Browsing by Author "Fisher, R. Michael"
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Item Open Access Appropriate Education: Future Education as if the Human Being Matters(1982-03-12) Fisher, R. MichaelThe very first substantial book attempted, on the ideal vision for education in the 20th century, by the author was started and not finished. It began in the latter part of 1982 as his career as a gr. 5-8 classroom school teacher took a drastic turn and he retired suddenly, wishing to do other things in the field of Education with more impact on educational philosophy and policy. At the age of 30 (in 1982) he found a copy of Up From Eden: A Transpersonal View of Human Evolution (published in 1981) by an unknown author to him at the time, Ken Wilber. This changed his life and thinking forever. A radical evolutionary vision for a philosophy of education began to emerge in his year after retiring, of which this technical paper covers only the Table of Contents and a few selected pages from this hand-typed and cut and pasted original edition. It will give readers a flavour for the scope of the author’s work and offers potential ‘seeds’ for others who may want to read the full ms. of 171 pp. (albeit, incomplete, ending with Chapter 3). Many of the ideas, theories, critiques in this book are still valid to the author to this day.Item Open Access Book Review: An education in 'evil': Implications for curriculum, pedagogy, and beyond, by Cathryn van Kessel, 2019(In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2020-08-17) Fisher, R. MichaelItem Open Access Coronavirus and Marianne Williamson: Teaching for Fear Management Education(In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2020-03-12) Fisher, R. MichaelThe author, an internationally recognized fearologist and educator of fear management/education, shares his ‘big story’ that he believes needs to be understood to make sense of the current Coronavirus (Covid-19) tragedy on planet earth. He argues that we can turn this crisis into a great learning opportunity—especially, as a means to finally upgrading the quality of our fear management/education everywhere and thus to improve and mature our fearuality. He introduces playfully, two characters that are key players in this ‘big story’: (1) Marianne Williamson, x-presidential hopeful in 2020 in U.S. politics and (2) Covid-19 itself. These are two great teachers available for our advancing our cultural evolution in a good way.Item Open Access Courage/couragelessness: Rethinking the fear/fearlessness dialectic(In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2019) Barnesmoore, Luke; Fisher, R. MichaelThe net of problems of injustice in the world, past, present and in the oncoming future-present are characteristically rooted in the many and varied contextual manifestations of the superiority-supremacism form. In search of the metaphysical pathology hidden by the banal invisibility of Western thought (worldview/ideologies) for Western subjects, the authors critically recognize, conceptualize and unveil the superiority-supremacism form, the conflation of dualistic and nondualistic phenomena, and the all too common synthesis of superiority-supremacism and the conflation of dualistic/nondualistic phenomena that form an essential aspect of the Colonial Modernist Worldview (C.M. Worldview ; see Barnesmoore 2018) as a critique of Western knowledge and conceptions of human history manufactured therein.Item Open Access Dialogue Between Terror Management Theory and Fear Management Education(Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2020-05-13) Fisher, R. MichaelThere’s something ‘wrong’ in the field of fear management, the author had expressed in his 2010 tome, The World’s Fearlessness Teachings. Using a transdisciplinary approach to fear and fearology, he has sought how best to engage other theories. Within philosophy of existentialism (a la Ernest Becker) and the applications to social psychology (empirical studies of human behavior via Pyszczynski et al.), he found their contributions on terror (fear) management intriguing. The author, a specialist in fear management/education (FME) has been citing and at times teaching about terror management theory (TMT) since the early 2000s. In 2007 he published his first attempt to integrate TMT through an “integral” lens, to serve as one way to up-grade what he saw as some of the weaknesses in TMT, even though he highly admires TMT. In 2020 he engaged in an in depth interview dialogue with Sheldon Solomon, one of the three core founders of TMT, and it is this Technical Paper No. 94 which offers an extensive transcript from this exchange. As well, the author includes a letter to Solomon on potential ways of upgrading TMT, especially as the world spins within the extraordinary challenges of the coronavirus epidemic and lots of death—never mind, the overall context of an Anthropocene era, which both Solomon and the author acknowledge and attempt to offer good FME.Item Open Access Education "Without Fear," or a Proper 'Fear' Education?(2001-09-04) Fisher, R. MichaelThe author shares decades of experience studying fear and fearlessness. He concludes that educators and teachers tend not to want to discuss "fear" with any depth or consistency. A change in this attitude is required, especially in a post-9/11 era. A critical 'fear' theory, with emphasis not on "fears" but a portrayal of the hidden crisis in fear-knowledge, is the goal of this paper. Yet, there is no conclusion to this exploratory journey into the beginnings of a critical 'fear' theory for education and for the world. There are some important guides we have met along the way in this article: Parker Palmer's admission of a "culture of fear" in contemporary education, Peter McLaren's admission of a "new species of fear" in cultural politics and education, and Deborah Britzman's admission of a "love and hate [fear]" emotional landscape and relationship that modulates all teaching and learning. Britzman is the only educator to lead the way to an in depth and queer theory of fear (feer) [other than the author's work on 'fear' theory]. The author argues that good as these theorists are to lead us in better understanding fear and its role in education, they are not good enough and too often still rely on the psychological basis of meaning for fear (McLaren, less so). Love is not enough either to challenge fear and its rule in education and society. We need a transdisciplinary approach as in fearanalysis, where the emphasis is on the path of fearlessness as the location and process of living a life eternally ambivalent between Love and Fear. We cannot simply get or be Love. There is not simply just Fear either nor are we only fear. There is no formula nor humanistic or theological guarantee for the 'good' without the 'bad,' so to speak. There is a dialectical relation and existential sensibility required that most people are unable or unwilling to bring to awareness in education. I believe a good quality 'fear' education would improve our capabilities to enter this path of fearlessness. It is risky business to each in a culture of fear and a politics that exposes the "glue" of the 'Fear' Matrix of pathological patriarchy, and adultism. This critical location and process, this living a life in such a precarious and ambivalent place, is the most dangerous of all pedagogies, and an impossibility with possibility, a dangerousness with desire for truth at all costs. Simply, the path of fearlessness demands a 'fear' theory which is determined to study fear, feer, 'fear' and any other creative expression that opposes pedagogies of love. This methodological shift in fearanalysis and critical 'fear' theory proposed (and incomplete yet) is toward the "negative" and a counterbalance to the hegemonic fetishism of the current "positive" in today's neo-liberal, neo- conservative climate in North American culture and education. -RMFItem Open Access Ernest Becker's Educational Legacy: A Critical Reflection(In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2020-08-11) Fisher, R. MichaelThe author reviews the literature in professional education that cites Ernest Becker’s work from the 1960s-70s. Some of Becker’s main ideas from his own writing on education are also reviewed. The purpose here is to establish a sketch, not a full-study, of the importance of Becker’s educational legacy and begin some critique of the biases of professional educators in regard to utilizing Becker’s work. This critical reflectivity is an appropriate model of Becker’s own integrative approach to knowledge and learning. The aim is to ensure that future applications may be cautious to certain reductive tendencies and offer more diverse perspectives that are truer to Becker’s oeuvre and core ideas about human behavior and societies in general, and education specifically. The author concludes that the future of Education, formal and informal, would do well to take a long serious look at Becker’s work, especially as the world’s children, youths and adults are is becoming more and more vulnerable to frightening conditions, with cascading collapse of systems, including extinctions of all kinds already well underway in an era of global threats nearing extremes. Becker’s oeuvre is both realistic and idealistic, offering Education a way to radically improve to help make for a better world.Item Open Access Fear and Meditative Inquiry(In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2021) Kumar, Ashwani; Fisher, R. MichaelItem Open Access Fear Management and Education: Status of a Failing Relationship(In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2020-06-29) Fisher, R. MichaelBasically, for Ernest Becker, fear management is inevitable for all organisms; and cultural organisms have a really complicated fear management systems structuration. Cultures, like individuals, like educational systems of cultural reproduction, can do fear management well or really do it poorly—it all depends, on many things. Doing it unwell has severe consequences for life on this planet. The author has dedicated his educational career for 30+ years to this cause of finding the ‘best’ fear management/education (FME) possible. Terror Management Theory (TMT) is a great gift in this regard. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the current status of fear in educational discourses, in particular, the educators who advocate for TMT. He shows a ‘gap’ in the introduction of Beckerian educational philosophy/theory from the mid-60s-70s through to the current status of fear/terror management in the field of Education. He provides a complementary Fear Management Theory (FMT) in Appendix 1. The author finds several problems with the current applications and makes generic and theoretical recommendations to improve understanding and applying TMT in educational settings. He addresses there will be differences in applying TMT by educators because of how they choose to frame the insidious global Fear Problem.Item Open Access Fearless Leadership in and out of the 'Fear' Matrix(2003-05-04) Fisher, R. MichaelThe overall thesis is that a new kind of leadership in education is required in the 21st-century, particularly in the context of what many critical observers have labeled the "culture of fear" or "culture of violence." The ongoing terrorism and counter-terrorism in the world, especially since September 11, 2001 and the American-led "War on Terror(ism)," have greatly impacted the author's thinking about everything. After watching the popular science fiction film The Matrix (1999), it became evident that this dissertation was going to be directed and shaped by the film's characters and narrative. The problem and question that this dissertation explores is "What is the 'Fear' Matrix?" This attempts to legitimize the question and the ongoing "answers" as having curricular and pedagogical relevance, especially for educational leadership development.Item Open Access Fisher's Response to Michael Eneyo's Rejoinder(In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2020-02-24) Fisher, R. MichaelItem Open Access Gun Violence Problem is a Fear Violence Problem(2019-08-28) Fisher, R. MichaelFear breeds more fear. Guns mean more fear, not less. Is there a solution? Yes. Taking guns away from some people may help a little. The root of the Fear Problem is to find a root solution—that is, fearlessness. The rest of this essay will explain the connection of fearism and fearlessness, as one critical direction to go toward nonviolence. The author calls for a systematic analysis, individually and collectively, towards better and more deeply understanding the Fear Problem that plagues humanity. The study of fear and fearlessness ought to be essential and core in any curriculum of socialization and growth and development for citizens everywhere. Imagining a society based on fearlessness is a political act!Item Open Access How the "Culture of Positivity" Debilitates Fear Studies(2019-04-23) Fisher, R. MichaelThe author explores the intersectionality of two forms of oppression that debilitate the ongoing growth and maturity of Fear Studies in general and the overall philosophy and theorizing about “fear itself.” The more common form is “culture of fear” and lots has been written about that. The one less talked about, and another “enemy” of Fearlessness, is the rapid growing “positivity culture” where it is reinforced in popular culture and even in parts of academia and professional practices, that “we should promote positive” thoughts, ideas, emotions, and not the negative. Fisher briefly explores this latter problem in fearwork and his own experiences, including the way positivity (also he calls “fear-positivism”) has debilitated the critical theory perspective of research and practices on “fear(ism).” He calls for all people to be extra aware and critical that there may be a downside to being overly positive and that such an attitude, becomes an ideology itself to prevent critical thought. We have a Fear Problem problem!Item Open Access In Search of Fearlessness Project: Archival Memory, 1989-91 (30th Anniversary)(2019-04-13) Fisher, R. MichaelThe author, co-founder of In Search of Fearlessness Project (1989- ), takes readers through a brief tour, covering just over two years, in the museum of history of his relations with fear and fearlessness, and some of the main actors and theorists in that historical unfolding of a transformative beginning (as his unique period of born-again). Struggles soon appear to challenge the sustainability of his own faith and that of his allies, his followers, his lovers. He concludes, in one of his editorials in 1991, “...I am proud of the work we have done not to let fear-based patters pull everything to pieces between us.”Item Open Access In Search of Fearlessness: Towards a Unitive Healing Theory as the Foundation for a Healing Culture(1990-06-19) Fisher, R. Michael[brief excerpt only:] It takes an 'outsider' to help us see ourselves most clearly and simply. This book is written from an 'outsider' view. This is the outside as "artist" and "naturalist" in the most general sense of those words.Item Open Access International Journal of Fear Studies, Volume 1 (1), 2019: Interdisciplinary & Transdisciplinary Approaches(In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2019-03-12) Fisher, R. MichaelItem Open Access International Journal of Fear Studies, Volume 1 (2), 2019: Interdisciplinary & Transdisciplinary Approaches(In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2019-09-27) Fisher, R. MichaelItem Open Access International Journal of Fear Studies, Volume 2 (1), 2020: Interdisciplinary & Transdisciplinary Approaches (In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2020-02-24) Fisher, R. MichaelItem Open Access International Journal of Fear Studies, Volume 2 (2), 2020: Interdisciplinary & Transdisciplinary Approaches(In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2020-08-17) Fisher, R. MichaelItem Open Access International Journal of Fear Studies, Volume 3 (1), 2021: Interdisciplinary & Transdisciplinary Approaches(In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, 2021-04-08) Fisher, R. Michael; Alex, Rayson K.; Sachindev, P. S.