Oikophobia
| Oikophobia | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Domatophobia |
| Part ofa serieson |
| Discrimination |
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Oikophobia(Greek:oîkos,'house,household' +phóbos,'fear'; related todomatophobiaandecophobia[1]) is an aversion to a home environment, or an abnormalfear(phobia) of one's home[2]and also a tendency to criticize or reject one's own culture and praise other cultures.[3]
Inpsychiatry,the term is also more narrowly used to indicate a phobia of the contents of a house: "fear ofhousehold appliances,equipment,bathtubs,household chemicals,and other common objects in the home. "[4]In contrast,domatophobiaspecifically refers to the fear of a house itself.[4]
The term has been used inpoliticalcontexts to refer critically topolitical ideologiesthat are held to repudiate one's own culture and laud others. One prominent such usage was byRoger Scrutonin his 2004 bookEngland and the Need for Nations.
In 1808,poetandessayistRobert Southeyused the word to describe a desire (particularly by theEnglish) to leave home and travel.[5]Southey's usage as a synonym forwanderlustwas picked up by other 19th-century writers.
In psychiatry
[edit]Inpsychiatricusage,oikophobiamay narrowly refer to fear of thephysical spaceof the home interior, where it is especially linked to the fear ofhousehold appliances,baths,electrical equipment,and other aspects of the home perceived to be potentially dangerous.[4]In this psychiatric context, the term is properly applied to fear of the objectswithin the house,whereas the fear of thehouse itselfis referred to asdomatophobia.[4]
In thepost-World War IIera, some commentators used the term to refer to a supposed "fear and loathing ofhousework"experienced by women who worked outside of the home and who were attracted to aconsumerist lifestyle.[6]
Political usage
[edit]In his 2004 bookEngland and the Need for Nations,British philosopherRoger Scrutonadapted the word to mean "the repudiation of inheritance and home".[7]He argues that it is "a stage through which theadolescentmind normally passes ",[8]but that it is a feature of some, typicallyleftist,political impulses and ideologies that espousexenophilia,i.e. preference for foreign cultures.[9]
Scruton uses the term as theantithesisofxenophobia.[10]In his book,Roger Scruton: Philosopher on Dover Beach,Mark Dooleydescribesoikophobiaas centered within the Westernacademic establishmenton "both the commonculture of the West,and the old educationalcurriculumthat sought to transmit its humane values. "This disposition has grown out of, for example, the writings ofJacques Derridaand ofMichel Foucault's "assault on 'bourgeois' society result[ing] in an 'anti-culture' that took direct aim at holy andsacredthings, condemning and repudiating them asoppressiveand power-ridden. "[11]: 78 He continues:[11]: 83
Derrida is a classic oikophobe in so far as he repudiates the longing for home that theWestern theological,legal,andliterarytraditions satisfy... Derrida'sdeconstructionseeks to block the path to this 'core experience' of membership, preferring instead a rootless existence founded 'upon nothing.'
An extreme aversion to the sacred, and the thwarting of the connection of the sacred to the culture of the West is described as the underlyingmotifof oikophobia; and not the substitution ofChristianityby another coherent system of belief. Theparadoxof the oikophobe seems to be that any opposition directed at thetheologicaland culturaltraditionof the West is to be encouraged even if it is "significantly moreparochial,exclusivist,patriarchal,andethnocentric."[11]: 78 Scruton describes "a chronic form of oikophobia [which] has spread through theAmerican universities,in the guise ofpolitical correctness."[7]: 37
Scruton's usage has been taken up by some U.S.political commentatorsto refer to what they see as a rejection of traditionalU.S. cultureby theliberal elite.In August 2010,James Tarantowrote a column in theWall Street Journalentitled "Oikophobia: Why the liberal elite finds Americans revolting", in which he criticizes supporters of the proposedIslamic center in New Yorkas oikophobes who were defendingMuslimsand aimed to "exploit the9/11 atrocity."[12]
In theNetherlands,the termoikophobiahas been adopted by politician and writerThierry Baudet,which he describes in his book,Oikophobia: The Fear of Home.
Southey's usage
[edit]In hisLetters from England(1808),Robert Southeydescribesoikophobiaas a product of "a certain state ofcivilisationor luxury. "referring to the habit among wealthy people to visitspa townsandseaside resortsin the summer months. He also mentions the fashion forpicturesquetravel to wild landscapes, such as thehighlands of Scotland.[13]
Southey's link of oikophobia to wealth and the search for new experiences was taken up by other writers, and cited indictionaries.[14]A writer in 1829 published an essay about his experience witnessing the aftermath of theBattle of Waterloo,saying:[15]
[T]he love of locomotion is so natural to anEnglishman,that nothing can chain him home, but the absolute impossibility of living abroad. No such imperious necessity acting upon me, I gave way to myoiko-phobia,and the summer of 1815 found me in Brussels.
In 1959, Anglo-Egyptian author Bothaina Abd el-Hamid Mohamed used Southey's concept in his bookOikophobia: or, A literary craze for education through travel.[16]
See also
[edit]- Nostophobia– fear of returning home
- Allophilia
- Clientitis
- Cultural cringe
- Wanderlust
- Xenocentrism
- Xenophily
- List of phobias
References
[edit]- ^"Ecophobia".Collins Dictionary.
- ^Kahn, Ada (2010).The Encyclopedia of Phobias, Fears, and Anxieties(3rd ed.). p. 552.
- ^"Oikophobia".Macmillan Dictionary.
- ^abcdDoctor, Ronald Manual, Ada P. Kahn, and Christine A. Adamec. 2008.The Encyclopedia of Phobias, Fears, and Anxieties(3rd ed.).Infobase Publishing.pp. 281, 286.
- ^Southey, Robert(1808).Letters from England, Volume 1.David Longworth. p.311.
Oikophobia.
- ^Moeller, Robert G. 1993.Protecting motherhood: Women and the family in the politics of postwar West Germany.University of California Press.p. 140.
- ^abScruton, Roger.2004. "Oikophobia."pp. 33–38 inEngland and the Need for Nations.London:Civitas.
- ^Scruton, Roger."Continuum - Political Philosophy > Roger Scruton".Continuumbooks.com. Archived fromthe originalon 2009-10-15.Retrieved2010-08-30.
- ^Scruton, Roger."Oikophobia and Xenophilia." pp. 287–92 inStereotypes and Nations,edited by T. Walas. Cracow International Cultural Center.
- ^Lacroix, Justine, andKalypso Nicolaīdis.2011.European Stories: Intellectual Debates on Europe in National Contexts.Oxford University Press.p. 159.
- ^abcDooley, Mark.2009.Roger Scruton: Philosopher on Dover Beach.Continuum.
- ^Taranto, James (27 August 2010)."Oikophobia: Why the liberal elite finds Americans revolting".Best of the Web.The Wall Street Journal.Dow Jones & Company, Inc.Retrieved26 June2016.
- ^Southey, Robert.1808.Letters from England1. New York: David Longworth. pp.157–59.
- ^Black, Richard. 1874.The student's manual complete: an etymological vocabulary of words derived from the Greek and Latin.Oxford. p. 84.
- ^[Eyewitness]. 1829. "Waterloo, the Day After the Battle."Pp. 84–92 inThe United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine1. London:Henry Colburn.p. 84. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
- ^Mohamed, Bothaina Abd el-Hamid. 1959.Oikophobia;: Or, A literary craze for education through travel.Anglo-Egyptian Books.
