TECHNICAL PAPER # 10

2000

The Movement Toward A Fearless Society:
A Powerful Contradiction To Violence
R. Michael Fisher , MA (c)
Graduate Student, Faculty of Education
The University of British Columbia, Canada

Published by In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, Vancouver, BC

[Note: The excerpts below are incomplete. For full text, order this publication from the publisher/author @ $5 Canadian funds]

Introduction

For a few decades I have been searching for the root cause(s) of violence. I have found that violence is complex and there are no easy answers to its elimination on this planet. The information to help us better understand the cause of violence has to come from many disciplines of knowledge including the arts and humanities, the social and hard sciences and the religious wisdom traditions from around the world. The solution to violence will come from an integral combination and synthesis of the best of the old and new knowledges from these disciplines, cultures, and our everyday valuable human experiences.

Ultimately, as an educator, I am interested to challenge our ways of under-standing and defining violence and the ways that we think are "best" to deal with violence in all kinds of formal and informal learning sites. This publication is intended to briefly document a growing (populist and academic) movement that suggests that a non-violent society can only be founded on fearlessness-- the ethical path of a fearless life-- a way of 'Love'. The way to 'Love', I argue (and this fearless movement suggests), is to better understand the nature and role of 'fear' and its impact on this planet. 'Fear' is poorly understood and must be seen beyond what psychology (or common knowledge) has told us that 'fear' is. The (') marks on 'fear' indicate I am using the term with no privileged understanding of what the phenemenon actually is-- in other words, 'fear' is being discovered still. When fear is written without the (') marks, that means it is used as in normal everyday language. With better understanding of 'fear' and its relation to 'Love,' we may act strongly from an informed basis to stop the 'fear'-based practices that lead to killing Life and Soul. Our social activism and reforms of cultural habits begins within each of us-- and simultaneously, begins with collective changes of political and economic habits and a social order based on 'fear.'

The ecological and social crises we face, in a "culture of violence," are all thought to be directly linked to 'fear' as the cause and agent of human-induced destructivity. This may sound simplistic-- it is not. The vast amount of literature on 'fear' and fearlessness, which still remains fragmented and obscure, has great insight to bring to building a non-violent society and world. This publication and those to follow from the Fearless Foundation are intended for audiences of all walks of life, and someday, they will be translated into various languages to make them accessible to all people. The nature of these publications is meant to bring about critical thinking, dialogue, conflict where necessary, and re-evaluation of "truths" that may be worth keeping, or better to throw out. Everything written herein is challengeable and your feedback is welcome.

The primary "risky" and controversial assumption I have made in the quest of a non-violent world boils down to these (rather inadequate) words: 'Love' may be our nature, but 'fear' is our daily challenge. We have for long enough given priority to speaking about 'Love' as the God/Goddess and way to living the 'good life.' But 'Love' is not enough, especially if it is uninformed. The better way for humans to aim for the 'good life' for all, is to focus not on 'Love' any longer but to focus on what gets in the way of 'Love'-- that is, 'fear'. The goal of fearlessness, at this time, is the better way to manifest our 'Love' nature. Fearlessness is better than 'Love' as the focus. Fearlessness never lets us forget 'fear' and how it is the source and agent of our suffering. 'Fear' is likely more greatly misunderstood than 'Love' because 'fear' is something we wish to avoid rather than seek. 'Fear' is the greater stranger of the two.

Some Evidence of the Fearless Movement (Grassroot and Citizen Goups, Advisory Councils: Changing Radically the Way We Live

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Internet support groups of survivors of abuse have titles like "Free From Fear Webring" (on-line) and more confined focused groups like "Freedom From Fear" (on-line) are interested support people with mental illness (particularly schizophrenia) and educate the public to be less afraid and ignorant of this mental "disease"-- as these advocates call it. A German-based group of health professionals and others mental health advocates have initiated a "Freedom From Fear" anti-coercive psychiatry campaign where they cite the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights which guarantees each person their basic right to life without fear. They wrote (on-line): "According to this [U.N.] declaration, fear is arbitrary incarceration, torture and arbitrary killing. Psychiatry is fear! Abolish coercive psychiatry!".

Presented to the Canadian government, The Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women (1991) produced a book directly linking violence and fear, entitled Living without fear; Everyone's goal, every woman's right." (Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women. 1991. Ottawa, ON: Parliament, House of Commons Standing Committee on Health and Welfare, Social Affairs, Seniors, and the Status of Women).

AGORA, a Swiss think-tank group, has recently charged the American "culture of fear" (see for e.g., de Becker, 1997; Furedi, 1997; Glassner, 1999) as a crazy imperialist culture that is now colonizing the rest of the world with its "fear of living" and its resultant low moral expectations and diminishing personal responsibility to the community/society. They wrote,

"The new cultural imperialism.... They are the outgrowth of a new phenomenon-- the fear of living--- that has already severely infected American culture and threatens to undermine societies around the world. Born out of paranoid risk aversion [this does exclude the Gen- Xers and their extreme sports/thrills-- No Fear wear styles], an obsession with health and arbitrary standards of 'correctness', fear of living leads to the refusal or risk as an inevitable and, indeed, bracing part of life as well as a petulant denial that accidents do happen and that products and lifestyles cannot be made completely safe. Inherent in the fear of living doctrine is the rejection of self-reliant and personal res- ponsibility. That, in turn, begets a society of both would-be totalitarians and complaining victims forever suing others. If rich, long-lived, healthy Americans want to worry itself with imaginary terrors and undermine the culture of self-reliance.... but the cowering culture that fear of living produces is now being exported to countries that cannot afford it...." (from a book Fear of Living written and published by AGORA, 1995-- on-line).

Quality Life Without Fear

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Freedom From Fear: Basic Human Need, Highest Human Aspiration

"Freedom from fear" was cited as a "basic human need" in developing regions by graduate educational researchers working in isolated regions of Colombia in Central America (Arango, Marta and Nimnicht, Glen. 1983. Paper from the Project on Human Potential. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA).

"Freedom from fear and want" is one of U.S. President F.D. Roosevelt's 1940s "Four freedoms," essential in developing basic human rights. F.D. delivered this formulation of worldwide social and political objectives in his State of the Union Message to Congress on January 6, 1941. In 1946, after establishing the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt, the United States ambassador to the UN, was selected to head the newly formed Commission on Human Rights to determing the constituents of humankind's inalienable freedoms. According to Clements (1999),

She and other members of the commission were determined to write a document that would live and last, a document that would protect and empower men and women [children], irrespective of color, creed or culture. Their goal was to establish a universal framework for all beings to realize their highest potential and live in freedom and dignity. Thus, on December 10, 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN General Assembly stating that 'freedom from fear' was [hu]mankind's highest aspiration.

Democracy, argued these Human Rights advocates, "... involves, beyond the right to speak and write freely, the freedom to associate and organize and, above all, freedom from fear of reprisal." (from Encyclopedia Brittanica, on-line).

Nobel Peace laureate recipient, Buddhist and female freedom-fighter from Burma, Aung San Suu Kyii (1995) wrote, "It is not power that corrupts.... It is fear...". (from Kyii, 1995. Freedom from fear. UK: Penguin).

Fear Of Freedom

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Fearless Education (Being Called For)

Parker Palmer, a long-time internationally known consultant-educator with a spiritual emphasis, has written a stunning chapter on "The culture of fear" in his 1998 book, as a must read for any teacher/educator/policy maker. He wrote,

Our multilayered fear of the live encounter is not simply a personal emotion that teachers and students bring into the classroom one by one. It is also a cultural trait at work in every area of our common life. We practice a politics of fear in which candidates are elected by playing on voters' anxieties about race and class. We do business in an economy of fear where 'getting and spending' are driven by consumer worries about keeping up with the neighbors. We subscribe to religions of fear that exploit our dread of death and damnation. In a culture where fear is the air we breath, it is hard to see how deeply fearful our education is-- let alone imagine another way to teach and learn. This chapter focuses on pathological fear, so it is important to remember that fear can also be healthy. (p. 39 in Palmer. 1998. The courage to teach; Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher's life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass).

Critical feminist and African-American pedagogue-artist, bell hooks, wrote,

As we love, fear necessarily leaves.... But we do fear and fear keeps us from trusting love. Cultures of domination rely on the cultivation of fear as a way to ensure obedience. In our society we make much of love and say little about fear. Yet we are all terribly afraid most of the time. As a culture we are obsessed with the notion of safety. Yet we do not question why we live in states of extreme anxiety and dread. Fear is the primary force upholding structures of domination.... When we choose to love we choose to move against fear-- against alienation and separation.... Since so many of us are imprisoned by fear, we can move toward a love ethic only by the process of conversion. (pp. 93-4 in bell hooks. 2000. All about love. NY: William Morrow & Co. ).

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Politics Without Fear

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Organizations Without Fear

Educational (and other kinds of) institutes ought to look at the recent Banff Centre for the Arts, Alberta, Canada, as a leader in the fearless movement. Their recent vision process and re-organization in the late 90s ended with a mission statement that read (paraphrasing): "Our mission is to provide an educational environment without fear for all students, faculty and staff that work at the Banff Centre...".

Business management and organizational culture experts, especially following the Total Quality Management 'guru', Edward Deming, have begun to produce a significant literature foregrounding attention on 'fear' and organizations without fear as superior in quality and profits (see for e.g., Chambers and Craft, 1998; Covey, 1995, p. 22; Gibb, 1991; Simons, 1999).

Leadership literature in business is sometimes using metaphors and practices of the various warrior traditions. For example, a recent business book (paraphrasing Attila the Hun) suggested, "Chieftans who lead our Huns must have courage. They must be fearless and have the fortitude to carry out assignments given them-- the gallantry to accept the risks of leadership." (p. 17 in Wess Roberts. 1990. Leadership secrets of Attila the Hun. NY: Warner).

Religion Without Fear

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Fearless Spirituality

The Tibetan Buddhist Shambhala spiritual warrior training, introduced to the West in the 1980s by Choygam Trungpa Rinpoche, has become popular to those who seek spiritual awareness and life actions without violence. Fields (1991) suggested: "Meditation could thus be considered a nonviolent training in fearlessness." (p. 249, Rick Fields. 1991. The code of the warrior; In history, myth and everyday life. NY: HarperPerennial/HarperCollins).

A large number of 'new age' spiritual books are interested in the great power of 'Love' and 'fear' as opposing master forces on the planet earth. Through spiritual practices and discipline these authors support an ethical commitment to living a life beyond fear-- for e.g., "Visions of tomorrow: The war against the power of fear" by Dean Steeves, 1997 (3-D Marketing LLC); "Tri-tuning: Harmonizing your mind, body and spirit to live beyond fear" by Hilda N. Perkins, 1999 (Universal Quest Publications); "When love meets fear: How to become defense-less and resourceful" by David Richo, 1997 (Paultist Press); "Victory and domination over fear: Destroying your deadliest enemy" by Lester Sumrall, 1988 (Sumrall Publications). The best book I have read on 'fear' in this larger spiritual context is by far that written by the spiritual psychologist and academic Robert Sardello (1999) entitled "Freeing the soul from fear"(Putnam Public. Group).

Radical Feminism

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Concluding Remarks On Violence And Fear

It ought to be evident that 'fear' is no longer adequately conceptualized as merely a "feeling or emotion" as most textbooks in psychology and medical dictionaries and encyclopedias are telling us. 'Fear' is also a political construct (Corradi et al., 1992; Massumi, 1993) with larger sociological dynamics which impact us all as individuals at the collective level of society and daily life. It also ought to be evident that "Love is not enough" (as Bettleheim, 1950 had written) to counteract and challenge 'fear' at the psychosociopolitical level. bell hooks (2000) has called for us to critically challenge our thinking, giving more attention to the impact of 'fear,' as we enter a 21st century that beckons us to develop an "ethics of love," as hooks calls it.

But granted, an ethics of love or fearlessness may not seem to be a convincing strategy to found our struggles to bring violence under control on this planet. But then what else has worked to control violence-- to eliminate violence and wars? One of the most difficult things in our dealing with violence (of all kinds subtle and gross) is to see that violence is always underlayed with 'fear.' Dr. Ellen Taliaferro, Director of Physicans for Non-violence concluded her many years of research into violence with this same view. Clinical psychologist, Glen Slater (2000), who has studied the "psychology of bullets" and gun culture amongst American youth and wrote,

Even in so-called hate crimes, what lies beneath the rhetoric and rage is fear and alienation, a terror that one's place in middle class white society is being stripped away, a paranoid need to find a target for that terror. (p. 22)

"In America, on average, 87 people are killed by gunfire every day." (p. 24)

And there is severe sexism, classism, racism, adultism, and homophobia involved in this culture of violence and youth violence. Males are particularly prone to use and carry such weapons (but so are nations led by pathological patriarchies that continue to sacrifice their "young" for national security or is it insecurity/'fear'?). There are still over 40 wars "... currently causing misery on the planet." (Barbara, 1996, p. 8). "Homocide is the leading cause of death among African-American males age 15-19 years and the second leading cause of death of all youth (Lawton, 1992)" (Lehr and Martin, 1994, p. 12). "Violence and the threat of violence affect youths today more than any other segment of the population. Adolescents ages 16-19 have the highest victimization rates in the country... (National Crime Victimization Survey, 1992) (in de Anda, 1999, p. 137)-- should we be surprise that youth violence and crime is so high in the Western world? We don't really need more statistics do we? Youth are terrified. Adults are terrified. Thus, we have a "culture of terror" (says, Noam Chomsky and others). And more importantly, we have a "culture of domination" that continually breeds 'fear' and resultant violence (and we are in North America-- a "democracy" so called).

Adults and educators have a grave question to face:

How does one reconcile this orgiastic indulgence in our supposedly bestial instincts for violence and cruelty with the ubiquitous spread of education and civilization in our own time?.... The twentieth century will go down in history as the bloodiest and most murderous .... (p. 6, Beissel, 2000).

I heartily concur with bell hooks (1993) that adults have to look deeply into their past and their current ways of dealing with youth and youth culture, and our practices of sacrificing youth to militarism and economic-centered globalizing industrialism. Child care, education and schooling practices have to be critically analyzed for their "adultist" practices. hooks (1993) wrote,

The parent-child relationship in a culture of domination like this one is based on the assumption that the adult has the right to rule the child. It is a model of parenting that mirrors the master-slave relationship. (p. 36)

In a search for "what is sanity?", Daniel Goleman (1981), a leader in the emerging interest into "emotional intelligence" in education, has written that Erik Erikson's final stage of maturity in the life-cycle is one of coming to accept life-circumstances and not try to run away from them in 'fear'-- he also, notes that Erikson posed this "maturity" as a time of "... lack of resentment, absence of fear..." (Goleman, 1981, p. 135). It looks like the fearless movement is an important response to violence and an essential ingredient to maturity for the human individual and species. I trust this introductory paper will contribute to both these causes and encourage, particularly, educators to begin a serious research initiative to explore 'fear' and fearlessness as critical concepts and phenomena in educational policy, theory and practice.

Footnotes [not included in this excerpt]

References Cited

Barbara, J. (1996). Some wars never happen: Can we increase the proportions of conflict that do not result in war? Peace Magazine, Sept.-Oct., 8-11.

Beissel, H. (2000). Cain and Abel or the origin of violence. Humanist in Canada, Spring, 6-9, 12.

Bell, D. (1987). Winners: A culturally-based, values clarification-oriented, creative writing primary prevention workbook for the Black-child. Vol. 1. Self-published. Los Angeles, CA.

Bettleheim, B. (1950). Love is not enough. NY: Free Press.

Brunner, C.C. (1988?). Developing women leaders: The art of 'stalking' the superintendency. Unpublished paper. University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Brunner, C.C. (1998) (Ed.). Sacred Dreams: Women and the superintendency. Albany, NY: State University Press of New York.

Brunner, C.C. (1998a). Women superintendents: Strategies for success. Journal of Educational Administration, 36(2), 160-182.

Chambers, H.E. & Craft, R. (1998). No fear management: Rebuilding trust, performance and commitment in the new American workplace. CRS Press.

Clements, A. (1999). Editorial. Spirit in Action: WorldDharma Monthly Newsletter, Vol. 1 (on-line).

Corradi, J., Fagen, P.W. & Garreton, M.A. (Eds.) (1992). Fear at the edge; State terror and resistance in Latin America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Covey, S. (1995). First things first; To live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy. NY: Fireside/Simon & Schuster.

de Anda, D. (1999). Project peace: The evaluation of a skill-based violence prevention program for high school students. Social Work in Education, 21(3), 137-149.

deBecker, G. (1997). The gift of fear; Survival signals that protect us from violence. NY: Little, Brown and Co.

Fisher, R. M. (1995). An introduction to defining 'fear'; A spectrum approach. Technical Paper #1. Calgary, AB: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.

Fisher, R.M. (1995a). An introduction to an epistemology of 'fear'; A fearlessness paradigm. Technical Paper #2. Calgary, AB: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.

Fisher, R.M. (1997). Fearlessness: Enlightenment, sin or brain disease? Unpublished paper. Calgary, AB.

Fisher, R.M. (1998). Culture of 'fear': Toxification of landscape-mindscape as meta-context for education in the 21st century. Paper presented at the Comparative and International Education Society, Western Regional Conference, Vancouver, BC.

Fisher, R.M. (2000). Toward a 'conflict' pedagogy: A critical discourse analysis of 'conflict' in conflict management education. Unpublished masters thesis. The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.

Fromm, E. (1941/69). Escape from freedom. NY: Avon.

Furedi, F. (1997). Culture of fear; Risk and the morality of low expectation. UK: Cassell.

Gibb, J. (1991). Trust: A new vision of human relationships for business, education, family, and personal living. Hollywood, CA: Newcastle.

Glassner, B. (1999). The culture of fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things. NY: Basic Books.

Goleman, D. (1981). Buddhist and western psychology: Some commonalities and differences. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 13(2), 125-136.

Harris, I. (1999). Types of peace education. In A. Raviv, L. Oppenheimer & D. Bar-Tal (Eds.), How children understand war and peace: A call for international peace education, pp. 299-317. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

hooks, b. (1993). Sisters of the yam: Black women and self-recovery. Toronto, ON: Between the Lines.

Massumi, B. (1993). Preface. In B. Massumi (Ed.), The politics of everyday fear, pp. vii-x. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Simmons, A. (1999). A safe place for dangerous truths: Using dialogue to overcome fear and distrust at work. AMACOM.

Slater, G. (2000). A psychology of bullets. The Salt Journal, 2(3), 19-24.

-R. Michael Fisher

TECHNICAL PAPER # 11

2001

'FEAR' STUDIES
A Conceptual Proposal
R. Michael Fisher MA (c)
Faculty of Education
The University of British Columbia, Canada

Published by In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, Vancouver, BC
[Note: This contains excerpts only from the original, and is thus incomplete. If you wish full text paper copy, order from the publisher/author @ $5 Can. Funds)

Purpose: This preliminary document offers the conceptual framework, rationale, key definitions, and areas of interest which serve to support 'FEAR' STUDIES as a new theme for post-secondary education, with implications for also designing 'Fear' Education K-12 curriculum and instruction.

Introduction: Further Uncovering the Ways of Violence

Challenging Violence: New Studies In Post-Secondary Education

In the past two decades post-secondary education has been changed by the emergence of several waves of new "studies" themes. Often, as part of a critical theoretical and political stance, these "studies" have made themselves known as a challenge to the status quo in general, and to traditional disciplinary domination specifically. It is fairly common to see parts of campuses and degree programs devoted to Feminist Studies, Black, African-American or Post-Colonial Studies, European Studies, Environmental Studies, Educational Studies, Cultural Studies, Urban Studies, Global or International Security Studies, Conflict Studies, Peace Studies and so on. The curriculum design is focused on a subject rather than a traditional discipline or method. These "studies" have focused on multi-/interdisciplinary ways of doing research and learning. The theme proponents argue that most of the substantial human-environmental problems need to be critically analyzed and solved with regard to the different ways that knowledge is produced (biased) and sold (commodified). The critical "studies" offer alternative and sometimes contradicting viewpoints to the very nature of 'reality' and the common (or normal) ways people or institutions construct what is most valuable. In many cases, these viewpoints, like a feminist standpoint theory, have provided knowledge-makers and policy-makers with a different 'lens' upon which to look at the world. Often, the viewpoints or the new "studies" point out a systemic "violence," via oppression-repression, that was hitherto unconscious and often denied by the dominant status quo viewpoints. 'Fear' is a massive problem in our world, at the micro and macro levels. Therefore, I propose to add one more, extremely critical, viewpoint to the wave of new "studies" (and new social movements) that attempt to undermine the cycle of violence. I add 'Fear' Studies based on a fearless standpoint theory of knowing. This is likely the implicit underpinning for all the above "studies" or could become the first principle and foundational approach to them all: To know 'fear' we have to get outside of its stranglehold on our intelligence, so we can see 'fear' for what it is and how it works as a political 'fear' matrix (self-reinforcing system of terror-making and oppression). I am aware there are many terms being put before the reader very rapidly. There is not space here to define and link them all. The proposal is intended to provide a general "felt" sense for the conceptualization of 'Fear' Studies, rather than set it out as a completed philosophy and program. The research to do the latter, could take many years. Why not 'Fear' Studies? Below are listed a few of many reasons that I believe 'fear' ought to be given equal attention as other "studies" themes, and as violence itself:

1. 'fear,' in my research (Fisher, 2000) is an essential core agent in the Domination-Fear-Conflict-Violence cycle (DFCV theory),
2. Conflict Studies and Peace Studies have been huge successes in post-secondary education but they say almost nothing about 'fear,'
3. conflict management/resolution has to be accompanied by 'fear' management, the latter, of which there is virtually nothing written about in a systematic way,
4. terrorism (e.g., Coombs, 1999; Gurr & Cole, 2000) receives a lot of attention and study, even to the extent that terrorology (McEvoy & Gormally, 1997) and killology (Grossman, 1999) have been taken up; but fearism is never mentioned nor is fearology; arguably, 'fear' is the beginning of the DFCV cycle which is expressed most dramatically in 'symptoms' of terrorism-- so why not study and work with 'fear' before the build-up and explosions of extremes? Any primary prevention of violence or oppression, at least, will have to be involved with 'Fear' Studies, in order to be successful in undermining the DFCV cycle.
5. mounting evidence indicates that violence reduction (or prevention) will have to begin with general cultural attitudes and values, as well as with specific organizational school culture (e.g., Friedland, 1999); 'Fear' Studies curriculum design, classes or programs will focus on the sociopolitical construction of 'fear' in "cultures of fear" (or "cultures of terror")
6. as the world becomes more terrifying, as evidence indicates, it will be important pedagogically, to both attempt to reduce the 'fear' and yet, we are also responsible as educators and community/national leaders to ensure that individuals and groups learn and teach effectively in crisis, in terror, in sites of 'fear' and 'conflict' or violence; currently, this topic of learning in sites of 'fear' and high risk has been little explored; implications of 'Fear' Studies in re: safety and security, are inevitable.

After 12 years of research and teaching about 'fear' and fearlessness, I have come to believe that 'fear' education is required equally as much as sex education, moral education, peace education, global education, civic education, environmental education, or affective (emotional) and social education. These supplementary parts of a curriculum are essential enrichments to the development of a healthy whole individual and society. (See Appendix I for a preliminary list of supportive quotes emphasizing the importance of 'fear').

Defining and knowing how to best know 'fear' (and deal with it) are complex topics. There is no one clear definition or conceptualization of 'fear' that can be relied upon, to the exclusion of others and do justice to the complexity of the phenomena. The thousands of conversations and documents gathered in my research indicate there are many contradictory ideas about the nature and role of 'fear,' as well as controversies about how best to handle 'fear.' Educators, leaders and policy-makers have not yet systematically examined 'fear' as a pivotal educational factor in curriculum philosophy, design and pedagogy (for an exception, see Fisher, 1998). My own work, with a focus on Education, has led to developing transdisciplinary theory and practices to understand 'fear' and its critical role in shaping individuals, communities and societies. I don't believe that humans, as a species, have well understood 'fear' and that has been a major part of the problems we face regarding the effects of 'fear.'

'FEAR STUDIES': Basic Curriculum Design

Integral Approach

Through out this proposal there is an attempt to convey the message that 'fear' is part of a larger complex of phenomena, and therefore, neither 'fear' nor other components like 'conflict' can well be understood without attempting to keep the intricacy of connections. Further, 'Fear' Studies would take an integral approach to knowledge, where the widest and deepest investigations can come together to create a holistic 'picture' of the subject and problems. We require no more piece meal solutions to the major problems that threaten the sustainability of the earth-human-cosmos relationship. An integral curriculum design would cross as many major disciplines as possible. Thus, 'Fear' Studies would be a study of 'fear' (and fearlessness, courage, bravery etc.) and what information has been collected already from the various disciplines. Currently, gives a skeletal view of how 'fear' would be studied:

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My research on 'fear' (and fearlessness) has shown that there is a vast amount of writing already done on these topics but it has not been synthesized in a transdisciplinary way. This compilation is one of the first steps in research and study under the label of 'Fear' Studies. One has to become somewhat familiar with what has already been discussed and published. There is also a lot of popular/common sense information to be collected, but the priority for 'Fear' Studies research at this time is to collate and synthesize the vast amount of literature on 'fear' that has not been brought together before. This collection and interpretation provides the ground from where we can see "what is" and then determine "where to go." Meanwhile, this synthesis ought to show where the contradictions lie in our knowledge about 'fear''-- and what directions of fearanalysis are promising to work with and through these contradictions, in an attempt to improve our knowledge of 'fear' and ourselves as a species.

POLITICS OF 'FEAR': An Example From 'Fear' Studies

To further clarify and validate the importance of a systematic study of 'fear,' I've chosen an example of a very rich source of information on 'fear' from what I've labeled POLITICAL or the politics of 'fear.' Political is conceptualized very loosely for this categorical purpose of organizing a vast body of research and writing-- including Political Sciences, Peace, Justice, Security, Law, History, and Economics. I currently have over 500 references that deal with 'fear' in some manner as Political. From these, a brief sketch of the possible curriculum elements are delineated later in this section. But first, I envisioned four (among hundreds of) vignettes that would offer thought and direction for critical analysis under this example of the politics of 'fear.' There is not space in this publication to comment on the vignettes. They speak for themselves but encourage on-going dialogue in 'Fear' Studies.

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Vignette Four

Perhaps no more unique and interesting political dynamic has been seen in the political history of the world in the past century, than the return of Nelson Mandela from two decades of imprisonment as a dissident, to become president of South Africa. His task of "healing" a divided nation was awesome. Notably, one of the most important political moves was to begin a national Truth Commission (facilitated by Bishop Desmond Tutu), and hear peoples' stories of the oppression and terrorism of the past, rather than attempt to criminalize and legalize the past to gain revenge via punishment and more violence. This act of a new approach to political and social peace, an experiment for sure, can perhaps be a model for a new way of thinking in politics. In Mandela's 1994 Inaugural Address he spoke the following [excerpted] words of liberation, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.... There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.... As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

A CURRICULUM (OF CONTENT POSSIBILITIES)

This is not intended to be the curriculum for a politics of 'fear.' The ideas are meant to stimulate possibilites of what could be part of such a curriculum.

Fear, the very worst prophet in misfortune, anticipates many evils. -Statius

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A FEW CONCLUDING REMARKS

'Fear' is one of the most profoundly impactful phenomena humans experience everyday in all walks of life. 'Fear' cannot be understood alone as an isolated phenomenon, nor as merely an emotion or feeling that is created only in the mindscape of individuals. 'Fear' has shaped history as much as history has shaped 'fear' (Delumeau, 1990; Newman, 2000). It also has an architecture (Ellin, 1997) and shapes landscapes (Tuan, 1979), politicalscapes and identities (Massumi, 1993) wherever humans exist. The time has come for a systematic analysis of 'fear' in which theory and practices are informed from all disciplines of knowledge, and experiences from many different people through time and across the globe. We cannot afford anymore narrow-mindedness, taken-for-granted, fixed and unquestioning attitudes toward 'fear.' I see 'Fear' Studies as a way to produce the best knowledges about 'fear' and how to work with it. The world is simply becoming too dangerous and terrifying to continue to hide our need to better know 'fear' and 'Know Thy Fearful Self.' It has long been my belief that humanity will likely come to a greater unity through acknowledging our 'fear' than by pretending 'love' is the answer.

'Fear' Studies, as presented here, in this initial conceptualization is skeletal and also biased toward my own interests. I don't apologize for my biases, only, I wish to make clear that other people are welcome to include their biases and make 'Fear' Studies what they believe is more useful for their specific interests, and/or to make 'Fear' Studies better overall. I welcome the challenges and dialogues, the conflicts and perhaps battles. My own bias is a transdisciplinary approach to knowing 'fear' and thus utilization of at least the following concepts that require both further research and application as points for making critique of the status quo: a) fearism, b) phobosology (fearology), c) fearanalysis, d) fearless standpoint theory and ethics, e) phobocentric civilization and historical context that is at least 5000 years old in the western world.

APPENDIX I

SOME SUPPORTIVE QUOTES: IMPORTANCE OF 'FEAR'

a. Colombia 'Fear' Vaccination Project
"... a project that I am coordinating. This project is going to be presented to the community [Bogota, Colombia] as fear vaccination... for the children in October the 31. It is going to be organized as a ritual... the process implies the flow from the individual work beginning with the contact with the fear, the elaboration of the empowered narrative and from this point the fear elimination group work in which artistic work will enable them to conform a new fearless community.... it is sponsored by our Culture Ministry."
-Maria Antonieta Solorzano, family psychotherapist, personal communication, (Aug. 29, 1997)

b. Czechoslavakian refugee
"Many of us who escaped to the West and to democracy cannot fully speak our minds.... For it is not words that must be conveyed, but emotions, and above all fear.... (p. 19) For me, war mean[s] fear.... Then, in that wonderful May of 1945, the war in Europe ended, and with peace came freedom, and freedom vanquished the fear. It was almost a physical feeling. Everyone vibrated with the energy released by the absence of fear.... Management by fear had been successfully organized in our entire nation, which had been one of the most literate and civilized in the world." (p. 22)
-Lima Eva in Canadian Council for Peace in Freedom (1986)

c. "In a world which was to any noticeable degree freed from the spectre of fear most of our existing systems of government, religion, business, law, and national and international politics, would have to be re-modeled .... built on fear and run by fear, fear is essential to the existence as coal to our industries. A society that has escaped from fear would escape from their control.... (p. 91) The nations are infected with fear because they elect to believe in a God of fear, and the Caucasians more than others because they have chosen to see a God of fear in Him who was put before them as a God of love." (p. 92)
- Basil King (1921)

Footnotes- [not included here]

REFERENCES

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Anonymous (1997). Dr. Ellen Taliaferro's prescription to heal social ills. Soka Gakkai International Quarterly Magazine, 7, 6-7.

Beck, A. (1988). Love is never enough: How couples can overcome misunderstandings, resolve conflicts, and solve relationship problems through cognitive therapy. NY: Harper & Row.

Beissel, H. (2000). Cain and Abel or the origin of violence. Humanist in Canada, Spring, 6-9, 12.

Bettelheim, B. (1950). Love is not enough: The treatment of emotionally disturbed children. NY: Free Press.

Boulding, K.E. (1973). The economy of love and fear: A preface to grants economics. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women (1991). Living without fear; Everyone's goal, every women's right. Ottawa, ON: Parliament: House of Commons Standing Committee on Health and Welfare, Social Affairs, Seniors and the Status of Women. Canadian Council for Peace in Freedom (1986). Peace and the management of freedom: The conversion of fear into understanding and appropriate actions. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Council for Peace in Freedom. Chomsky, N. (1996). Introduction: The culture of fear. In J. S. J. Giraldo, Colombia: The genocidal democracy, pp. 7-16. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.

Coombs, C.C. (1999). Terrorism in the twenty-first century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Corradi, J. (1983). Towards a sociology of fear. Paper presented to the Eleventh Latin American Studies Association Conference, Mexico City, 1983, 2.

Corradi, J., Fagen, P.W., & Garreton, M.A. (1992). Fear: A cultural and political construct. In J. Corradi et al. (Eds.), Fear at the edge: State terrorism and resistance in Latin America, (pp. 1-10). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Corradi, J. (1992). Toward societies without fear. In J. Corradi et al. (Eds.) Fear at the edge: State terror and resistance in Latin America, (pp. 267-292). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

de Becker, G. (1997). The gift of fear: Survival signals that protect us from violence. NY: Dell.

de Becker, G. (1997a). Fear: What Americans are afraid of today. USA Weekend, Aug. 22-24.

de Becker, G. (1997b). Interview with Gavin de Becker (website: on-line).

de Becker, G. (1999). Protecting the gift: Keeping children and teenagers safe (and parents sane). NY: Dell.

Delumeau, J. (1990). Sin and fear: The emergence of a western guilt culture, 13th-18th centuries (Trans. E. Nicholson). NY: St. Martin's Press.

Duryea, M.L. (1992). Conflict and culture: A literature review and biblio-graphy. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria Institute for Dispute Resolution.

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Ellin, N. (Ed.) (1997). Architecture of fear. NY: Princeton Architectural Press.

Fisher, R.M. (1995). An introduction to defining 'fear': A spectrum approach. Technical Paper #1. Calgary, AB: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.

Fisher, R.M. (1995a). An introduction to an epistemology of 'fear': A fearlessness paradigm. Technical Paper #2. Calgary, AB: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.

Fisher, R.M. (1998). Culture of 'fear': Toxification of landscape-mindscape as meta-context for education in the 21st century. Paper presented at the Comparative and International Education Society, Western Regional Conference. Vancouver, BC.

Fisher, R.M. (2000). Toward a 'conflict' pedagogy: A critical discourse analysis of 'conflict' in conflict management education. Unpublished Masters thesis. Vancouver, BC: The University of British Columbia. Fisher, R.M. (2000a). Unveiling the hidden curriculum in conflict resolution and peace education: Future directions toward a critical conflict education and 'conflict' pedagogy. Technical Paper No. 9. Vancouver, BC: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.

Fisher, R.M. (2001). Ethical theory-making c. 30 years after Earth Day: If I only knew then what I think I know now. Unpublished paper.

Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness. NY: Continuum.

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Fruhling, H. (1992). Resistance to fear in Chile: The experience of the Vicaria de la Solidaridad. In J. Corradi et al. (Eds.), Fear at the edge: State terror and resistance in Latin America, (pp. 121-141). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Furedi, F. (1997). Culture of fear: Risk and the morality of low expectation. UK: Cassell.

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hooks, b. (1992). Black looks: Race and representation. Boston, MA: South End Press.

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Terriff, T., Croft, S., James, L. & Morgan, P.M. (1999). Security studies today. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Tuan, Y-F. (1979). Landscapes of fear. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Welton, M. (1993). Social revolutionary learning: The new social movements as learning sites. Adult Education Quarterly, 43(3), 152-164.

Wilber, K. (1997). The eye of Spirit: An integral vision for a world gone slightly mad. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Wilber, K. (2000). A theory of everything. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

TECHNICAL PAPER # 12

2001

FEAROLOGY: BIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA
R. Michael Fisher, MA (c)
Centre for the Study of Curriculum & Instruction
Faculty of Education, The University of British Columbia

Published by In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, Vancouver, BC
[Note: This is an excerpt only and thus an incomplete version. For full text you may order a paper copy from the publisher/author @ $5 Can. Funds]

INTRODUCTION: Where is "the enemy"? who? what?

This paper is written in an essay form, without references like so many of my other papers on 'fear.' I suggest the reader interested in more data supports for my claims read my other works, and in particular the latest and most scholarly monograph I have written, entitled Education "Without Fear" Or A Proper 'Fear' Education (2001). I want to write a biography of the idea of fearology and thus, I am writing, in part, an autobiography. References seemed inappropriate and would clutter and interrupt the flow of this story I want to tell. It is "my" story after all and no authoritative texts or experts are needed to "boost" the validity of what I have to tell, which is based on my experiences and a lot of observing, reading, critical thinking, and writing for decades.

I have chosen to introduce the discipline of fearology to the world as part of my response to the September 11th, 2001 "terrorist" high-jacking attack on America (i.e, New York's World Trade Towers and the Pentagon). I write this technical paper as a narrative within the narratives of a national tragedy, some say the worst in America's history. America has declared "war on terrorism" and President Bush believes America will "lead the world" in defeating "terrorism." Within days, we all expect a massive American (and NATO) military assault on Afghanistan, a country known to harbour a major leader of Islamic radical "terrorists." Eye-for-an-eye morality, and immaturity, continues to dominate in times of crisis. How sad that is to see in this world, especially when we boast of having the best education system in the world. The level of emotional and ethical development of the leaders and most North Americans (at least), is deplorable in my view.

Few people are denying that America is wanting revenge overall. Canadians are all for it too-- at least that is what our leaders want and speak about in press conferences. They want what the U.S. wants. They all want to punish. Most peace activists, feminists, First Nations, and other groups who are against using retaliatory violence against violence, are so far, very quiet. The white male-led U.S. military initiative of seeking revenge seems unstoppable and few are ready to say "maybe we ought to stop for a moment and think of other alternatives to tackle this problem of terror in the world. We ought to think of the longer term future consequences of all our actions-- what effect will our actions today have on our future children tomorrow-- and that includes all children of generations-- and that includes all living beings and environments that nurture them." The public and State narratives (stories) of "the enemy" have the characteristic qualities of demonizing, evil-izing, and destroying the humanity or intelligence of the people and groups that have attacked America. So often the violence perpetrated by "terrorists" is labeled as "senseless." Even the Dalai Lama said this in a letter to Pres. Bush after Sept. 11th. I cannot believe anyone really thinks that a planned "terrorist" attack is senseless-- from the point of view of the ideology of "the enemy." The acts they partake in to challenge, criticize and "do war" on America (and Western Capitalism, Zionism and Christian domination) are very sensible and meaningful to them. Are they moral? is another issue. It is their way of conflict management-- a bringing justice to those whom they believe are in no other way going to listen nor be accountable to injustices they have brought on others (mainly on the "terrorist" minority group themselves.)

Now, you see why I put (") marks on the word terrorist because it is not a given that there is only one uncontested meaning of that term (the way Americans would like to use it). It depends on where one is locating and biasing the interpretation of what is "justice-seeking" and what is "terrorizing"-- the American narrative is very clear on who is a "terrorist" but I am not convinced of their too easy locating of the source of fear and terror in this world. Will the American's (and I mean many citizens there, and particularly their leaders in Washington DC and the Pentagon) actually ever consider that "terrorists" sees themselves as the "oppressed"? Will the Americans ever consider they are the "oppressor"? Language and labels seem to construct reality, and whom ever has the most power and control of the media of the world can construct the way it is-- whether accurate or not. It is obvious who is going to win "world-wide" media battles for what is the "truth" about what is going on. No group is so perfect as to not use propaganda-- especially in war (in terror). 'Fear' always is a lie.

The leaders of America construct an idea that the enemy has to be destroyed because the enemy has destroyed some of their country's confidence, safety and security. The classical pattern of making one side good and the other side evil (black and white immature and defensive thinking) is typical when most people (or groups) are afraid and feel threatened. At times I do not see male leaders in control in America-- I only see fear is in control in America, for the most part. We are all seeing what fear creates. Fear breeding more fear, and the product is violence and more fear-- the cycle self-reinforces itself. Many people say that life in America (if not the world) has "changed" and we all are going to feel more fear and live under conditions of more state/police/military controls in order to keep our "freedom." This justification of "more fear" is based on a rationalization that sometimes we have to give up a little liberty and freedom to keep our liberty and freedom from being attacked. Sounds like strange logic to me. Totalitarian regimes are no longer going to be "distant," they are going to be in our backyard. History in America, with McCarthyism, is good evidence of where we are likely heading. Basically, I see a furthering of the culture of fear (paranoia and hysterics) in (North) American life, which will have impacts on the rest of the world. The most basic impact, a negative one as far as I am concerned, is that everyone is going to live in more and more fear (if not terror). The quality of life on this planet is rapidly declining and all indicators that suggest the civilized world is "progressing" are highly suspect in light of this criticism I have about the ever increasing fear on the planet. The job of the terrorist is to increase terror in others. They have been very effective. We in North America (at least) need to think why these people are so terrified that they have to go around terrifying us and others? My definition of a "terrorist" is someone (or group) who is terrified and passes it on. I do not believe for a moment it is possible to eradicate terrorist elements in our world-- at least, not by going about the problem by having our leaders declare wars on everything from drugs, to prostitution, to poverty, to terror(ism)-- especially if they cannot admit they are "terrorists" too (depending on the eyes of judgment). "Terrorists," from Islamic organizations are well prepared to carry out their own "holy war" (jihad) against the "American war" on them. It appears to be a battle for who is the most "holy" (of warriors) doesn't it? I wonder who will decide? How would we know? Nothing has changed. A lot of blood will spill, and that is about all we will know, it seems.

I see these "wars" as part of a "war mentality" that has to end. That is what I want to eradicate. Why? Because it is a 'fear'-driven mentality, that only creates more 'fear'. We all suffer under that cycle of increasing violence-fear. I am not against healthy conflict. I am not a peace-monger or hope-monger. For me, 'fear' is the enemy (see below). History has come to show us, and particularly in the 21st century, that there is a massive FEARWARS going on, in which one group is always trying to fight another group to get them to stop scaring the rest of us. Now, the Americans are going to try to scare (to death) the "terrorists"-- the "terrorists" are going to try to scare (to death) the "terrorists" (and they mean the American leaders, corporate leaders, Zionist and Chrisitian leaders and the military establishment). Sounds like craziness doesn't it?

After discussing this whole problem of war and "terrorists" and fear and violence in the world with my daughters and wife last night, I am left with my one daughter of 20 years of age remarking she is frightened of what is going to happen (thinking even Canada will be attacked), and my 18 year old saying in a pessimistic coldness "we are all going to kill ourselves." So, off we go to bed, and I am shuddering by the despair in this new youthful generation that has been educated in what many see as the best education system in the world. I knew I had to wake up and act to put together my thoughts on fearology as a part of the solution to that which brings despair and a sense of powerlessness. I am an educator and researcher, and I've always found that researching 'fear' and educating myself and others about 'fear' has brought out despair (at times) but has brought out a powerful energy to fight for what we want-- quality life not dominated by 'fear'-- a reality that we actually experience (at times). I have come to call myself not a "peace educator" but a "conflict educator" and more lately, a "fear educator." This is my story...

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MUSICIAN BECOMES FEAROLOGIST

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NATURALIST-BIOLOGIST BECOMES FEAROLOGIST

From age 15-30 I spent most of my time alone in nature. I found a solace there that was precious and stabilizing. In my early twenties I became particularly interested in bird-watching and general nature studies. Eventually, I went to college and got a two year diploma in Ecological Sciences (and became a wildlife technician). I worked as a Park Interpreter in provincial parks and did a lot of teaching. I recall many times thinking to myself, with a certain disgust, that most people in this world (especially urban people) are so ignorant of nature. They are crippled and uneducated as to how this world (ecologically speaking) works. They live in a world that they do not even know how it works. It seemed ludicrous and suicidal. I watched how neurotic people from cities are, when compared with the creatures that inhabit the woodlands and grasslands where I spent many hours. I always thought I was less neurotic than they, but I knew I was more neurotic than organisms I was observing in nature. Although I used the word neurotic, I had in mind that this was a code word for "fear-based." Nature did not have the fear that I witnessed in human beings. I figured that this was the source of human destructivity, unlike anything I saw in nature. Nature isn't neurotic. It doesn't systematically toxify itself. Humans were the only (bizarre) species that "spoiled its own nest." Any ethics, I believed, had to start with that fact!

In the many years since naturalizing as a full-time recreational habit, I have thought a lot about the biology of this neurosis (insanity) I saw as universal to humans. I finished a degree in Environmental Biology at university (1975-78) and further investigated stress and distress theory related to the immune system. I started using the metaphor of many environmentalists (critics) at the time. We were convinced that human population growth and pollution were like a "cancer" on the planetary (Gaia) system. I became not only a biologist (in the scientific sense), but I became a critic of human ways of doing things in general. Albeit, I saw non-industrial societies as much more in-tune with nature, and thus less neurotic. I was convinced that so called "primitive" tribes of people were actually less fearful of Life than were the modern technological-industrial well-educated humans. I have since found this is not such an easy conclusion, and it depends on what "fearful" means. I had grown to be skeptical that progress as the "civilized world" defined it was "progress." I saw us moderns as increasing death forces and not evolving toward anything but our own destruction (accompanied by a destruction of a lot of other life forms). That was the ethos of the 70s critique.

Many times I have been scribbling on paper my thinking about stress and distress theory related to immunity, in order to explain what I am wanting to speak about as "neurotic" or "fear"-- which, now is more like 'fear.' In summary, I see fear as a "flight-fight" response. This is not neurotic in its basic biological form. Most living creatures, more or less, have this mechanism of defense against their own destruction (meaning, they have a genetically-based means of avoiding or fighting off danger, like predation or other forms of accidental causes for stress). Destruction is not the same as death and decaying, accidental catastrophes or environmental shifts by means that are part of Life processes and basic wearing out or being the food of another organism. Destruction is violence. Thus, fear is best defined within this array of terms and phenomena: stress, arousal, (alertness) and "flight-fight." So far so good.

What has intrigued me, and concerned me forever it seems, is to determine what transition occurs that makes a healthy biological response to danger become an ongoing neurotic behavior/condition in which 'fear' (as pathology) is produced in a self-reinforcing cycle of fear-violence-fear and so on? How does fear become 'fear'? That was my early question, and I answered it via the systems thinking of biological explanations. In summary, stress is not the problem (flight-fight is not the problem). The problem starts when human beings, unlike any other creature, make a decision not to follow the natural cycle of stress (arousal, alertness) when in danger (or potential danger is foreseen). In the natural cycle stress levels rise, and then fall when out of danger (after a flight or fight option, or combination has been chosen to handle the situation). The fall brings the organism/system back into an equilibrium (or relaxed) state, more or less-- no neurosis-- no 'fear.' The problem comes when the human being continues to maintain arousal, altertness to the point of obsession, and thus enters what is called distress (or non-useful, non-healthy stress, biologically speaking). It appears that with psychological development, the human mind is able to re-route and rebel against the biological law of the natural cycle of stress, thus, a hyperstress or distress condition is maintained and no relaxation is allowed to fully regain the equilibrium to a healthy state. Hyper-conditions of all kinds seem to plague the psychological-dominated human existence. This hyper-condition is neurotic, can become psychotic, and is basically pathological, what I call 'fear' patterning-- toxification, and/or violence. Post-traumatic shock syndrome, as labeled by psychiatrists, is much to do about 'fear.' Some authors believe we live in a post-traumatic culture. I would agree.

I've also termed this the 'fear' pattern virus (FPV+) phenomenon or complex. It is a complex that feeds on itself and creates more 'fear' to feed the 'fear' it needs to keep itself going in 'fear'-- and dominating the rest of the world/reality. I think of the consumption of horror films and news today as part of this "eating" 'fear.' 'Fear' is the toxic pollutant produced by this system, and it is also consumed. Like eating your own shit-- like soiling your own nest. Immune research and theories suggest that hyper-stress or distress is a running of an organism in "emergency" state. This creates a rapid breakdown of the system, eventually ending in a collapse of exhaustion and other breakdowns (like heart attacks), often that are damaging to the immune system. In some cases, the "emergency" state (dis-ease) creates a hyper-defensive reaction in the organism at peak level all the time. This is an over-stimulated defense, which eventually mistakes its own kind, so to speak, and attacks its own body/self/system-- as the autoimmune diseases are best known to do (example, AIDS, Muscular Scleroisis, Cancers and so on). I see wars as self-attacks, from a biological-systems perspective, because "we are all one in the ecosystem." This scenario above, shows that biological and psychological worlds (mechanisms) are not always in synch or harmony, and the psychological has the power to override and over-determine the way an organism (human) ought to be. I later began to research the nature of the psychology of fear and its shaping that is due to culture-- a "culture of fear." The consequences of this, generally, seem to be lethal (my artist instinct, tells me that the result of 'fear' is ugliness which is created as a "defensive architecture" and aesthetics based on a hyper-vigilance obsessed with control and prediction).

HUMANIST-THERAPIST BECOMES FEAROLOGIST

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I was wanting to have the term fear, as normally understood, deconstructed and criticized. I wrote a lot about how we can only understand this term fear in light of its context of meaning-- and that is within a coping culture. From a healing perspective, I saw 'fear' as the problem and the word fear was becoming less important and meaningless without us identifying the context, or view point, in which we were defining fear. I suggested we drop using the term fear, and stop calling it normal. Normal meant coping, from my critical perspective. I wanted (') marks on the term fear to keep it in our minds as not something that is "natural" or "normal" without strong political and health implications. I thought we ought to just scrap the term fear and avoid confusion. But this turned out to be not so easy to do. I was, and am still, angry at how so many people talk and write about fear as if everything is just fine and normal. I guess, I am thinking that fearology can change our perceptions and meaning of the idea of fear. I think with the Sept. 11th trauma there will be a chance to re-evaluate what fear means-- what 'fear' means-- what terror(ism) really is. I am convinced that terror(ism) is only the messenger. It is the symptom of the deeper and more subtle movements of the dis-ease, the distress, the neurosis, the psychosis, the toxicity, the ugliness, the pathology of fear(ism). But, I will move on rather than go into the details of what fear(ism) is about.

MYSTIC-LOVER-PROPHET BECOMES FEAROLOGIST

By 1989, everything changed. In a powerful mystical loving experience with a partner, we saw that 'fear' was the thing that got in the way of perfect 'Love.' So, says the poet, and prophetic literatures from many spiritual traditions as well. What was being talked about, and what my partner and I experienced, was not a 'fear' that could be expressed in the writing on fear from psychology. Something more was needed to express it, and I turned my research toward religions and philosphy, and eventually to all disciplines of knowledge-- what I called a "spectrum of fear." I saw fears were merely symptoms too. People were protecting themselves from knowledge of 'fear' by expressing it as "fear of the dark" and so forth. These manoeuvers were 'fear' projections. I saw 'fear' using the defense mechanisms (a la Freud) to defend knowing 'fear' itself. It was the most clever hiding enemy of humanity. If Socrates was correct to say that "wisdom" is Know Thyself then, I was convinced that wisdom and compassion were only attainable if one was to Know Thy Fearful Self. So it seemed.

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EDUCATOR-THEORIST-ACTIVIST BECOMES FEAROLOGIST

As I went to university grad school in the late 90s and into the 21st century, studying adult education and curriculum theories etc., I found I was drawn to the importance of language and discourse (ways we talk and act), and how the language constructs the reality, as much as the reality constructs the language. I became decidedly interested in the sociology and politics of knowledge-making. I started asking research questions about the nature and quality of how fear-knowledge is biased, why, and who benefits from those dominating biases? This was crucial in realizing that fearology was the logical next step. Let me explain.

Earlier this year I thought 'Fear' Studies was the way to go in order to expand the conceptualization and imagination of fear to 'fear.' I had also drawn diagrams that differentiated "fears" from "fear" from 'fear' to 'no fear'-- and believed that these terms increased the level of abstraction in our thinking. These moves proved not to be fully satisfying however. I had a dream on Sept. 5th, 2001, in which I felt there was a battle going on and I was able to obtain a new vantage point in which to witness this battle I was also partaking in. Upon writing the dream down immediately upon waking, I found free associations of images and thoughts revealing that I had just witnessed the "evolution of an idea." I wondered what that was. Then it came to me that fearology is the "final" declaration of a way to free fear (and 'fear') from the hegemonic domination of psychological discourse. By naming fearology itself, I was able to free fear from always having to embed itself underneath the umbrella of Western psychology-- and remember, that fear had previously been underneath the umbrella of Western philosophy, which psychology (and then the biology of fear) grew out of. I was aware from the characters in the dream, that I was beating down a monster male figure from the past, and asserting a new feminine figure, and a feminist perspective that has been virtually absent from Western philosophy, psychology and biology.There are no academic feminist writers on fear in these disciplines. I wanted fearology to embrace, if not take, a feminist perspective on fear (and 'fear') and fearlessness. I also, wanted to incorporate Eastern thoughts on these topics and free up the conception of fear from only Western thought.

Further reflection on the dream, and fearology, led to the insight that I had been attempting this "freeing fear" from itself for a long time. I mean, freeing the conception of fear from fear as it has been predominantly conceptualized in the Western world and disciplines above. In the mid-1980s I was initially emotionally involved in this freeing process. I was married and we had our first child. It was the height of the Cold War and the fear-imaginary of the world blowing itself up in a nuclear Armageddon was very real to most of us living in that time. There was a climate of fear that was palpable, and a terror of unfathomable proportions weighting on our souls. I kept having nightmares about what I would do with my baby daughter if I saw the nuclear missile coming our way. I had planned several times to buy needles and some drug that would kill us instantly before the nuclear radiation tore away at us and all living things. I never went that far. My wife had severe psychotic breakdowns at that time, much of it brought on by a chronic fear that the world was going to end. Being with her during these psychoses was the most terrifying thing I had ever faced in my personal relational life with a women, with the one I loved. Fear ripped everything apart between us and eventually destroyed the family years later. We could never deal with that massive breakdown and the experiences of evil (shadow unconscious) that came into our home. She was raised Catholic and went in the nunery at age 17. I married her one year after she had come out of the convent with mental health problems showing. I was naive and idealistic. She was ripped apart by the historical and collective archetypal narratives of good and evil, and I was often the Jesus and the Devil from moment to moment. The descriptions of fear in psychology and biology made absolutely no sense to us all as we were blown away by a tornado of destructive energies based in a paranoic complex that I still wanted to call fear. But this fear, was equivalent to a conception of evil, and massive tragedy and trauma, that required new language and imagination to both feel and think about. The old ideas of fear and how to handle it, that I and her were taught, died, and I have searched ever since for new narrative forms and metaphors to capture the nuclear age and the psychotic explosions that bombed the hell (literally) out of her reality and mine.

From that deconstruction of fear, after divorce, and being on my own, I started the reconstruction of 'fear' in 1989 upon meeting a woman with whom I became deeply in love with. We shared a vision for a world based on fearlessness. We birthed the In Search of Fearlessness Project on the planet. Our soul purpose was in place. We had read about mystical 'Love' and the opposite 'fear'. But we lived it before we understood it from the texts of various spiritual traditions. 'Love' and 'fear' were talked about as if they were entire worldviews-- attitudes toward life. The 'Love-based" way was what we are meant to be. The 'fear'-based way is what we have acquired in learning and from being hurt. We were attempting to lead a freeing of humanity (the world) from 'fear' (or what we called the 'Fear' Project). This all fell nicely into the human potential and new age thinking of the times. There was a lot of excitement. But reality of living in this 'fear'-based world was too strong and it pulled my partner off the path of fearlessness, and I had to go alone for awhile until I met another partner who had the strength to carry this task forward to its next manifestations. I started the In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute (including a publishing house) and co-founded the In Search of Fearlessness Centre. The word fear no longer was restricted to the secular world but had become 'fear' within our discourse community with a spiritual purpose.

In my latest stages of freeing fear, I have been interested in critical analysis (fearanalysis) of the way knowledge is created about fear. I have written about this elsewhere. In summary, I now want to research fear-knowledges as political tools with vested interests of the privileged. I am interested not only to free fear, but to free fear-knowledges from their unquestioned dominations, and in some cases to free fear-knowledges that have been displaced, marginalized and lost. It has become a recovery operation to bring together all fear-knowledges once more to integrate them within what I call an integral 'fear' theory. There are conflict theories, and critical theories, but as yet no 'fear' theories (outside of psychology). This latest move, I believe has immense power to impact the way fear (and 'fear') are interpreted. I sense, this will have a major impact on how we experience fear, 'fear' (and fearlessness) in the future. New 'fear' theory ought to increase our 'fear'-imaginary, and that ought to help us dealing with 'fear' in this world. But much of this is theoretical at this point, and not well developed.

As an activist and researcher (fearologist), I have taken on the task to bring together the finest researchers, thinkers and practictioners of fear. By this I mean, people who care about better understanding and teaching ways to reduce the destructiveness of fear ('fear') in the world at large, in corporations, in governments and so forth. This network is growing slowly, but is a very exciting place for us to exchange on our work and share experiences. It will be important, eventually, to take the next step and then begin to apply critical integral 'fear' theory to the writing, ideas and methods of each of these researchers and practitioners. We have to be able to move forward to being able to critique each others' work with fear (and fearlessness)-- we have to be able to be willing to expose our assumptions and challenge our implicit theories and biases in reproducing and/or creating 'fear'-knowledge. This will be the first time in history, that I have heard of, where people are seriously looking at 'fear' and asking tough questions about the quality of our 'fear'-knowledge. We will be looking at the politics behind our uses of 'fear'-knowledge. I look forward to this very challenging time, for I am convinced we are no where close to having high quality 'fear'-knowledge, and I believe that is a major reason that 'fear' is running us, rather than the other way around. Our world leaders need to be advised on 'fear' in the future, much better than they are now, otherwise the cycle of violence-fear is going to increase to proportions that will make life a nightmare rather than a joy.

SACRED WARRIOR-MAGICIAN BECOMES FEAROLOGIST

The 1999 sci-fi action movie The Matrix, made a big impact on my life and my current partner (Barbara Bickel). We saw in this film the operations of "hackers" "rebels" and "revolutionaries" (in the year 2199) as they moved in and out of the matrix. The matrix was a computer-generated world run by Artificial Intelligence (AI), that had taken over control of life after humans had destroyed the planetary ecosystems. Humans were bioenergetic slaves for AI (and machines). The protagonists in the movie were always moving from their spaceship into the matrix and out again. They were travelers without a real home. They were warriors (sometimes magicians) attempting to undermine the matrix and its control over human beings. They had managed to escape the control of the matrix but they had to now free the rest of humanity. When I pictured the matrix as a 'Fear' Matrix, then the movie narrative spoke well of the type of world I had lived for the past 15 years. I and my partners have attempted to go into the 'Fear' Matrix of everyday life, and understand the operations of the 'Fear' systems and how they control human beings-- how they create illusory realities-- and lies. You can get the picture. But best to see the picture for yourself, and rent the movie.

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CAUTIONS IN STUDYING 'FEAR'

Throughout my 12 years of systematic collection of writing and thinking about fear and 'fear,' I have found the most important question that arises is an epistemological one: how do we best know 'fear'? This question depends on how we best understand the nature of 'fear' (its ontology) and then how do we best apply our knowledge of 'fear' (and fearlessness) ethically (its axiological aspects). The last point raises the important issue of how much to we value knowing 'fear'-- why would we want to know more about it and improve the way we know about it? Why don't we want to know more about it? and so forth. Studying 'fear' is a complex process that involves historical attitudes, beliefs, myths and worldviews that direct us toward or away from a better understanding of 'fear.' Habits, and traditions inform us of the best ways to handle fear ('fear') and we may not wish to change. The problematic, as I see it, is not so much 'fear' itself, but our ways of handling 'fear' and our 'fear'-knowledge. Culture is a critical part of the study of 'fear.' Fearology requires this larger cultural analysis while studying 'fear' itself.

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I want fearology to have the scientific approach that ecology first had. I think that could bring to us all better information and knowledge about 'fear' and its relations to life. My caution is to not allow fearology to try to become something it cannot be-- it cannot be a hard science. Why? I believe it is because 'fear' is not merely material, concrete, physical "stuff" to measure and predict relations. There is always some measurement that will be useful and predictions are common in experimental psychology of "fear" and so forth. But the 'fear' I am talking about at a transdisciplinary level of inquiry, is not like that. 'Fear' is extremely complex and is always involving both objective and subjective knowledges and approaches. I am barely scraping the beginnings of writing about fearology and 'fear.' I trust that this brief introduction will at least give the reader a sense of what I think is possible and the cautions I believe we always want to keep in mind.

In my experience so far in studying 'fear,' I recommend that we let 'fear' itself lead the way we investigate it. As a child and young person with my bird book, I let nature lead me on how to know it. This is a hard thing to explain in words. I guess, I kept my ego (need to control= 'fear') out of the study, as much as possible. I didn't want to control ('fear') the birds I watched, I wanted to watch them not frighten them. If the birds were frightened by my 'fear' in wanting to know them, then they would move away from me even faster and hide their secrets. My knowledge would be poor quality and incomplete. In 'fear' all organisms and knowledge making is reduced to a poor quality and incompleteness. Rather, my ways of watching them were determined by the nature of the bird and its "natural" (non-'fear'-driven) behaviors. I had to follow the birds and not have them follow me (nor be dominated by my 'fear' and need to control).

This naturalistic inquiry ought to be what informs ecology as well. Unfortunately, most of ecological sciences did not take that lesson and imposed itself on the subject matter, and often violently with the rationale that we must know anyway. I disagree strongly on ethical grounds, that if we violate our subject in order to know it, then we are violating the first principle of quality knowledge (wisdom and compassion). Too often, 'fear' drives the very methods of "science." I have written about this in other papers, citing several important psychological critiques of the methods of science in general. My point ought to be clear enough for this introduction without going into that analysis of the nature of scientific knowledge and its motivations. My point, is to let 'fear' lead the investigation of 'fear.' If we approach 'fear' with 'fear' then we will violate it and it will retreat from us further than it already is. It will become impossible to see, further than it already is. In many ways fearology to me is the study of the impossibility of knowing 'fear' in a 'Fear' Matrix.

However, the impossibility, I believe there is good evidence that one can travel the path of fearlessness, on a 'fearlesship' and go "in-and-out" of the 'Fear' Matrix. On those voyages in and out there can be great discoveries about both what 'fear' is and what the 'Fear' Matrix is. My own work has to be a testament to that process of knowing-- from a fearless standpoint theory. However, I may fail but others who take up and improve on my work, may do what I could not. I await your critiques and feedback. I await your participation in fearology. I think the results will be phenomenally interesting and very useful to the furthering of our 'fear'-knowledge and the improvement of the human and ecological conditions on this planet.

[Footnotes: left out of this version]

TECHNICAL PAPER #13

2002

WHAT IS THE 'FEAR' MATRIX?

Part I : Failure of Cultural
R. Michael Fisher MA (c)
Graduate Student,
Faculty of Education,
The University of British Columbia

Published by In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute,
Vancouver, BC

[Note: this is an excerpt only, and thus incomplete. If you wish a full text paper copy, they may be ordered from the publisher/author @ $5 Can. Funds]

INTRODUCTION

Two years ago, I watched the action sci-fi film The Matrix (1999, by the Wachowski Brothers). The film has the most profound critique of humanity that I have ever seen. In time, we will see if the two sequels offer any solution to humanity's global problematique. I'm not holding my breath. I designed my Ph.D. research dissertation around the film's themes and my own ideas about 'fear' (and fearlessness), about conflict, violence, peace, emancipatory activism, liberational education, child-rearing, love, critical theory, and a lot of other things.

The term 'Fear' Matrix was created from that movie narrative to describe what I saw as the context in which we live today, and have lived perhaps as long as 5000 years as a human species (Eisler, 1987). "Matrix" as I use it, means "mold" or "mother" or "ground" from which all forms are created. I will present some evidence in these publications on the 'Fear' Matrix that we have been living a life based on 'fear' and designed by 'fear' for a very long time. It has shaped our perceptions and ways of living. It is killing us (and many other species and ecosystems) slowly and not so slowly. It has led us to the current absurd state of affairs (post-September 11, 2001) where the USA leadership and other militarist governments have declared a world "War on Terror," which I prefer to call Fear Wars.

I have yet to see these leaders against terror(ism) or fear(ism) offer any theory of 'fear' (or fearlessness) to guide them (or us) to overcome fear/terror and the accompanying violence in this world. I wish to challenge them all to improve the analysis of the crisis and the strategies to overcome the crisis. Equally, rebels, revolution-aries, extremists, or "terrorists" are responsible to examine the ways they produce 'fear' and to what ends they believe that will lead. From what I can tell, the very means all parties are using to battle fear/terror is creating more fear/terror-- the 'fear' cycle continues and violence and insecurity only increase. The 'fear' cycle can never be pinned onto one scapegoat, it rather, takes a system of relations and ideologies to maintain it. The concept of a 'Fear' Matrix, is one essential part of the analysis sorely required by our leaders.

The documentation of the destructivity of being born, raised and educated in a 'Fear' Matrix is part of my longterm research. This series is theoretical and not a manual of "how to" get out of the problems 'fear' creates. It can however, act to guide us in developing curriculum and programs for such practical endeavors. It is intended as a beginning platform, perhaps as inspiration, to further our discussions in the years to come. To begin writing about this concept, I envisioned a series of four publications to properly introduce the 'Fear' Matrix to people: Part I: Failure of Cultural, Part II: Failure of Natural, Part III: Failure of Spiritual and Part IV: The Integral Solution.

The series covers a very large Kosmic territory, which is involved in drawing out the concept of the 'Fear' Matrix, because 'fear' is kosmic in its impacts. The integral solution, is not fixed, or not proven to work. The idea of "integral" is a theoretical construct based on the work, primarily of Ken Wilber, a contemporary American transpersonal philosopher (see Fisher, 1997). Figure 1 is a simplified diagram of an integral path of development (spiral) that continues through all three domains, not privileging one over the others.

I assert that the domains of knowing/knowledge (and reality) that could be labeled "cultural," "natural," and "spiritual," are failing us and failing Life on this planet. These domains are not failing because they are inherently 'bad' but because when they are perceived as separated (i.e., dissociated) from each other they are limited, pathological, and distorting, and guide us astray. The individual domains, once dissociated, tend to "reduce" other domains and "inflate" themselves in importance. In some cases, such "arrogant" domains will attempt to eliminate the existence of the other domains. A battle for domination of the domains is part of a long 2500 yr. history of the Western world, according to Wilber and others. The separation (dissociation) of the three domains is what has led to the horrid damage and loss of dignity and respect for humankind, particularly, in the 20th century, in what Albert Camus called the "century of fear." The Integral Solution, is basically a unity (wholeness) of the three domains, that will likely produce the results that are relatively the healthiest, non-violent, and sustainable in a dynamic way.

The Cultural Domain

This series begins with an examination of the most potent of the three domains. I mention this briefly here, to set the rationale for writing about this domain and its role in creation and maintenance of the 'Fear' Matrix or what could be called cultural fear ('fear'). For simplicity sake, I will not try to summarize or synthesize the many many definitions of culture, but rather focus on the quality that distinguishes the cultural domain of human experience. Cultural, in this view, is that which is human-made and communicates in symbolic language-centered form various meanings that act to guide and identify groups and their practices (individually and collectively). Because everything we talk or think about is based in language (a cultural human-made mechanism). Some theorists argue that everything, from a human-centered view, is cultural. Natural and spiritual are thus, for these people, really just variations of cultural phenomena. Culture is the only matrix that is meaningful and can be talked about for such theorists (i.e., culturalists), who want to reduce everything to culture, that is, cultural productions. Culture and cultural qualities become the highest value to such theorists. This reducing ideology, I believe is very destructive and 'fear'-based, and I'll refer to it as culturalism.

At the same time I am very critical of culturalism, from the point of view of a critical integral theory, I am inevitably a cultural participant, and lover of some cultural aspects as well. My life has been spent learning the arts of music (percussion and voice), drama, dance/movement, and particularly visual art. Symbols, signs, myths, magic, and rituals of healing are important in everything I do, that I would call 'therapeutic.' I've also spent decades learning science, reason, logic and left brain cognitive functions. They too are marvelous inventions of language and ideas. Creativity and the imagination are often my most prized right brain functions, but even they, like all cultural productions, have too often been put to use in our world to destructive unethical means. The imagination and creativity to harness nuclear energy and build nuclear warheads and bombs is one example of many. Something more is required to guide and correct the unethical activity of the cultural (or natural, or spiritual), and that is what this series is dedicated to.

The Matrix, The "Culture of Fear," and The 'Fear' Matrix

The film The Matrix is about a lot of complex things. The protagonists, are hackers-rebels-cyborgs working for the Resistance against the domination of forms of Artificial Intelligence (A.I. machines), which have taken over the world. Humans are raised as biopower in cultured fields of incubators as mere energy "slaves" to the machines. Humans don't know they are slaves until they are released (rescued) from what is called the (A.I.) Matrix. From the view of the Resistance cyborgs, who have escaped (awakened), humans in the Matrix are living in a "dream world" not the "real world." This dream world is a "neural-interactive simulation" called the Matrix. The real world, as the movie reveals, is a destroyed planet that can no longer sustain life as humans have known it, and thus machines live in this polluted world.

The driving human force behind the quest to get free is the question: What is the Matrix? Likewise, I believe, the most important question to get "free" is the driving force to know What is the 'Fear' Matrix? The movie narrative is a tragedy, in a comical way, with a profound message of the future, which doesn't look very optimistic. The 'Fear' Matrix concept, as a context, is a very tragic concept that my experience shows most humans do not want to really see or take in. Humans used to living in the dream world (virtual) no longer are capable (and/or are merely too terrified) to live in the real world, and through denial and defence mechanisms forget the real, which increases the growth of the virtual. Cyberspace and virtual world dynamics are rapidly growing as the alternative 'space' ("reality") for humans to live. Meanwhile, the real world becomes increasingly uninhabitable and extremely dangerous to life.

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Psychiatrist, Dorothy Rowe (1987) argued that the massive fear (and motivation by fear) in Western societies is the best kept official "secret." We like to think the more pleasurable thought that we live in a civil society motivated by love not fear. We like to think that democratic society is motivated by cooperation not conflict and oppression. What is the Real World and what is the Virtual World for us today? Who constructs it and who benefits by kept secrets-- secrets that breed more 'fear'? If it isn't machines (A.I.) that dominate and construct the Matrix "reality," which forms our perceptions and experiences, then we can imagine various powerful institutions and their leaders creating for us the images and beliefs that tell us something is "real" and something is not.

The power to create knowledge that creates the "real" is a dominant concern in the film The Matrix, as it is my own research concern. But politically speaking, I think power is not the problem, rather fear is. Aung San Suu Kyi (1995), Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Burmese political dissident leader, wrote "It is not power that corrupts.... It is fear." The politics of fear, corruption and prisons for the mind are nothing new. These are old themes that are classical in Western literature, for example, the sci-fi novel Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell (1949). But today anthropologists, critical cultural-media theorists, political public intellectuals, sociologists and educators, are becoming very interested in what they call a "culture of fear" (terror). Feminist critics, like Dworkin (1976) argue that "Fear cements this ["Male Supremacist Society"] system together. Fear is the adhesive that holds each part in place" (p. 58). Massumi (1993) goes further to claim that with the power of cultural media today, fear is changing its dimensions and construction to something not merely as an adhesive, nor merely as a feeling or emotion, but it is becoming the very ground (matrix) upon which a self, or collective group or society forms its identity and the possibilities of identities and experiences (p. ix). Massumi, is referring to what I would call the 'Fear' Matrix of a "culture of fear" (terror). We are born as slaves into 'fear' and thus perpetuate 'fear' to enslave others. Cultural fear today, often produced by propaganda and news media productions of 'fear,' shows its ugly head as "... we are witnessing the hyperreal formation of an entirely new species of fear" (McLaren, 1995, p. 148).

What Is The 'Fear' Matrix?

In the movie, as Morpheus begins to share with Neo what he knows about the Matrix, there is the problem of knowing "what is the Matrix" when you are still in the Matrix. In the film, Neo, has not been unplugged from the Matrix, like Morpheus and his Resistance crew. This creates the epistemological dilemma of my research question, and this series of publications on the 'Fear' Matrix.

Morpheus is clearly out of the Matrix. Neo is not. The question I have to answer is "Am I out of the 'Fear' Matrix?" What quality is the information I share with the reader here? Is it true, real? Or, is all that I am sharing information constructed by the 'Fear' Matrix itself and thus a corruption, distortion, another virtual dream world? These are large issues which I will not attempt to unfold in this introduction but suffice to say I practice critically thinking about this all the time. And my Ph.D. thesis is dedicated to working with the concept of going in and out of the 'Fear' Matrix. In the film, Morpheus and crew (cyborgs only) can go in and out of the Matrix programming (constructs) and operate to rescue human members who are still plugged in (for e.g., Neo). Morpheus makes it quite clear to Neo that people don't want to unplug from the Matrix. They are content, feel "secure" (or are ignorant, or in denial) to stay in the Matrix constructs of the "real" that isn't real. They don't question it, rebel, or hack around in it-- at least not consciously, or overtly.

Each of the unplugged humans, says Morpheus, are "enemies" of the Resistance and will attempt to kill and undermine the work of the Resistance which challenges their beliefs about their lives. The Agents in the movie are interesting characters, who enforce the Matrix laws, by killing any dissenters (calling them "terrorists" of course). But clearly, when one is out of the Matrix, from the view of Morpheus and crew, the Agents are the terrifying elements (terrorists) of the system. The entire movie is a plot based on the hackers running from the Agents of the Matrix. The Matrix is thus 'fear' itself, with the Agents acting that 'fear' (terror) out against anyone who dissents (Note: The Agents classify any dissent in the computer programmed virtual reality Matrix as 'a virus'-- "humans are a virus," says Agent Smith). Those humans who remain plugged in, of course seem fine and are not generally frightened, but they are presumably unconsciously terrified to leave and don't even let the thought cross their minds. Sound familiar?

Morpheus has an enviable method to deal with the epistemological problem of knowing the Matrix-- of knowing 'fear.' I think it has potentials, at least metaphorically, for my own research (and for the readers here) to address the question of "what is the 'Fear' Matrix?" Before Morpheus's dialogue and challenge to Neo to make the final choice "in" or "out," we have seen Morpheus and his crew monitoring Neo's actions in the Matrix. Neo is encouraged by Morpheus to take some risks to escape the Matrix. Neo is too frightened to make them but eventually, with support and encouragement of the Resistance, he overcomes some fears and crosses the first threshold ('fear' barrier) which keeps him blinded in the Matrix. Neo crosses the first threshold and is then given the opportunity to see Morpheus and is then presented with the "test" before he is unplugged from the Matrix (i.e., cultural fear = 'fear,' which substitutes for 'Love' = virtual, which substitutes for real).

Morpheus's test begins, and the Wachowski's screen play text says it best: Morpheus

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Culture Wars And Americanism

Not only is the cultural domain the most dominating of the three domains of the Kosmos, it has become fraught with battles within. We have long been witnessed throughout history the attempt of one culture or another to dominate other cultures through imperialism and colonization. Such forms of culturalism, and their terror, have been the cause of many wars, and continue today across the planet. The latest emergent version, primarily discussed in America, is what has been called "culture wars" (for e.g., Graff, 1992). Political battles for what ought to constitute American (or Canadian) culture in education and politics has led the North American continent into a very nasty explosion of Right vs. Left. The polarizations have grown to such an extent that it has, in many people's minds, damaged the very processes of democracy, particularly in America. American religious (primarily Christian) elements (of the spiritual domain) have been returning to take control of state political agendas and the definition and philosophy of public and national education.

The multicultural mix of peoples has added intense pressures in the last decade as the debate over what American culture is, heats up. The competition for determining the type of education of children, in particular, has been part of a switching emphasis on gaining economic capital for political power, to gaining cultural capital for political power and influence. Many social and cultural critics believe the battleground of the future is going to be won more or less within the cultural domain. Many theories of liberation (e.g., Gramsci) have shifted emphasis from the materialist-economics (natural domain aspects) of change and revolution, or spiritual transformations of the new age and human potential movement, to focus energies in the revolution that hinges upon cultural capital formation. Change in the cultural is thought to be the most important of all.

I write this series, and continue my research on 'fear' (and fearlessness) within the context of a massive domination of American culture and its capitalistic globalization. Any new 'fear' education, I propose, would have to take into account that Americanism is a huge cultural force that impacts everything in both America, Canada, and other places in the world. I write as someone who has spent 50 years in Canada, and I could fill books on how Americanism has colonized Canada economically and Canadian life culturally. The politics of cultural domination is not to be ignored. I could tell many chilling stories of life on campus as an intellectual, where I have been "silenced" by authorities (in the university) for my vocal critique of Americanism. The latest attack on Dr. Thobani's critique of Americanism in the post-September 11th aftermath, have shown me how Americanism (terrorism) works in Canada very effectively.

The American way of life is diverse, and I ought not leave the reader thinking it is a unity without conflict and differing views of what ought to be the American way. Americanism, however, is a term that I apply because of the American way that is 'fear'-based and in that 'fear' attempts to colonize and control all other cultures, more or less, by use of 'fear' and terrorism of its own. The political leadership and cultural capital of the U.S.A. is phenomenally powerful and successful in dominating a large part of the world. Americanism is the 'Fear' Matrix complex most particular to my life as a Canadian. Obviously, Americanism has created a lot of enemies. It is too bad that the general American sentiment, post-September 11th, has failed to acknowledge its cultural role in "terrorist" attacks on the heart of American economics, politics and culture. John Ralston Saul, Canadian novelist and historian has been vocal in challenging Canadians to open their eyes to the way we have often let fear of being different than America, form our Canadian identity and policies.

Like any "bully" Americanism has kept most of its allies because of its military-economic might and willingness to use it (including having the reputation as the only nation ever to use the nuclear bomb on civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Americanism is always at "war" and seems addicted to it. Beyond the wars like Vietnam, Kosovo, etc., we have seen the administration of America in the last two decades continue its war-addiction "internally" to declare war on "poverty," on "drugs," and now on "terror." The latter war is particularly both "internal" and "external." All these wars that they have declared, allow a point of view of militarism into American politics at home and abroad, where any injustice can be justified because the nation is "at war" -- and of course, justified in the name of security and safety, and justified because they are "at war" and anything goes in such a crisis and state of chaos.

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Cultural Dynamics And Origin Of The 'Fear' Matrix

I want to launch into a study of the cultural and its implication in the origins of the 'Fear' Matrix. This small introduction falls well short of giving an adequate summary but it is one small part in understanding and the critical analysis of cultural dynamics. I have my personal biases in where I wish to first look for this critical analysis of cultural processes in the evolution of humanity and the 'Fear' Matrix. I could have chosen many other routes. In particular, the current popular field of cultural studies has lots to offer in terms of critique of cultural phenomena, especially in political analysis, formation of identities, and general universal and specific local cultural practices (see Grossberg, Nelson and Treichler, 1992). In general, I have found the research and theories of cultural studies unsatisfactory in assisting my own theories on 'fear.' It seems 'fear' is avoided by these culturalist researchers. Often the political implications and initiative to improve the practical and material supports for emancipation of the oppressed is left behind and gets side tracked in recent cultural studies (cf. the critique by McRobbie, 1992, p. 721).

What has been helpful in cultural studies has been the emphasis on the researcher (and others) in formation as a "diasporic intellectual". Stuart Hall's leadership in a marxist cultural studies has been particularly provocative and indicates how the traumatic forces of colonialism play out in the formation of one's identity and theories in the study of the cultural. I can relate, as being Canadian under the colonizing influences of Americanism, has left me with great scars, and a sense of not belonging to any culture that I want to belong to. I have also felt like my work on 'fear' does not allow me to 'break into' any of the academic traditions or disciplines, and so, in many ways I have been a "diasporic intellectual" in terms of ideas without a discipline to find home within. Education seems to allow me a place but it is not at all nurturing and welcoming of my thought and writing.

This diasporic intellectual journey has been terrifying often. It is a subtle terror of being "displaced" and this one can only know if they experience it. Watching the Resistance movement characters in the narrative of the film The Matrix made me feel like I was watching my life on screen. It deeply moved me by about the third or fourth watching of the film. I saw rebels with a cause but without a home. I saw the pain and sacrifices of that life "inbetween" and the terror that goes with it. You have to watch the film. I have taken time to map a bit of my personal experiences in this paper because it is my own cultural experience that influences how I approach cultural studies and the cultural itself. My very thinking and writing, and publishing here, is part of a cultural practice-- a countercultural practice, which itself is worthy of study in terms of the production of 'fear' and my relationship to the 'Fear' Matrix.

I have been caught continually in a place of doubt about how best to talk about and undermine the 'Fear' Matrix, and reduce the stranglehold of 'fear' on everyone's throat-- while, wondering if that assertion is based on assumptions and a personal twist of perception that is not true for other people-- others who have not experienced what I have nor do what I do. I have been challenged continually about the value of raising the topic of 'fear' to such a high pitch as I do in my work. Is it really valuable to people? Am I unethically raising more fear in people than they already have and that in doing so I am further damaging their soul? (a concern I value as expressed by Sardello, 1999). In The Matrix Morpheus makes an apology to Neo after Neo has been exposed to the truth of the Matrix-- and, Neo flips out in a panic attack.

Wilber's focus on the mental-egoic (or Rational Egoic) structure or cultures of the modern human, is a very important one. In that he points to the "ego" culture as not just bad, as the Eco and Ego Camp liberators would suggest. Sure, the "ego" culture may be narcissistic in tendency, but Wilber's arguement is that it is only when we overly identify with this level that the problems really start, and are so disastrous (e.g., 'fear'-based narcissistic tendencies turn to the "culture of narcissism" or "culture of fear"). Wilber, from a transpersonal view, would like us to remember our Spirit (G.O.B.) as the true identity and immortality that is real-- even if we are not yet there living it as a stable structure of consciousness in our everyday lives. He argues that any identity formation, at any of the eight levels of consciousness, will be a problem, and create pathologies and a lot of terror and panic in the world. The overburdening of the "ego" structure (culture) with demands that it cannot fulfill comes from the drive of 'fear'-- what, Wilber described above as the burdening of "... the ego with the Atman project...".

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To summarize, Wilber's Kosmic schema or map of consciousness development/ evolution, shows that involution and evolution have to be understood as processes integral and complementary to each other. Evolution of consciousness, which we are more familiar with, is in Wilber's view, the Atman Project itself, in which each unfolding order or level of awareness (from nature, to body, to mind, to soul, to spirit) is a partiality of the Whole (Ultimate, G.O.B.). To exist, such a partial level or awareness (or identity) has to deal with the contradiction (problem) of being the G.O.B. "always already" and yet, not being that. The not being that is evolution itself. Evolution is the journey to discover that it is not the level (identity) of the partial that is important, or lasting, or real, it is merely an illusion of which the G.O.B. (the real) will (hopefully) eventually become evident. Evolution is a contradiction, from this transpersonal perspective.

For consciousness, and all its structures, to deal with this contradiction, which is terrifying to be aware of, a "game" is constructed in which the real is thought to be the structure (level) itself (e.g. mental-egoic). This is most highly valued, venerated, and defended against any change. But, simultaneously, the real is the G.O.B. and knows all levels are false illusions, finite, temporal, and not meant to last or be attached to to such an extent that the large spirit levels (G.O.B.) cannot be seen. This illusion game, I would call the 'Fear' Project, and Wilber calls the Atman Project. Wilber's Atman Project is more benign, generally than my own construct. He sees the Atman Project as necessary but it can be a "negative Atman-project" in some cases that prevents the unfolding of G.O.B. and results in systemic cultural (and individual) pathologies that prevent that awareness. History is this project-- a projection defense mechanism against the real yet, on the way to the revealing of the real (working through all the terror that goes with confrontation with the real). The notion of the G.O.B. is just too terrifying for any of the particular levels (except the Ultimate level) to admit, to be conscious of, to remember, to integrate, and so on. Denial and 'fear' go together in the game of history, evolution, and development. Most importantly, cultural processes, like symbol-making, are the most effective tools that humans use to maintain this game and cope with the contradiction.

The contradiction of evolution and the 'fear' that drives it are coped with by cultural invention and practices-- more specifically, what Wilber calls "symbolic substitutes" for Atman (Ultimate, Wholeness, Immortality). Symbolic substitutes, are many and varied, from the invention of money, to the invention of murder. I will not go into them here. Arguably, the cultural sphere is primarily a coping defense mechanism that helps people survive the contradiction of the evolution of consciousness, and yet, at the same time, it reinforces the need for "cultural" as a protector of the truth and the real. The cultural is a rescuer from terror but its own dictator that maintains the terror of going beyond or questioning the cultural wisdom. I sometimes think the "cultural," from this transpersonal or integral reading, is the beginning of the "virtual" (see Figure 2). And all of it is 'fear'-based. But for Wilber, and many authors he cites, this fear is not a bad thing, it is actually required in evolution. Although, Ernst Becker's analysis is less cheerful of the cultural and fear. Elgee (1998) summarizes Becker's position:

Understanding repressed death fear is crucial in deciphering our need to dehumanize others, to scapegoat, and to pseudospeciate so as to create the we-they classifications of good guys-bad guys. This is the mind-set of violence, prejudice, and enmity [i.e., "culture of fear" or "terror"]. (p. 5)

But fear and 'fear' are not the same thing, and I am not so quick to submit that this 'fear'-based (cultural fear) is the only way to have cultural processes, or the only way to proceed with cultural or consciousness evolution. If Wilber and I do not agree on details, we agree that fear in some aspect or form, has been (and continues to be at a mass level of average consciousness) a primary motivational force in the evolution of consciousness and the formation of cultural practices. I would say that we have not as moderns, nor has any other culture (civilization) or organization, had the privilege to develop a sustainable healthy order and organization of growth and development based on fearlessness rather than 'fear.' Although, some spiritual communities may have done so. But in the world, in the general culture, this has not been accomplished, that I know of.

Emerging from the cultural domain in recent years has been the "no fear mangement" movement (of Edward Deming and associates) in business and organizational development literature and theory (see for e.g., Chambers and Craft, 1998; Covey, 1995; Gibb, 1991, Simmons, 1999). As well, we have seen the "No Fear" sports-wear appear in North America in the 1990s. There is little theorizing on the nature of 'fear' or fear. Commonly these popular intentions are worthy but not very powerful intellectually, and I doubt if anything substantial will come from these initiatives, other than some basic awareness of the role of fear in our world. I co-founded the non-profit organization In Search of Fearlessness Project in 1989 to take these initiatives further in terms of theory and practice, with a critical and upfront challenge to the 'Fear' Project and 'Fear' Matrix.

A Few Concluding Remarks

The cultural domain in Figure 1 is not seen by itself as problematic or 'fear'-based. However, I have often equated the cultural, as history and consciousness have evolved on this planet, as virtual, and as the Atman Project itself (if not, worse, the negative Atman Project or 'Fear' Project). Clearly, the cultural, as lived in history, is virtually a 'Fear' Matrix. I have constructed one other Kosmic map to assist the discussion of the cultural domain in the future. Figure 3 indicates the dynamic development of the three domains, with the focus on the path of the individual or group evolving as the cultural inbetween the two larger attractive forces of natural (Earth) and spiritual (Sun). The cultural is driven and pulled by the natural and spiritual. The cultural, under conflicting and often contradictory forces of culturalism (dissociation, death denial etc. = 'fear'), can end up being reduced to a pattern or domain of the virtual (a neurotic 'fear'-based loop) in the developmental cycle and evolution. This is disastrous, as we are seeing today.

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Footnotes [not included in this version]

References

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TECHNICAL PAPER # 14

2002

On Being A 'Fear' Critic
R. Michael Fisher MA (c)
Graduate Student,
Faculty of Education,
The University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, BC, Canada

Published by In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute
Vancouver, BC

How does a 'fear' critic come about?

In my case, because generally, I don't like the way people conceptualize what 'fear' is, and then, based on that biased conceptualization, they prescribe methods to others on how best to deal with 'fear'? I'd like to see us all become more 'fear' literate and critical in what we take as given 'fear' knowledge, from whatever source.

Especially since September 11th, it seems our duty as citizens is to inform ourselves better as to the nature and causes of this "War on Terror" that the U.S. has led-- what I call a "Fear Wars" program, which is likely to last a very very long time on this planet. It irks me that several powerful (well-educated) Western white male world political leaders have decided to control 'fear' by means of another world war. I cannot myself, see what theory of 'fear' they utilize to make their choices, nor inform the public of such theoretical frameworks and assumptions that go with it. I do not see them inviting us to examine their 'fear' policies and pedagogy, nor do they declare whom they have hired as their expert 'fear' consultants. Do you?

I may be a bit of a rebel, but I am not a twisted rebel. I don't mind having leaders, that people have voted on, attempting to lead us when we are in need. Following is part of life, as much as leading. These are crisis times and I'll follow wise leaders. I only resent the current situation because the power-leaders don't inform us of their reasoning behind their methods. I want to know they are leading us from a well-thought out intelligent basis, with supportive data and arguments, and not merely a habitual emotional knee-jerk reaction-- the latter, which has too often been, 'fear' itself. I get very nervous when I think of world power-leaders being motivated by 'fear' to eliminate 'fear' for us all. Don't you? Of course, history has shown this is a common disastrous pattern. Well, I'd like us all to start to break that pattern and to do that we have to, more or less, become 'fear' critics via better education.

Are there others who are leading us to deal with 'fear' in biased ways?

Of course, world political leaders are in the spotlight now, and yet, they are supported, more or less, by a network of systems, institutions, and a lot of people who accept the biases toward 'fear' that leaders initiate. There is no one scapegoat for a 'fear' critic to go after. I am not interested in criticizing people, but rather, their thinking and actions. For example, there is a plethora of new 'gurus' on 'fear' who are going to teach us all how to be more educated to deal with 'fear' in more healthy ways. I find their leading is fine and admirable often, but they don't offer the space and invite critical analysis of their own biases toward 'fear' knowledge and curative practices. Let's look at a few (of hundreds) that have come across my desk in the post-September 11th tragedy.

The psychological popular standard for how best to deal with 'fear' comes from none other than Psychology Today magazine. You can buy it at most larger grocery stores. Their latest Feb. issue feature cover reads "Conquering Fear: Are we too afraid?" Without going into details, the journalist and "fear expert" (from an American university Psychology Department) team up to write this article which tells us all about 'fear' quite scientifically, and then we get the prescription at the end that offers simplistic curative advice (not unlike Ann Landers advice). It is all very common sense standard fare. What is disturbing is that the authors don't mention that they might be offering you biased information, from only one source, with their own biases, and with only one discipline (psychology) being asked about what is 'fear' and how ought we best deal with it. If that is not problematic enough, then there are glaring commerical ads in front, in between, and at the end of the article, where readers can spend their money, on how to reduce or eliminate "fear and anxiety." Again, there is no critical information on 'fear' offered in the ads-- no surprise, capitalism at its worst, works on propaganda not truths.

If you think I'm being too critical, then how about a few other examples that have come across my desk yesterday. In PR Newswire (Sept. 18, 2001) I see an article entitled "Fearless Living Institute Offers Free Services to Help Americans Deal With Recent Terrorist Attacks." I quote a brief excerpt from the newswire and website ad:

The Fearless Living Institute, a Boulder [Colorado]-based training and coaching [business] organization, is offering free services until Oct. 2 to help Americans cope with the recent terrorist attack on the United States. The Institute's free services will include coaching tele-classes and one-on-one coaching to teach people how to constructively release unproductive emotions, acknowledge fear and channel frustrations into purposeful action. Also available are guidelines for establishing 'Fearbuster'support groups.... [the President of Fearless Living Institute says] 'Here at the Fearless Living Institute, we, like all Americans, are deeply moved by the current events in America. While giving blood is a great immediate response, it is critical that we unite together to deal with the repercussions of fear within each one of us. In response, the community of Fearless Living(TM) coaches and trainers have come together to donate their expertise and assist people in dealing with their fears....

All commendable, and compassionate in intention, this Fearless Living Institute offers "instant" cures for 'fear' with no critical analysis of their own biases of what is 'fear' and why they have chosen their own approach over others. They do not invite readers of their ad to question or critique their 'fear' knowledge and methods. The fact that the words Fearless Living(TM) are trademarked, seems strange to me, and another instance of corporate mentality (money-making) becoming an authority to control the way we not only deal with 'fear' but what we can write and say, without having to put TM on it. Everything is commercialized, and that gets dangerous when it is something like 'fear' or living fearlessly. Even Northwest Airlines is offering a "Fearless Flying" at-home multi-media kit program (only $69.95) to get people spending more money instead of staying at home in fear. I found the Fearless Living Institute ad even more disturbing as they placed the quote by U.S. President George Bush (post-Sept. 11th) as the opening of their offer:

We will not allow this enemy to win the war by changing our way of life.

I cannot disagree more! Americans and all of us, are going to seriously have to change our way of life, if we want to live on a planet that handles conflict (violence) and 'fear' much differently than by declaring war on everything that is "not right" to some, and "very right" to others.

But "Fear Wars" is unique, and a first, I think, historically. I cannot see how a war of anykind that uses violence to force others by terrify them (often killing them), is going to stop terrorism. I cannot see how using 'fear' to "eliminate" 'fear' is going to work (although, Thomas Hobbes in his argument for the "modern state" would not have a problem with that logic). I don't know exactly what is going to work, but I would like to see people generally, and world leaders specifically, declaring their biases about what 'fear' is and how it ought to be dealt with, so that we could see that they are inviting a healthy democratic critique of their knowledge and favored biases. It is this lack of openness to have the critical debate about 'fear' and how best to handle it that is so disturbing in its tendency toward totalitarianism. Just try criticizing how American's, right now, are handling 'fear' and you will get a face-full of venom, or worse, because it seems like that is a taboo subject. I've tried. Taboos need to be questioned, because it looks to me like 'fear' itself is driving the taboo to not examine what 'fear' is and how we best ought to go about dealing with it. Now, that, to me, is a terrifying state of affairs in regard to our knowledge about 'fear'. Why don't we all want to become 'fear' critics?

You don't like the biases people have when it comes to 'fear'?

We all have biases to everything. I just think 'fear' is an outstandingly important concept and phenomenon that ought to be critically analyzed a lot more than it is. At least as much as sex has finally been given its due study, especially in the past sixty years of Western thought. The Eastern, especially Tantric and yogic traditions, have been well ahead of most us Westerners in understanding much about sexuality and the erotic generally (albeit, less "scientifically"). If sex education and sexology were finally accepted as legitimate and valuable, I'd guess we are at a similar junction in which we have to admit that 'fear' education and fearology are legitimate and valuable. I think the latter would, in the long run, be even more beneficial to human and planetary health than the former has been. The transpersonal educator advancing a significant challenge to 'fear' as experience and as a formative force in creating knowledge today, is Parker J. Palmer. He wrote,

In bad classrooms I suffered as a student, fear nearly always lurked backstage. In fact, the culture of the academy itself is as fearful as any I have known. Education's nemesis is not ignorance but fear. Fear gives ignorance its power. (Palmer 1997)

Well said! However, it is unfortunate that Palmer, and his many followers are busy training others in education and other fields with the slogan "the courage to teach" and challenging 'fear,' but they offer, from what I have read, no 'fear' theory nor invitation to critique their biased ways of conceptualizing 'fear' and their prescriptions for its cure.

When it comes to 'fear', we seem to think that one explanation, by one expert (usually a psychologist) is good common sense and that ought to serve our needs sufficiently. This leads to a domination (ideology and propaganda) toward one way 'fear' is best known, practiced, and cured, so to speak. In a way it reminds me of the uninformed and restricted ways that sex was understood, and practiced, and "cured" for centuries in Western thought-- you know, sex is for reproduction, for mature heterosexuals, for adults only, and a "proper" "missionary" position only, etc.

The problem with 'fear' is that it seems to take us down a course of trying to conquer it, without really knowing it. Risk-fear expert Gavin de Becker (1999) said in a speech,

[after a tragedy] Fear is in such a hurry to be soothed that it will take the first train that comes along and it doesn't matter if its even headed where we want to go-- because that is where we are going.

At least, that is the popular mass-tendency de Becker, and I, witness in the Western world generally. This grand project of "mastery" is a traditional modernist-patriarchal-rationalist attitude that prevents good critical "analysis," as educator-psychoanalyst Deborah Britzman would say. I am all for fearanalysis first, and 'fear'-mastery second. We have to learn to be critical of 'fear' knowledge before trying to put sauve on 'fear' and repress it, deny it, get rid of it-- when, we may not really know well what 'fear' is. But that challenges us to "stay in the fire" and be with the pain that goes with 'fear'-- and often, unfortunately, we cannot even recognize that pain as we are so numbed by chronic low-grade levels of distress and 'fear.' My dangerous generalization, and premise of 'fear' research, is that 'fear' is not well known at all.

But surely, everyone knows what fear is?

That's the problem, not the answer. It is the too "familiar" that may be our deadliest enemy. Not that I want to necessarily scare anyone with a claim like that.

Why do you write 'fear' with inverted commas?

It is a way to signify any critique of 'fear' knowledge. I am writing 'fear' to mark it as a term under deconstruction, and eventual reconstruction. I am writing it with a consciousness to stay awake to the possibilities that we do not know 'fear' well at all. Of course, I could be wrong. Dictionary meanings, encyclopedia meanings, and common sense definitions of fear ought to be put under severe critical analysis in the years to come-- 'fear' is unknown, and perhaps even unknowable, but that doesn't make it unworthy of studying more systematically. I like what Peter McLaren, a critical educator said in terms that we are now dealing with "a new species of fear" because cultural forces, media, virtual reality, and cyborgs, and you name it, are shaping and producing 'fear' in new ways, and we are consuming that production in new ways-- surely, he notes, that we cannot see 'fear' as the way it was before all this cultural production and sophistication of media. I think this is a good critique, but still very incomplete as McLaren posits.

So you are hopeful that being a 'fear' critic is going to help the world?

Not really. I chose not to hope for anything. I am interested in systematic critical analysis of 'fear' and that is something I believe will offer the world something more valuable than hope.

So what is likely stopping us from all getting a better 'fear' education?

'Fear' itself. The 'Fear' Matrix.

Now you sound like a conspiracy theorist? Aren't you the one in fear?

I can see why someone might call me a conspiracy theorist-- it's also the thing to do these days whenever anyone offers as broad and deep critique of our society/world. Prophets, you know, they would all be called "conspiracy theorists" today. The 'Fear' Matrix notion is a new idea I'm playing with (see Fisher, 2002). I am not sure what benefits such a concept will have, but basically the notion is that most of the world (particularly, I speak of the Western world, where I live and study about the most), is trapped in a "prison" and thus "enslaved" in 'fear' (patterns, dynamics, organizations, etc.). You've seen the sci-fi action movie The Matrix (1999)? Anyway, I argue the 'Fear' Matrix is like a program, that allows you to perceive certain truths, and not others. It codes reality. Like culture. But this one is a culture of 'fear'-- and I am not alone in this diagnosis, as some scholars are starting to use the term "culture of fear" to describe the post-modern Western civilization of late. Basically, violence rules in these cultures. Violence and 'fear' go together. I don't want to elaborate all this in this short publication. The 'Fear' Matrix doesn't produce 'fear' critics. Am I in 'fear'?-- you bet!

They would be a threat to the entire system?

Yes. They'd be seen as a virus, basically.

Like in the movie, The Matrix?

Yes. The critics were seen as 'hackers' and 'terrorists'. So you can see why there are not a lot of 'fear' critics around.

And what is next, in the future, for your being a 'fear' critic?

Prison? Well, not likely, until people take my work seriously.

And if they don't?

Maybe they'll take my work as paraody, irony, a screen play, a dramatic, a piece of art. I don't much care, the form isn't that important. The essence of the work is the same. The society at any time is what allows certain things to be heard in certain ways, and others things will fall by the way side unattended to. That is history. That is culture.

But you are a 'fear' educator (Ph.D.)-- you could be teaching this in schools and in the community without having to be a radical artist?

We'll see. I would like to be a 'fear' consultant to world leaders.

[Note: Footnotes are not included. If you would like full-text paper copy of this article, contact the publisher/author, @ $5 Can. Funds]

TECHNICAL PAPER # 15

2003

Report on the Status of Fear Education
R. Michael Fisher, Ph.D. Cand. (c)
Graduate Student, Centre for the Study of
Curriculum & Instruction, Faculty of Education
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver,
BC, Canada

Published by In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute,
Vancouver, BC

ABSTRACT

This report offers the first known summary on the status of fear education in Western society, and probably in the world. The results of studying fear education for the past 13 years casually, and the last four years intensely, have shown that fear education is not yet an entity (or field) self-reflective, never mind critical of itself. Fear education is now as inadequate as sex education was 100 years ago. With such an important topic as fear (and fearless), it is concluded that the lack of systematic study of fear education itself, may be equally as much of a problem to healthy human/global functioning, as fear is.

"We are not bad, we are frightened." - J. Segal (1984:88)

INTRODUCTION

Using a transdisciplinary approach, the author has systematically inquired into the topic of fear (and fearless) since 1989 and the founding of the In Search of Fearlessness Project. In 1991 the research component of this project was solidified in the founding of the In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute and publishing house (not-for-profit organizations). Various initiatives by this author explored the possible ways to improve education about fear on this planet. His most significant discoveries of the narrowly habitual views of fear taught to the populus, came from his adult education classes in continuing education at the University of Calgary (1991-1994), where he taught an eight week course entitled "Basics To The Path Of Fearlessness." Since 2000, the research has focused on fear and education, among many other disciplines. Fear Education, as a formal new movement, will proceed as Fear Studies (Fisher, 2001) proceeds, the latter developing the research, philosophy, theory and practices essential to design a high quality curriculum and pedagogy.

The findings in this report are primarily from the author's doctorate work at the University of British Columbia, in the Faculty of Education (Centre for the Study of Curriculum & Instruction). This latter research has been funded by a generous doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (No. 752-2001-2274). See Appendix I for a copy of the proposal that was accepted to study fear and education.

A FEW BASIC DEFINITIONS

fear- turns out to be not so easy to define (nor decide what is 'good-fear' and 'bad-fear,' despite the confidence clinicians may have), especially when it is examined across disciplines, culture, and historical time; for purposes of this report, and simplification, the term (usually) refers to what is commonly defined in standard dictionaries, encyclopedias, and general common language use (albeit, English is the biased use here) as a "feeling or emotion" that warns of danger and prepares one for "flight or fight" responses. Even within the dominant field that claims expertise knowledge about fear, that is psychology, Kagan (1998) found a great deal of unclarity, confusion, and contradiction in the meaning of fear. Fisher (2001a) explores the necessity of a general fear theory to help resolve some of these problems of definition and epistemology.

'fear'- is the author's preferred research term, in which it is assumed that fear is a multi-layered complex phenomena (in a cultural media-made, often virtual world) and is needing deconstruction (and eventual reconstruction) of its meanings; thus 'fear' refers to the largely unknown and unclear phenomena beyond the common conceptualizations of fear; this is like a "new species of fear" (as educator Peter McLaren once said) that is no longer merely a feeling or emotion (as cultural critic Brian Massumi argued), and perhaps is better understood as a worldview or "discourse of fear" (as sociologist David Altheide contends) or "culture of fear" (as many writers suggest)

fearless(ness)- another complex term, often with very different (sometimes contradictory) conceptualizations in the Western and Eastern literatures; distinguished from courage and bravery, in that fearless(ness) is more concerned with not passing on fear to others (a 'gift', as Hibbets, 1999, would say) and less an act of heroics and ego-will or strength; fearless(ness) is founded in the virtue of knowing fear ('fear') inside out and backwards-- based on wisdom and compassion. In the author's research, fearless is a higher developed state than fearlessness; Gandhi's philosophy and pedagogy is based on this notion

education- a complex and hotly contested concept; for purposes of this report, it involves lifelong learning practiced purposefully to gain knowledge in some manner, from cradle to grave; "What is education for, anyway? (p. 36).... Its real purpose ought to be the training [educating] of free men and women" (Kilian, 1995, p. 37)-- to free them from fear ('fear'), as educators like Fromm, Freire, Krishnamurti, A.S. Neill and others have argued

fear education- using small letters, refers to the unsystematic and uncritical, often habitual, ways that groups, organizations, and cultures teach and learn about fear and how best to handle it; information and knowledge regarding fear is created and passed on through the generations by non-formal (everyday, often arbitrary practices), informal education and formal education; often experts (e.g. brave warriors, doctors, psychoanalysts, or psychologists) offer the most valued information on fear; lessons or programs of formal education that deal with feelings, emotional I.Q., social development etc. deal with fear in a relatively narrow stereotypic manner

Fear Education (FE)- using capital letters, refers to the systematic, holistic and critically researched ways that diverse information about fear (beyond only psychology and common cultural biases) is discovered and learned; it studies both fear and 'fear' as a changing evolving phenomena; is designed on a spiral of development which acknowledges that no one means to teach about fear (or manage fear) is best for all people; this is the author's founding conception for a "better fear education" (offered primarily by fearologists and fear educators); it builds its core inquiry around the question What is the 'Fear' Matrix?; and prepares those involved for life in the 21st century, which is a life contextualized in the international war without end, that is, the post-9/11 (American-led) "War on Terror(ism)"

fear-problem- a general universal concept used by an adult educator, Overstreet (1951), where she identifies the insufficiency of knowledge about fear and the accumulative negative effects of a toxic (neurotic) kind of fear on the planet. In her life experience, she has found "... that man's [sic] problem has shaped up as a fear-problem." (p. 9) This author prefers the term 'fear'' problematique, which is discussed in the Summary of this Report.

Fear Wars- a term the author coined in 1998 to depict the battle that exists over who gets to determine what is the best way to understand fear and what is the best way to handle it. Typically, different writers (experts) on this topic of fear avoid confronting other definitions, meanings and prescriptions, thus there tends to be a "war" (power play) for domination for the meaning of fear. More recently the author has extended this term to include the American-led "War on Terror" as a clear indication of how humans are fighting with fear to make others more afraid than themselves-- an endless cycle of fear-making which accumulates a toxicity of 'fear' everywhere-- making everybody more afraid in the long run

WHAT IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN FEAR AND EDUCATION?

There is no one connection. This is a preliminary survey of some diverse connections between fear and education and is not meant to be a final synopsis.

CHALLENGING A MODERN PREMISE

The 17th century was the century of mathematics;
the 18th century that of physics;
the 19th century of biology;
and the 20th century is the century of fear.
              - Albert Camus (c. 1944-5)

And the 21st century has started off (post-9/11), perhaps, as a 'century of terror.' Sixty years ago Camus, the French artist-philosopher offered us, in a nutshell, a shocking postmodern reflection of the 400 year old result of Western Enlightenment's Modern secular pursuit of knowledge, truth, and education. His claim, somewhat exaggerative and poetic, stands in stark contrast to the common optimistic Modern notion that education is the great "civilizing" force of humankind and history. Without education, it is often said, ignorance, fear and superstition would continue to rule over human existence and our pursuit of freedom and happiness-- "... we have been told, and have believed, fear is the great energizer and the great civilizer of man's original lower nature" (Overstreet, 1951, p. 20). A coffee mug with "Teacher" and comments about education written on the side, asserts this familiar attitude of educated "moderns":

Man's [sic] fear of ideas is probably the greatest dike holding
back human knowledge and happiness.

Simply put, the Modern assumption, that drives so much of our secular world today, is that education (generally speaking) reduces fear. But is this premise and attitude accompanying the relationship between fear and education accurate? useful? How does this assumption fit with the current Fear Wars? Some radical writers, from the Black African-American community, have argued that "Education produces fear in the educated" (Anon., n.d.). Beissel (2000) would tend to agree, as would this author, that the historical evidence points to a sobering Camusian-like conclusion. Rhetorically, he wrote,

How does one reconcile this orgiastic indulgence in our supposedly
beastial instincts for violence and cruelty with the ubiquitous spread
of education and civilization in our own time?.... The twentieth
century will go down in history as the bloodiest and most murderous
.... (p. 6)

A good question, for another time and an important piece in the puzzle of what is a quality Fear Education (FE)? In simple terms, FE curricula, philosophically ought to critically examine this relationship and the assumptions and claims that have been made about fear and education over the millenia. FE ought to be fearless in its inquiry into fear and education, as the liberational educator, Freire (1973) challenged us:

Education is an act of love, and thus an act of courage. It cannot
fear the analysis of reality, or, under pain of revealing itself as a
farce, avoid creative [and critical] discussion. (p. 38)

One could substitute for "education" in this quote, "parenting," "caring," "loving," and/or "leadership" and broaden the challenge but "Love is not enough" (Bettelheim, 1950), "Love is never enough" (Beck, 1988)-- or simply, this author's claim is that 'love' is only as good as its knowledge of 'fear'-- 'love' (as humans of the 21st century are concerned) has to be given a good FE. The many "disguises" of 'fear' (Fisher, 1995, 1998) are complex to distinguish. Adult educator, Bonaro Overstreet (1951) said it well,

[Fear, like] No other emotion wears so many disguises-- convincing
disguises that make us, time and time again, treat it as something other than
itself (p. 11) .... fear disguised as love produces very different
[and unfortunately damaging] results from those produced by the kind of love that
casts out fear. Until we develop some practical skill in making such distinctions,
there is slight chance that we will reduce in number or intensity the fears that
now dissipate our powers [and potentials] and distort our interpersonal relationships.>br> (p. 13)

Has fear education helped or hindered the making of such distinctions, uncovering of the "disguises" and developing the practical skills for handling (managing) fear and 'fear' in the world of the 20-21st century? That's a big question and can only be marginally addressed in this report. Further research is required to do a quality assessment. However, FE ought to fully challenge all previous fear education, including FE itself, always looking for how to improve it.

The results of studying fear education for the past 13 years casually, and the last four years intensely, has shown that fear education is not yet self-reflective of itself as a 'field', never mind critical of itself (see more evidence later in this report). FE, thus, has a critical role to play in offering not only a new curriculum and pedagogy but also offering a critique and 'mirror' for fear education to see itself better, correct its habits and biased discourses (overly dominated by psychologism), and perhaps model new ways of teaching and learning everything about fear (and fearless) in this world, from cradle to grave.

The author has learned that "fear(s)" has taken total precedent over and above "knowledge about fear" (and 'fear'), in the educational literature and other disciplines. Similarly, the "history of fear" as an idea has been ignored in common fear education. This is believed (in general) to be a great shortcoming in fear education and the means of how fear is understood and managed by human beings, since the beginning of historical time. Fear Studies and FE are the means of intervention to improve this situation.

A,B,C's OF FEAR AND EDUCATION

The following selected small sample of quotes was found from the author's Education and Fear files, collected in the past four years. Only authors with last names beginning with A, B, or C were arbitrarily chosen for this sample. Bolded highlights were added for emphasis of major ideas in each quote. The intention is to give the reader a feel for the educational writing on this topic, and what some of the issues for research and curriculum/pedagogy may be in FE. The first five samples are analyzed later.

Sample 1-

Sadly education in the past on both sides [of the Israeli-Arab
conflict] was very close to propaganda, because it revealed
selective facts and did not give both versions of the conflict.
Fear of the other side, and dread of what he might do, controlled
the perception of the majority in both nations. So that underlying
the conflict were mistrust, fear, manipulation of thought and
enmity with which generations had grown up. (p. 67).... But even
when we achieve peace, people still have prejudices and hostile
attitudes.... Education can play a great role in rooting out stereo-
types and prejudice. It can promote behavior which is not
motivated by fear.... Such education helps people to control their
emotions... (p. 70) .... by developing a humanistic approach and
rational thinking, instead of submitting to propaganda and indoc-
trination. (Abu-Bakr, 1991, p. 71)

Sample 2-

[Gr. Level K-6: "I'm Afraid; We're Afraid"] Objective- To develop an
awareness that we all have fears and should learn to accept these
feelings of fear others have.... Directions- Introduce the discussion
by telling the children one of your fears. Ask if anyone else shares
that fear. Mention some of the more common fears people have....
They [students] will soon realize that some of their fears are felt by
many of their classmates.... Tell your students: 'It's OK to have fears.
Let's think of some things we can do to help make these feelings go away'
(Adams, 1994, pp. 71-72)

Sample 3-

["Defeating the Radical Right"] ... related to sexuality [Sex Ed.]. Fear-based
[conservative] education programs have not been evaluated using accurate research
methodology. (Anonymous, on-line website)

Sample 4-

[Los Angeles highschool teacher] I am disillusioned with this
process for my students and for myself. I am still gripped by fear.... I
have not changed the system at all, as I once thought I could....
After 10 years of teaching, there are still times when I do not feel like a very
'good' teacher.... I have not been successful in erasing the paradigm of
fear and frustration in learning either in them or in myself.
(Anonymous, on-line website)

Sample 5-

Violence and the fear of violence in the schools poses a serious threat
to education. (Becker, 1983, p. 45)

Sample 6-

Now we hear the cry from America. There is a rising sense that we are
facing a crisis in education in the United States.... [Alan] Bloom, in his
Closing of the American Mind, criticizes us not only for what he takes to be
the shallowness of our college students' awareness, but for what he sees as
the cowardice of their teachers. (Kagan, 1994, p. 2)

Sample 7-

[Audubon Institute Expedition Education aim is to] ... confront
and subdue their own and others' cultural fears and prejudices against nature.
(Cohen, 1986)

Sample 8-

Some experienced and knowledgeable observers state that most student
behavior in the classroom is based on fear, rather than on the desire to
learn. Risk taking is dangerous in most classrooms.... Fears produce stress,
and excessive stress immobilizes. (Collins & Benjamin, 1993, p. 115)

Although it is not the purpose of this document to dive deeper into a general fear theory and its methodologies, suffice it to mention that the following very brief analysis of these Sample (discourses) is part of a developing methodology this author refers to as fearanalysis. A quality FE curriculum and pedagogy would teach fearanalysis to students of virtually all ages.

ANALYSIS of Sample 1- the big theme is Reason over Passion (Logic over Emotions). W. Education (Modernity's project) has a long history back to the early Greek philosophers, who have all pretty much suggested that education (at least a particular kind of education) does, and ought to, help humans to "control their emotions" to prevent violent conflict-- Abu-Bakr is writing from a Middle-Eastern (non-white Anglo-Saxon view) and also holds to this Modern premise of W. Education and its function to harness emotions (passions), and that means to harness fear. The emergence of the concept of "emotional intelligence" (Goleman, 1995) and its landslide victory into W. education has supported this general educational aim. The aim of such an education is to have students (humans) behavior motivated more by reason than "motivated by fear." The heavy psychological (scientific) premise of all the above, and it is questionably narrowly-conceived, is that fear is an emotion. The psychologism of fear in the above forms of fear education, tends to promote ahistorical, asociological, apolitcal, aphilosophical, and aspiritual knowledge about fear and how to best handle it. The above approaches to fear education have flourished with success but it is likely that they oversimplify the fear-problem. Emotional (and social) education initiatives thus, have to be studied and critiqued within FE, the latter which takes a much broader and deeper transdisciplinary approach to the topic of fear (and 'fear') and the fear-problem. Abu-Bakr links fear to generational approaches to educational indoctrination that are more "propaganda" (and ideology) than elicitive (emancipatory) learning. He thus points to the problem of conservativism and its use of fear to control viewpoints, to control knowledge and its transmission (i.e., "education"). Fear, he notes promotes "selective facts" and ignores or undermines others, thus creating a culture of fear in the entire educational enterprise and the cultural situation as a whole-- breeding more violence (racism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia) between Israeli's and Arabs. Fear, is a major factor, at the source of violence/war. Fear and its direct link to racism (and the other isms) and worthy of more study. Peace is not enough, unless we are dealing with the ongoing fear below, he suggests. Fisher (2000a) has researched on this theme of the relationship of fear to domination, conflict and violence (DFCV theory) and suggested conflictwork (and a critical 'conflict' pedagogy) as a solution to the fear-problem in violence/wars on this planet. Research on peace education, conflict resolution education and conflict management education showed that fear was not significantly addressed in these curricula. FE is thus, only fully engaged in the fear-problem if it involves conflictwork.

ANALYSIS of Sample 2- Adams presents a lesson plan from a Canadian curriculum package focused on "Peace In The Classroom" and a unit on "Dealing With Feelings" (elementary school level). This is a good example, a typical example as research shows, of fear education that is squeezed into social and emotional (peace and behavior management) educational concepts and pedagogy. The big theme is Normal vs. Abnormal, and an attempt to make having fears an OK, 'normal' thing that one ought not to pathologize or be ashamed of. It also teaches peers not to pathologize and criticize (make fun of) others who have fears. We all have fears, this lesson teaches, and thus we are all equal, and so on. In between the lines, one can hear the message that it is not OK to be fearless or have less fear(s) than others. Why not? Yet, it is clear the bias in this fear education is that fear is a feeling, and a negative one that ought to be got rid of by various techniques that the children can come up with. There is no systematic defining of fear (only a focus on fears), and no systematic reference points (theory) for children or teachers to critique the value of normalization over pathologizing fear(s). Is it really "OK" if everyone has the same fears-- if all those are neurotic and irrational? What if the ways the children come up with to take away the feelings of fear are fear-based themselves? How would we discriminate? Many questions and problems in FE would arise to use this lesson but take it further and contextualize it in a post-9/11 world, and to challenge the value (positive and negative) of normalization as an attempt to feel better ("make these feelings go away"). FE would also be more sensitive to developmental differences when taking on the topic of fear or 'fear'. Where is the room in the above lesson for developing self-reflective insight into the feelings? Where is the developmental sensitivity in fear education here, in regard to different age groups and their developmental differences in cognitive ability, affective maturity, moral capacity and so on? Note: the teacher (and peers less so) are given unquestionable authority to impose what is right ("OK") and what is not in regard to fear(s)-- without any attempt to encourage children to critique such authority of knowledge about fear(s) and how best to handle it. Typically, educational materials deal with psychological fears and avoid looking at fear ('fear') itself or notions of a "culture of fear." Why is that? A large problem with studying this subject fear, is that it can quickly stimulate fear of the topic itself and so there is a tendency to sugarcoat the lessons on the topic, especially if the teacher is not feeling comfortable (afraid) of the topic and reactions to it. That is normal. But it is not necessarily healthy or sound FE. This is a huge problem that FE would have to address in its curriculum design, a problem that Sardello (1999) has pointed to precisely, in which he raises the problem of becoming more aware of fear when that awareness is potentially terrifying and damaging to the soul. Teaching about fear is dangerous work, and yet we have to do it (it seems). It is the how we do it (pedagogy) that is critical to making it helpful and not damaging.

ANALYSIS of Sample 3- the big theme here revolves around "culture wars" or "education wars" in which highly charged contrasting values (beliefs, faith) are brought to battle lines around educational programming in public schools. The theme has complex aspects, but for our purposes, it revolves around the critical question who is doing "fear-based" education and who is not? Right-wing groups and agendas are accused (by moderate and Left-wing groups) of promoting fear in their educational approach to Sex Ed. While Right-wing groups have also accused the Left Sex Ed. promoters as using fear-based approaches-- and both groups seem very interested in who is promoting fear and wrong ways (bad pedagogy and curriculum) that accompany it. There is a vast amount of literature and numerous advocacy groups battling around the topic of fear and education via Sex Ed., Drugs Ed. and Values Ed. So far, neither group (Left or Right) has defined fear ('fear') with any conceptual rigor and they are not interested in the fear education itself that seems to be the issue underlying much of the debates (wars). They have also not defined "fearless" or a Sex Ed. program without fear. Why not? Anon. (n.d.) notes that "Three major lawsuits were brought against school boards [in the USA] that voted to adopt fear-based programs [in Sex Ed.]." FE would be very interested to enter this problem of "culture wars" in Education today. Like in sample one above, fear-based education promotes ideology and propaganda (both Left and Right wing can utilize effectively and do). As well, the theme of fear and its relationship to conflict (or violence) in the "culture wars" is very relevant. The author has collected numerous articles, with diverse agendas, arguing for "no fear" education or education "without fear" (Fisher, 2001a). This quote also raises the issue, once again, of the quality of knowledge ("accurate research") that is possible under conditions that are fear-based or not. FE is firmly dedicated to a healthy epistemology of fear ('fear')-- something, that is virtually unheard of in fear education, and likely contributes heavily to the persistence and insidiousness of the fear-problem.

ANALYSIS of Sample 4- for administrators, teachers (and parents) living and working in the centers of large cities (like Los Angeles) there are many risks and dangers that breed in a "culture of fear." Studies have shown repeatedly that teachers in urban-centers are understandably afraid for their own safety and security of students. But this female teacher is one of the rare few that is willing to admit her own paralyzing fear and that of her students in the school environment. More importantly, she raises the fear-problem to a paradigmatic level, where clearly there are no simple band-aid quick-fix solutions in educational environments (systems). The "paradigm of fear" (sometimes called the "climate of fear" or "climate of violence," e.g., Arnette & Walsleben, 1991; Astor, Meyer, & Behre, 1999; Lamplugh & Pagan, 1996; NASBE, 1994; Noguera, 1996; "climates of terror" as Kitzinger, 1994 calls it cited in Mills, 2001, or "culture of risk" by "Cherry, 1998) is the problem, she says. Although she does not define the paradigm of fear, it is likely to be interpreted as the entire (systemic) way (worldview) that education (teaching and learning in schools) is generally designed and carried out. From policy, to curriculum, to pedagogy and the lesson plans, a fear-based design seems to haunt every aspect of the way education is conceived and approached. The most prominent educator to call our attention to this has been Parker Palmer (1997, 1998) and his notion of a "culture of fear" in education and schools. Unfortunately, none of the above educators, nor critics of the fear-based educational paradigm have offered a systematic study of fear ('fear') itself to their claims. Without this, there is little chance of a fearless paradigm design for education and society at large. Clearly, the paradigm of fear in education (and society) cannot be "erased" it must first be understood-- inside out and backwards. Fear is not just a feeling or emotion to change or assauge, fear is systemic (cultural) and thus a new concept like 'fear' is essential in re-educating ourselves about the dynamics of the "paradigm of fear" this teacher is labeling on her website for "guerilla teachers." FE is the foundational integral learning model for such understanding and the designing of a fearless paradigm.

ANALYSIS of Sample 5- Becker brings out a very common big theme in community, educational conversations, and several advocacy movements today. A plethora of reactions (mostly American) in text and in organizing political movements (mid-to late 1990s), invariably under-theorized in terms of fear theory, have put forth calls for: "safe communities," "safe schools," "The Safe Schools Act of 1994," "peaceful school communities," "safe learning climate," "education beyond fear," teaching peace "without fear," teaching anti-racism as "life without fear," teaching anti-violence as "freedom from fear," teaching "without fear of failure," exams "without fear," research writing "without fear," teaching math "without fear," teaching physics "without fear," teaching the Internet "without fear," law school "without fear," teaching personal safety and emergency skills "without fear," "schools without fear" and "fear-free education zones." Recently, one can find websites and programs/lectures offered on "a fearless approach to learning" and "fearless learning." This author has documented a rapid rise in the use of the term "fearless" in popular culture for the past few years in all areas from marketing/business to education. And a survey of published documents (across disciplines) between 1980-2002, with "fearless" or "fearlessness" in the title, showed that 76% of the titles were published after 1994-- this correlates with the findings of Altheide (2002) in regard to the creating of fear as the title in news media reports (many times the norm since 1994 and onward), and with the educational literature cited above. Another study, by this author, showed that of all published documents found with the word "fearless" or "fearlessness" in the title, less than 5% were in the field of education per se. It appears educators don't like these terms. Why not? Why do they prefer "without fear" in their publication titles? Violence, has to be examined from its subtlety (invisibility) across a spectrum of increasingly obvious visible acts. The major point is that violence and fear are closely linked and educators are calling for education and life "without fear" but unfortunately they do not define exactly what "fear" is and what "without fear" (or "fearless") actually means in their initiatives. Distinctions between "natural" or "healthy" or "true" fear have to be made with "neurotic" or "unhealthy" fear, says de Becker (1997) and many other observers. FE will have to examine critically this material and these movements as there is always a danger that the pursuit of "safety" can lower expectations of "victims" so far that it becomes oppressive to them and that "safety" becomes more important than "morality." The implications of fear of violence/crime and actual risk of crime is a huge area of contention and provides rich material for FE curriculum-- especially when we now have to address a post-9/11 world of terrorism and "War on Terror." This author's research into the response of educators to 9/11, in published educational documents, shows that there is very little attention to fear itself and or terror. Virtually all the responses were missing the point that educators are going to have to re-evaluate all definitions of safety and security, of violence, of fear, of fearlessness, of courage etc. in this new historical sociopolitical and cultural context of a post-9/11 world. FE would make this re-contextualizing as core in the design of FE. In other words, since 9/11 it is simply unacceptable to be teaching fear education in only psychological and individualistic terms-- fear has to be changing to 'fear' (and the 'Fear' Matrix) as we enter this new world context of the politics of everyday terror.

[Note: The author prepared a preliminary workshop on FE for teachers-- see Appendix II and has prepared a piece of curriculum material for late teens and adults to inquire into the concept of the 'Fear' Matrix, see Appendix III]

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

If there is anything outstanding in this Report, it, at least, ought to be the fact that this is the first Report on fear education and its status ever published (that we know of). That frankly, seems ludicrous, when it is so well-known that fear is such an important subject in shaping human relationships and history itself. Today's Fear Wars is another indicator of how humanity is being called to attend much more seriously to fear and its role in human/global affairs. We have to ask why there has never been such a Report as this one? We have to suspect the answer is not one we want to hear? You can speculate, perhaps much better now, having read this Report. A good deal of research remains to be done on the status of fear education (and FE) and the lack of critical assessment of the knowledges about fear on this planet. In order to establish a critical perspective on fear education, it has been suggested that a FE ought to be developed to 'mirror' and critique fear education. This will be a long task and require many people's efforts, from grassroots concerns to the professional and political communities.

A recent issue of Fear Researchers/Practitioners Bulletin No. 4 has been sent out to a community of experts on fear in North America (see Appendix IV). This is the first initiative to set up a website on the Internet to locate the entire project of promoting FE. What is evident, so far, is that FE is not going to be easy to "sell" as an idea to educators. In the spring of 2002, the author sent an e-mail with a tongue-in-cheek proposal on FE to the President of the United States (and allies). This e-mail (see Appendix V) was sent to all the Education Faculty and graduate students at The University of British Columbia (where the author attended). One two people responded. One wrote a critique which I responded to (see Appendix VI). It seems that FE is a term that is just too "negative" in the culture of politically correct positivism today. Nonetheless, FE is going to continue to pursue its course and the long-term future will decide its fate, rather than some whim and fad-of -fashion of the day.

It is evident from this brief survey that Education and Fear have important connections, some of which surfaced (above) are:

1. role of fear ('fear') in violence, conflict, safety and security
2. role of the "fear paradigm" ("culture of fear") at all levels of the education system
3. role of fear in learning and teaching (pedagogy) and ethics
4. role of fearless(ness) in all of the above; why is it that there is so much energy devoted to "fearless leadership" (especially in the organizational development field) but no talk about a "fearless society" amongst these same adult educators?
5. the political views ("culture wars") re: fear and fearless
6. the context of a post-9/11 world and role of fear/terror
7. the relationship of Fear Studies to FE

These are just a few of the important issues surrounding the connection. Some problems that were highlighted above, that would need to be addressed in developing FE are:

1. the power/politics of defining, conceptualizing fear (and fearless)
2. the difficulty of researching fear ('fear') because of how it disguises itself (in re: to the 'Fear' Matrix)
3. the perception that FE is not needed beyond what is already available (like Emotional Intelligence Education, etc.)
4. the difficulty of assessing "best" teachers and practices to accomplish the goals of FE
5. the perceived "negative" orientation of FE (that fear as a word often triggers a fear reaction)
6. that a transdisciplinary study of 'fear' is better than a psychology of fear, will be difficult because psychology (biomedical model) is so dominant in educational and child-rearing activities
7. education and pedagogy (especially of children) has always been rooted (and implicitly designed) in fear-based knowledge and practices-- that is, a "pedagogy of fear"

Many more problems could be delineated but for now, it is more important to focus on the development of FE to solve the problems and attend to the philososphy and means to create a high quality FE for all.

APPENDIX I

Research Fellowship Proposal (Excerpt) Accepted by
Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada

Research Project- In my doctoral program, I propose to concentrate on fear and its role in the perpetuation of violence within educational settings. This work continues my explication of a theory of the Domination-Fear-Conflict-Violence cycle that emerged from my masters thesis. This work on fear is essential to further development of a critical 'conflict' pedagogy and critique of conflict management education. I propose an interdisciplinary survey of the writing on fear (& fearlessness) and to ask: "Does fear have a positive side? If so, how do we determine when fear is working for us and when fear is working against us?" (Lehr & Martin, 1994, p. 37). If western sociologists of a "risk society" and a "culture of fear" (for e.g., Beck, 1992, 1998; Furedi, 1997; Glassner, 1999) are correct to claim that "safety" is rapidly becoming the highest personal and social value in wealthy industrial nations, then inadvertently, fear of lack of safety may be easily constructed and appropriated as the primary motivation (value) behind the design of learning sites, school organization/culture, curriculum and instruction. Arguably, this could produce low quality 'fear'-based design and culture, what Ellin (1997) called a toxicity of "defensive architecture" in urban centers, which perpetuates violence as the outcome of symbolic and overt forms of oppression (i.e., racism, sexism, classism, etc.). 'Fear' in this study is regarded as more than a psychological concept and phenomenon. From a poststructuralist cultural perspective, Massumi (1993) argued, 'fear' in late capitalism is more complex than mere psychology and can best be understood as part of historical, sociocultural, economic, political, legal, and ideological discourse formations of social control-- that is, and "organized fear trade" (p. viii). Thus, power (a la Foucault), conflict and 'fear' interpenetrate organizational design and dynamics, influencing development and organizational cultures. Massumi and Foucault provide a theoretical base for this study.

The aim is to study the text and discourses of emerging reform movements in North America (since the mid-90s) which use labels like "Peaceable Schools," "Safe Schools," "Schools Without Fear," and "Fear-free Education Zones." I call these pedagogies of 'fearlessness'. Many questions will be researched in preparation for the Ph.D. thesis: how are these movements reflective (or not) of the "Freedom from fear and want" emancipatory discourse at the heart of the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the "Living without fear" slogans of the women's movement in the late 20th century? What does Lamplugh (1991) mean in promoting her book "Without fear; The key to staying safe"? Do we as nations or educational institutions really want a fearless society and world? Do we really want to raise children without fear and do we know how? How is 'fear' defined? Who is allowed to be free from 'fear' and who is pretending to be? Various cultures, organizations, individuals and disciplines of knowledge have distinct ideas and beliefs about 'fear' (and fearlessness) which are often contradictory and part of "culture wars" regarding the use of 'fear' for social control. How can we critically assess the discourses on 'fear' and fearlessness and apply them to education without perpetuating violence? Does violence stop when 'fear' stops? - R. Michael Fisher, 2000

APPENDIX II

Proposal for 8th Annual International Conference on Teacher Research
April 5-8th, Richmond, British Columbia

Workshop Title: Researching 'Fear': Empowering Students & Teachers in
Everyday Learning in a Sometimes Scary World

Research shows that 'fear' is at the root of most all forms of hurtful "exclusion" and feeds the cycle of violence and oppression. Several sociologists are currently studying the negative effects of the "culture of fear" prevalent in our world. Educators and parent groups are beginning to move toward the building of "Schools Without Fear" and "Fear-free Education Zones" in an attempt to create safety in a sometimes scary world. The concern of this workshop is to research and learn more about 'fear' than try to eliminate it too quickly and superficially.

This "How-to" workshop will involve participants in an exploration of some new ways of understanding 'fear' and its role in everyday learning. This author's research on 'fear' (and fearlessness) crosses disciplinary knowledge lines and focuses on creative ways of mapping, imaging, and constructing metaphors, narratives and performances of 'fear.' Giving 'fear' a location and meaning is the first step to fearlessness. Researching 'fear' itself, in specific learning sites, is offered as an effective resource base and technique of intervention within settings where learners and teachers are exposed to climates of low-grade chronic 'fear' and/or acute episodic 'fear' due to various forms of violence. The author challenges popular beliefs which suggest we don't learn well when we are afraid. Researching 'fear' provides a preparation phase in the development of a healthy educative response to 'fear.'

Teachers will learn new ways to think about 'fear' (and fearlessness) and discuss their experiences of working with 'fear' in schools and communities. Each teacher will create an initial portfolio of data, images, and ideas for classroom interventions when 'fear' begins to rule. Students will love taking effective charge of 'fear' because they will know it well. Research methodologies for school and classroom use will be provided and/or developed by the workshop participants. - R. Michael Fisher, 2001

[This proposal was rejected by the conference committee, with no reason given].

APPENDIX III

CURRICULUM MATERIAL FROM FISHER (2004)

"Fearless Leadership: In And Out Of The 'Fear' Matrix"

In the author's doctoral dissertation a 220pp "screen play" was written as a sequel to the sci-fi action film The Matrix (1999) by the Wachowski Brothers. This is not intended to be made into a film. It is intended to be a piece of curriculum material for FE, in the late high school and adult years.

The concept of the 'Fear' Matrix is central in the design of FE and Fear Studies. The concept of fearless leadership is also central as the aim of FE and Fear Studies. The author chose to create a performative piece of writing that could be read and studied by students. The fiction genre was a perfect way to explore the 'Fear' Matrix idea and to accompany the reading with watching the film. The intention to include popular culture as curriculum is seen as essential to be able to interest young adults in the topic of fear (and fearless) in a systematic critical manner.

The Matrix (and likely its 2 movie sequels to be released in 2003) is a postmodern teaching myth for our times (see Newsweek Dec. 30-Jan. 6 issue, 2003). For those interested in the Christian themes of the movie, see Lavelle (2002) and for those interested in the philosophical themes, see Irwin (2002).

APPENDIX IV

ADVOCATING FOR FEAR EDUCATION: CREATING A WEB SITE
R. Michael Fisher, Ph.D. Cand.
(Excerpt)
Some Research Findings & Premises

The war without end, declared in a post-9/11 world, is the "War on Terror." I have followed the discourses of leaders and popular culture and noticed that the original "War on Terrorism" shifted to "War on Terror." The latter description either equally or predominantly was commonly used. I believe all wars, violence, propaganda, (and "evil" itself) are a lot about fear, and many observers have suggested likewise.

For the first time, internationally, the world community (led by the American elite) have called-up the reality of the grand scale by which the world is controlled by those who can make others afraid, more than they are afraid of the others. But there are no escapes from terrorism and fearism-- the cycle of violence is supported by the deeper more invisible cycle of fear, and the successful production/consumption of "discourses of fear"(1) in the mass media. I call it Fear Wars, of which nobody wins.

It seems humanity now has a vivid and explicit codifying label and sign (9/11=Terror) to remind us what we need the most help with, if we are to ever find peace and freedom for all. F. D. Roosevelt's fourth freedom is "freedom from fear" (which became part of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948). I do not believe we have ever had the adequate fear education to bring Roosevelt's dream to reality and in a post-9/11 world our fear education is more lacking than ever.

Between 1998-2000, in graduate school, I critiqued conflict education/ management teaching models and between 2000-2002 (Fisher, 2000a), I examined fear education/management models-- the latter, with relatively few actual models or manuals to critique. My quick finding: is that our fear education (in the largest sense of those words) in contemporary W. societies is about as inadequate as was sex education (generally speaking) 100 years ago.

The politics (power and fear) involved in the control of sex education is no different than with fear education. The controversies over them are likely to be the same, and with fear education I suspect even more contested. The difference being that fear education is 100 years behind the development of sex education and the current Fear Wars problematic is telling us this loud and clear (or not so clear). If sexuality was eventually codified into 'normal' discourse and study, then why not fearuality? The future of humanity may be more influenced by the goings on of the latter, than of the former... whatever the case, it is time to BEGIN A CAMPAIGN, on the web first (building expertise, advisors, and grassroots movement), and then directing our campaign to our leaders, to everyone, to begin a quality fear education (Fear Studies) field. We have conflict education, peace education, AIDS education, religious education, health education, driver's education and so on... it is time for fear education (2) (at all levels, appropriately and developmentally designed).... In a year or so, the formation of the design of the Fear Education curriculum can start to come together, and your input (more or less) will be integral in that design. The pedagogical framework will be based on integral critical theory (Ken Wilber's work(3) and others), which basically boils down to ensuring the knowledges on fear are brought together from all 4-quadrants of knowing (subjective, objective, individual, collective) which is another way of saying transdisciplinary. I am fighting for a critical pedagogy and curriculum here that would be exemplary of the highest quality because the content (fear) is of utmost importance to our well-being. People of all ages and backgrounds, need to learn to be curious and critical as to the nature and role of fear (and knowledges about fear) in our world. That is it in a nutshell. I want it universal but locally sensitive and flexible.

[Note: Founders, and donations of $250 U.S. are welcome to provide the seed money to start up this website: Send to: R. Michael Fisher, #108, 1638 E. 3rd Ave., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5N 1G9 e-mail: ]

APPENDIX V

LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (AND ALLIES)
R. Michael Fisher, Ph.D. Cand.

Dear Mr. President,

I am a teacher who strongly believes that right now the world could use a good "fear education." I have taken on thinking about its advocation and you seem like a person who may be interested.

This good "fear education" I am researching on would ideally be much like the "health education" and "sex education" that was deemed so important a few decades ago. It would be universal. As I think about starting to advocate for fear education [FE] I am faced with a terror, you might help me with. I am faced with the dilemma of being the only teacher advocating this social movement for fear education. I am concerned with what criteria makes me the best person for the job?

I use the term "best" because I want the best fear education [FE] for everyone. In a 9-11 world of a "War on Terror" (which you proclaimed), I think you want the best way to end the "war on fear" that has been breeding in everyone's soul in America and all over the world for a few generations now. I guess, I want the "best" just like I would want the "best" education for my children, or just like I would want the best teachers for First-Aid Education or Driver's Education, or even Math Education. Deep down, my search for the best is probably a desire in every parent. Who wouldn't want the best Sex Education? Who wouldn't want the best Fear Education? I was wondering if you could help me by telling me what makes you the best leader of the "war on fear"? Then, maybe I would be able to answer my plaguing question as a researcher: Who is the best teacher on fear? I guess, for me, leader and teacher go together.

Your "war on fear" mirrors my project of a Fear Education. As a teacher and researcher, I have to ask critical questions like: Who is the best teacher on fear? (what qualities would they have?) and Who would decide?

Then I find other questions emerging re: Fear Education: What are the best curriculum materials, the best instructional technologies, best practices and pedagogy, best policies, best evaluative methods, best learning environments, best learners/students?-- on and on the questions arise. Then I ask why these may be the best questions and how would we know we have the best answer to any of these questions? I guess that makes me kind of a [moral] philosopher of Fear Education. Are you finding similar questions plaguing your leadership during this "war on fear"? Please send me information on what you are learning? I'd be glad to send you more on what I am learning. Thanks for your time.

APPENDIX VI
RESPONDING LETTER FROM A GRADUATE STUDENT
AND A RESPONSE TO IT

[This was the only in depth response from UBC educators to Appendix V. The response came from a female teacher, from Israel, with 27 years experience teaching]

"I'm interested in many of the questions that you posed. I think you have a great idea there, in your 'Fear Education,' although I think the term should be different. Somehow, I tend to understand (maybe because English is my second language) that 'Fear Education' is education FOR fear, rather than education that deals with how to build a world in which we will not need to fear.... [do you mean] Fear Education to be education for safe, healthy and informed fear.... Would you recommend a person who never experienced fear to teach Fear Education? If you think that teaching requires (at least some) experience, then how would you train (or better-- what sort of teacher education is required for) these teachers who are suppose to be 'fear experts'? From a place of much fear and real terror (the kind of terror that really kills), I'm not sure that experience helps, but I'll be pleased to continue a conversation with you. Good luck with your research."

Author's Response:

"Thanks for your feedback.... For your critique, I agree Fear Education is a bit negativist sounding and a lot of people won't like it in this day and age of everything seemingly having to be put in positive sounding language (as if that is necessarily the condition of better-- which I dispute). Clearly, it is rare that I can engage an educator in the topic. So, I do think about alternative names all the time. However, there is precedent for such names that have this negative association and are quite successful, e.g., conflict education.... Of course, Peace Education has been the more popular positive sounding form that has made it big.... I could call my work Fearless Education but that also has its problems and scares a lot of people. No, Fear Education, as I use it, is not intended to increase fear but rather it is to teach us better how to handle it.... I am shocked only you have responded in depth to my "Letter"?... an Israeli woman, teacher... well, it just makes sense to me that you would be attracted to Fear Education. Those who are not so familiar (or in denial) with terror... they like to exclude it from their pedagogies...".

[Note: Footnotes are not included. If you would like full-text paper copy of this article, contact the publisher/author, @ $5 Can. Funds]

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