The Love and Fear Problem: A Response to Michael Bassey Eneyo

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to engage the critiques of Michael Bassey Eneyo's views of the philosophy of fearism (a la Desh Subba and R. Michael Fisher). Eneyo is invited to respond to this and Fisher will respond to it. All others who wish to respond to this exchange between Fisher and Eneyo are welcome to send in their contributions of which are potentially publishable in future issues of the International Journal of Fear Studies. Fisher makes the case that Eneyo has not fully owned his own disciplinarity in shaping his work as a philosopher of fear, and his own Christianity privileging of a faith in love; and thus, when he compares and contrasts his claims with Fisher (and somewhat with Subba's philosophy of fearism) this leads to inevitable tensions and clashes. Fisher offers several creative and productive routes for ways of improving how to work with his own views, with fearism, and those of others, especially the new breed of serious and respectable philosophers of fear, like Eneyo. The ultimate goal is to improve awareness in the 'fear territory' (a la Eneyo) and its embedded philosophical, theoretical and practical applications to fear management/education.