original work on becoming fearless through the philosophy of fearism is part of a larger philosophy of praxis that critical educators would do well to engage. Capitalism has saturated the structural unconscious of modern nation states, creating new species of fear so penetrating that they some-times go unnoticed. This new work will help to challenge this fear and overcome it through the creation of a protagonistic agency powered by hope and struggle.

Peter McLaren, Ph.D.,

Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies,

University of Aukland, New Zealand,

Author: Pedagogy of Insurrection

Wow!! This is an amazing work. From their locations in the West and the East, respectively, R. Michael Fisher and Desh Subba offer a dynamic dialogue about fear that is erudite and expansive, provocative and prophetic, transcultural and transformative. My hope is that readers will embrace this book with imaginative energy as we learn together to embrace the presence of fear, like a present, always present.

Carl Leggo, Ph.D.

Poet & Professor of Language & Literacy Education,

The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Co-editor: Arts-based & Contemplative Practices in Research & Teaching: Honoring Presence

This book reveals the complex multidimensionality of fear. The Fisher-Subba conversations show how those dimensions can be taken up quite differently. Taking the lead, both of their insistence that Fear Studies (in its many forms and names) needs to be taken more seriously by academics, especially in the human sciences, as well as with literary people, is right on the mark. You’ve got me thinking about the whole matter in new ways—thanks for that. To gain support in the future development of the philosophy of fearism you need to address the concrete personal and political aspects of daily life more, in order to give the work that ‘edge’ and focus of compelling relevance for others to see. Studies of fear in a philosophical sense have their place, but unless they address specific empirical situations and experiences, such offering tends to lessen in prac-tical value.

David Geoffrey Smith, Ph.D.

Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Education,

University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Author: Teaching as the Practice of Wisdom

Those of us working in the domains of feelings, emotions, affect, trauma, healing, conflict and transformation in education, are about to have access to a new body of knowledge and way of thinking that are nothing short of a game-changer. R. Michael Fisher and Desh Subba, the two most eminent fearologists in the world, have written a provocative, impassioned and theoretically sophisticated argument about the (in)visible power of fear and our inability to navigate it productively in modern social and political life. In a sequence of compelling conversations, examples and analyses, this book sets the high-bar of demanding different understandings of fear—both from the East and the West—in a creative dialectic that reveals the unexpected paths of fear and its consequences in our lives. Fisher and Subba have created a profound treatise on fearism at a time when the insidious growing culture of fear requires a counter-vision for a beckoning fearless age!

Michalinos Zembylas, Ph.D.

Assoc. Prof. Educational Theory & Curriculum Studies,

Open University of Cyprus,

Author: Emotion & Traumatic Conflict: Re-claiming Healing in Education

Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue by R. Michael Fisher and Desh Subba is a serious revision of philosophical attempts to define innate human nature. Psychological theories bent on explaining human psychology— from Sigmund Freud through Jung, to Lacan, Levinas and Anna Freud—have had serious limitations on their own fronts, basically because of their abstract generalizations and often non-empirical speculations. Moreover, most of these philosophies, owing largely to the complexity of their theoretical intricacy could not pare down to the general readership, and remained overly academic. This must be the reason why, after Jung, no sweeping theory of psychology came into academia even after half a century since the death of Jung. Another cultural school of psychological interpretation coming through ancient religious and scriptural texts, largely dwells on imaginary fears of after-life, and are therefore quite removed from verifiable truths. The existential school of thought, with its close allies like nihilism, Dadaism and their modernist offshoots, attacked almost every cultural and spiritual foundation of human faith, and thus remained largely non-influential among the larger population of the world. A need for a newer philosophy, which would compensate for these limitations of the earlier psychological theories, was being felt—and here comes Fearism with its pervasive influence. Its fundamental assumption is that fear drives human action. It is truth attested to by universal human experience across the ages.

Mahesh Paudyal,

Lecturer, Central Department of English,

Tribhuwan University,

Kathmandu, Nepal

Our greatest fear is that we don’t actually know what fear is, writes Fisher and Subba. Now that’s provocative and unexpected. I am faced with the question of fear in every interaction I have with clients (coaching or therapy). Fear, it is an emotion, and so much more! It is the most significant, present, pervasive, and noticeable barrier(s) to change, growth, healing and transformation in individuals, communities and in the world. This rare book deeply and critically examines the role of fear in life systems. It originates ideas for new sub-disciplines like feariatry, fearanalysis, and fearology. Every school of clinical psychology, counseling, social work and coaching should include a course, if not whole term, on fearism and fearlessness with Fisher and Subba as course creators and teacher trainers. I am more than impressed by their dedicated and important vision.

Janet Sheppard, MA

Clinical and Integral Counselor, Therapist and Coach

Courtenay, BC, Canada

Before I read Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue, I had never imagined that terms like fearism, fearuality, and fearology would ever be coined. These authors, who we now can call the first ever fearologists or fearists of the world, have diligently explored the human instinct of fear to the fullest possible degree. They have not only fearlessly looked into the face of Fear, but they have meticulously examined the immense role it plays in the human psyche and society. It is wonderful that Fisher and Subba, from two opposite parts of the globe, have combined their explorative and critical minds to give birth to this philosophical treatise.

Manprasad Subba

Poet and Writer

Darjeeling, India

There is this old southern (American) saying, Time is short and the water is rising. We are running out of time. The face of humanity is the face of fear. Wherever one may look; toward the West (America) with gun violence visiting random death upon the masses, to Europe where untold numbers of refugees are escaping fear with no idea of a fearless future; in the Middle East where conflict and brutal subjugation is both random and calculated to impress the maximum fear upon peoples of the region; of the Far East where a war stance is a way of life between North and South Korea. Fear is the one constant throughout our global 21st century way of being and living. Fear already has us all in its ominous grip as the writers express in the Preface. And so there is only one path away from calamity—to begin addressing the matter of our universal fear through a comprehensive study, understanding, and application of those tenants offered in Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue, so wonderfully presented by R. Michael Fisher and Desh Subba in this seminal work. Time is short.

William Bauman,

Organizational & Interpersonal Communication Consultant

Carbondale, IL, USA

Philosophy of Fearism

A First East-West Dialogue

R. Michael Fisher

and

Desh Subba

Copyright © 2016 by R. Michael Fisher and Desh Subba.

Cover art by R. M. Fisher

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/14/2016

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

723901

CONTENTS

Figures & Appendices

Foreword (W.) by Dr. Don Trent (Four Arrows) Jacobs

Foreword (E.) by Dr. Tanka Prasad Neupane

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Why Focus on Fear, Not Love?

Chapter 1: Fearology, Fearism, and the Fearlessness Movement

Chapter 2: Fearist Perspective and an Integral Dialectics

Chapter 3: Epistemology of Fear an a Postmodern Era

Chapter 4: Towards a Theory of Fearism

Afterword: Blue Print for a Fearless Age

References

Glossary

Dedicated to…

the educators of every stripe who fight for what they believe is right,

and critique their own beliefs with good philosophy.

- R. Michael Fisher

my dearest late mom, Tilmati Limbu, who showed me this beautiful world and enabled me to reach its heights. I miss you very much.

- Desh Subba

FIGURES & APPENDICES

Figure 1 Fear Conferences: 35 Yrs

Figure 2 Fishbowls: Integral Dialectics of Love and Fear

Figure 3 Fearism Cartoon

Figure 4 An Integral Model of Relationship: Three Pillars

Appendix 1 Comparison of Subba and Fisher

Appendix 1.1 Some Explicit Uses of Fearism by Scholars

WEST: FOREWORD

You are about to eavesdrop on a most important dialogue. Poetic, provocative and exciting, this engagement with fearism might also be, well, frightening. One thing that emerges from this radical conversation between the two most eminent fearologists in the world is that each of us must make vital choices that determine if and how we might escape the growing dangers that relate to our inability to manage fear effectively. And making such choices can be a scary proposition for many.

What makes this text so valuable is not just the authors’ freewheeling, challenging thoughts that stem from years of contemplating their subject, but the fact that it is being discussed at all. Although people in most cultures know about the importance of courage, few have had the opportunity to learn how to employ it consistently and effectively. Dr. Fisher and Desh Subba offer reflections from two very different cultural orientations that can lead to our becoming connoisseurs of fear, (a phrase I once borrowed from the courageous author, Sam Keen (1999), for a chapter title in my 1998 book, Primal Awareness.) This book thus offers a unique break from the status-quo avoidance that surrounds the topic of fear, if one can muster the courage to tackle the subject.

I believe that the Dominant worldview, one that now largely embraces both the East and the West, has made us afraid of fear. Joseph Campbell’s famous phrase, Follow your bliss comes to mind. In the actual quote, offered in the published dialogue between Campbell and Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, the most important part of Campbell’s offering has typically been all but lost in contemporary popular culture, especially in the West.

Moyers: What’s the journey one has to make, what you call the soul’s high adventure?

Campbell: My general formula for my students is "Follow your bliss. Find where it is, and don’t be afraid to follow it [italics mine]" (Flowers, 1988:183).

Some degree of expertise in learning how not to be afraid is a requirement for manifesting courage and ultimately even a kind of fear-lessness in the world, as the following pages in Fisher and Subba’s book reveal.

As a Cherokee-blooded man, and an Oglala relation and Sun Dancer, I rejoice in seeing this dialogue between the Eastern and Western aspects of the Dominant worldview because such expertise has always been a major part of the Indigenous worldview, a set of precepts about the world that guided humanity for 99% of our time on Earth. A number of surviving Indigenous cultures are still connoisseurs of fear, such as the Cofán of Ecuador and Colombia. One of the oldest surviving native people of Ecuador’s Amazon, they consider themselves guardians of the rainforest and have been, along with the Achuar, very instrumental in the preservation of the Amazonian rainforest.

The anthropologist Michael Cepek, who studied the Cofán, wrote, distinct conceptions of fearlessness structure the complex relationships that have allowed them to take on the many challenges they face (Cepek, 2008: 334). For most Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews, fear is only made a reality by our choices. A Cherokee adage is that one should not look fear in the face, but allow fear to look itself in the face. The dialogue that follows seems to do this and may help bring us back to a healthier baseline way of being in the world in these critical times.

References

Cepek, M. (2008). Bold jaguars and unsuspecting monkeys: the value of fearless- ness in Cofán politics. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 14 (2), 334-352.

Flowers, B. S. (Ed.) (1988). The power of myth, with Bill Moyers. NY: Doubleday.

Jacobs, D. T. (1998). Primal awareness. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International.

Keen, S. (1999). Learning to fly: Trapeze- reflections on fear, trust, and the joy of letting go. NY: Harmony.

- Don Trent (Four Arrows) Jacobs, EdD.

School of Educational Leadership & Change,

Fielding Graduate School, Sequim, WA, USA

EAST: FOREWORD

Philosophy is called Darshan in Sanskrit. Learning of Darshan is a process of speculation on life and the world. When speculation becomes matured it creates curiosity. Then, a person starts to think and act seriously as to consequences of their beliefs and choices. Afterwards, this thinking changes into a systematic philosophy. Such philosophy makes us free from different problems. Philosophy of Fearism is such a means of salvation from pain, fear, sorrow and suffering.

In the East, fear is described in many philosophical and religious texts, like Mahabharat, Ramayan, Upanishad and some myths, etc. Feelings of fear are all over the world either East or West. In Sanskrit literature Hitupdesh (moral ethics 26) mentioned that foods, slumber, fear and sex are similar for humans and animals. The Vedanta philosophical book Panchdashi says, despair, hope of results, bonds of attachment, and fear can be removed after enlightenment or salvation. Bhartrihari has written in his book Vairagya Shataka about various fears. In literary theory of Sanskrit there are nine permanent Nava Rasa (Nine Juice/Tastes); Fear is taken up among them and established as a dangerous taste (Bhayanak Rasa). In the West, Sigmund Freud in his 25th lecture talked about anxiety or dread, and fear/fright. There is fear in Alfred Adler’s writing as well. In general, fear is the action and reaction of dread, which comes in the human mind. Philosophy of Fearism and its Theory of Fearless, is way out beyond the limitations of this fear.

Desh Subba called me from Hong Kong and explained to me all about Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue and it made me extremely happy and joyful. Prior to this, people thought fearism was a Nepali literary movement but this joint writing by Dr. R. Michael Fisher (W) and Desh Subba (E) has clearly shown us otherwise. Now, we witness that fearism is a global independent philosophy amongst the other philosophies of the world. This book is truly a fearological writing in harmony.

The first time I heard of Philosophy of Fearism (in the novel Aadibashi) was in 2007, starting with the writer Desh Subba. I thought it will be a prominent philosophy in the world like Marxism and Freudianism. In my opinion, it is the third philosophy, birthed from the Holy Himalayan religious country of Nepal, following along the lines of thought from Sangkhaya philosophy (Kapil) and Buddha (Siddartha). Nobody thought that fear could or should be central to Philosophy before.

I don’t know how Subba coined this word. I respect his dedicated hard work and his strong confidence. He is continuously speaking, writing and inviting writers to nourish this plant. As a result, already he has been awarded some international book awards. Meantime there was Subba’s (2015) Aadibashi (The Tribesmen’s Journey to Fearless: A Novel Based on Fearism) and Fearism National Discourse in 2008 at Dharan, Nepal, Subba’s birthplace. Eleven writers presented papers including myself, in which I declared, Philosophy of Fearism is a gift from Nepal to the world. In 2009, Mr. Subba came to Dharan, at Mahendra Multiple Campus, Nepali Language Department, and organized a book launch, which included Fearism Ideological Thought edited by Prakash Thamsuhang. This book, not yet translated into English, was a collection of papers from the Fearism National Discourse. At this event we announced the opening of the Fearism Study Centre, and with great enthusiasm, I was appointed as Chairman.

I am inspired by all the activity around fearism in this part of the world. Once we were going to Assam, N.E. India to participate in an Assamese literary program, Rana Kafle came to meet us at the Nepal-India border in Silguri. While traveling by train, Mr. Subba called us by phone from Hong Kong to inquire how we were doing. I gave the phone to Mr. Kafle. Later, on the train I talked about Subba’s earlier fearism fiction work in Bhayabad. Mr. Kafle was profoundly influenced. In 2013, February 16-18, under Kafle’s coordination, we organized an international program at Dharan and he started to write on fearism and expand educating about fearism philosophy to diverse populations all over India. His mission is slowly gaining success. In India, there are many believers and supporters of fearism compared to in Nepal at the present time. It is truly a movement taking hold at a time when it is very needed.

In late 2014, Mr. Subba called me and informed me about Dr. R. Michael Fisher’s (2014) Technical Paper 51. I became curious and read it. Really, it was amazing, as if my dreams had come true. That paper was the first internationally supported document of Fearism, and fortunately very similar thought was now available coming from the West. I made many copies and distributed them among writers. Subba also sent copies to N.E. India. Now, with the publishing of Philosophy of Fearism: A First East-West Dialogue, there is a very important blueprint for global fearism built on friendship, philosophical exchange, and open-minded thinking about the Philosophy of Fearism as it moves through a new door to the wide world. This latest work is an excellent foundation for authors, scholars, students and philosophical lovers. I wish the book and its authors all the best.

References

Fisher, R. M. (2014). Towards a theory of fearism. Technical Paper No. 51. Carbondale, IL: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.

Subba, D. (2015). A tribesman’s journey to fearless: A novel based on fearism. Xlibris.

Subba, D. (2014). Bhayabad. Nepal: Kitabhgar.

- Prof. Dr. Tanka Prasad Neupane

Chairman, Fearism Study Centre,

Dharan, Nepal

PREFACE

The problem is not all our diverse fears, or the more crucial understanding of fear itself, but more critically, it is the inhibition to develop a fearless imagination for fear that harms us most.

There is something profoundly new to be said about fear and its impacts in the 21st century. The sooner it is said the better otherwise the evidence shows we will continue losing ground to fear—realizing one day, fear has us in its ominous grip—and, our healthy fearuality¹ development (analogous to sexuality) is compromised.

Addressing what we call the Fear Problem, the depth psychotherapist Carl Jung inspired the thought behind the opening sentences for this book, where for Jung it was the problem of evil (e.g., Shadow) that he believed was greatest because the naïve people (and leaders) "have no imagination for evil, but evil has us in its grip."² Although fear and evil are not the same, they are intimately related. We wonder where this new imagination for fear will grow from so as to act in a helpful way to reduce, if not eliminate, human suffering? Although fear and suffering are not the same, they are intimately related.

Studying and writing about fear for a few decades, the two of us pursued independently a philosophy of fearlessness (Fisher) and philosophy of fearism (Subba), recently combining our thoughts through inter-textual dialogue, coming to realize even with our differences we have a sustainable commonality of one philosophy of fearism, to which this book is dedicated to elaborate.

Although fear can be, and often is, argued as positive (e.g., fear is a natural defense to threat) or completely negative (e.g., fear is the opposite of love), the philosophy of fearism and philosophy of fearlessness eventually synergized into a balanced philosophy that sees and valorizes both sides. Yet, this book will elaborate more on the negative side of fear (‘fear’) from an epistemological perspective. The reasons for this focus will unfold from chapter to chapter, of which the essence of the arguments fall along the lines of the problematic Jung brought forward (analogously) in his study of evil and the psychic personal and collective unconscious Shadow.

Our species Homo sapiens is significantly behind in establishing a systematic study of fear capable of guiding our way in a fear-full, often terrifying world. Exchanging emails in late-2014, by spring of 2015 we desired writing an article together from Eastern (Subba) and Western (Fisher) perspectives. That quickly morphed into a book, which would accomplish this goal of saying something fresh about fear with a critical new vocabulary (literacy), and to do so by expanding our current fear imaginary.³

So many who study, teach and write about fear, including those who consume that knowledge, are rarely confronted with a notion of fear imaginary. A contemporary woman philosopher Kathleen Lennon created a useful analogy for us as co-authors. It helps locate our passions and