I believe xenophobia predated the new phobias by many decades, and was long understood to be more about fear than hatred.
I do find the new meaning of 'phobia' very annoying. As I recall, the new usage of 'homophobia' was somewhat purposeful, intended to denigrate dislike of homosexuality by associating it with fear, which was promptly associated with ignorance.
Corruption of the language is very useful to those who advocate for crazy things, such as transsexualism. So I doubt the stupid/dishonest words and phrases will ever disappear; the best I can do is simply dismiss them all as nonsense and move on.
The Trump campaign successfully used the term "Trump derangement syndrome" - to the extent that they ran commercials patterned after pharmaceuticals here in the US ("Ask your doctor if Independence in right for you"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDEDAWYQJPA
Anti-white, as Torin has noted, is probably the most accepted way of fingering the prejudice of a lot of these folks, but it lacks the pathological angle. "Europhobia" might be confused with the British debate over Brexit, so it is probably a confusing term to use over there. Perhaps leukophobia (derived from the ancient Greek for "white")?
Or to get down to what we are really looking for - which is nothing to do with race (eg hatred of whites) but instead with aversion to science-based inquiry when it threatens ideological purity - perhaps we could use the Greek distinctions for fact/reality (aletheia) vs opinion (doxa). How does doxamania sound to describe those who didn't want to listen to masked vs umasked statistics during Covid? Or alethalergy for those who reject Emil's research on the grounds that it does not accord with their preconceived beliefs? Of course, English already has words for these folks - prejudiced, closed-minded, intolerant, the "True Believers" - but we are looking for something that would equate their views with an illness.
"Anglophobia" works well and on a number of levels. Maybe someone should set up an APPG in Parliament and create an extensive definition for it. (I'm joking, that would be appalling, though I do think that the price of Britain having become "systemically anti-racist" [h/t Ed West] is indeed widespread anglophobia.
In the case of the rise of the term "homophobia", as in its current usage to imply a hatred of homosexuals, I currently believe that the proliferation of this usage was driven by the gay community, itself, and not by the majority heterosexual population. This is because for the most part, heteros have not *feared*, or were afraid of homosexuals, but were, rather, disgusted by their public behavior. Therefore, because there was no real fear, they'd not select a term that was primarily affixed to fear.
From this I think it's reasonable to conclude that homosexuals favored the term because they'd prefer to think that they were feared--carrying with it an appearance of power--rather than accept that the actual public perception was more similar to confronting a dirty diaper. Why else would they hijack an existing term that has historically denoted *only* "fear" when it's pretty clear that heteros have never notably feared them, but have famously been disgusted by them?
You can see that if you go along the "phobia" path, it ennobles gays and paints them as victims of unreason.
This is not to claim that that has not been true, often, but in grouping those who might tolerate behavior they consider disgusting, so long as a bit of public restraint is practiced, along with true dyed-in-the-wool irrational haters, they further alienate themselves from the mainstream.
Focusing on the adaptive phobias, in China "frigophobia" exists as a fear of hypothermia. That's not unexpected given that during the last glacial period North China was the coldest of the peri-glacial habitats occupied by humans. In the Amazon forests, a leading cause of death is being crushed by a falling tree. If you spend time there, you will not infrequently hear trees falling, and of course "light gaps" are an important feature in forest ecology. Anthropologists should check for a tree-crushing phobia among the indigenous people. It might be hard to evolve. There may be no rational response to the initial sounds of a nearby falling tree because it may be hard to determine which way to run in the few seconds that a person has to take action.
Maybe phobias about identity groups are primarily about disgust instead of fear or anxiety or hatred.
I asked a white women in her seventies who was racist against blacks back when she was a child in the US and this racism was typical. She reported that the dominant emotion felt was disgust because they were assumed to have contagious disease. Disgust is also the typical emotion felt about homosexuals by those who feel aversion to them, as best I can tell, based on reading their complaints on social media. So we need to be clear about whether disgust counts as a phobia.
If the dominant emotion is disgust, that changes the situation somewhat. Disgust seems more likely to inspire disinfection attempts than fear or anxiety. Regardless of what words we use, if the dominant emotion involved is disgust and we aren't seeing it, we are missing something important.
I long ago settled on the definition of this weasel-worded sense of “phobia” as: “A defensive euphemism for the word ‘scorn’.”
My favorite example of this misuse is not, however, from specifically left-leaning defensive users, but from the French: “francophobia” (“la francophobie”), which I’ve fairly often seen bandied about over the years. It’s perfectly fitted for the persistent French delusion of geopolitical “grandesse”, now over 200 years out of date and still suffering new assaults from the real world, most recently Africa.
I believe xenophobia predated the new phobias by many decades, and was long understood to be more about fear than hatred.
I do find the new meaning of 'phobia' very annoying. As I recall, the new usage of 'homophobia' was somewhat purposeful, intended to denigrate dislike of homosexuality by associating it with fear, which was promptly associated with ignorance.
Corruption of the language is very useful to those who advocate for crazy things, such as transsexualism. So I doubt the stupid/dishonest words and phrases will ever disappear; the best I can do is simply dismiss them all as nonsense and move on.
Anti-White is the best way to call out explicit racial discrimination. But pro-White seems less powerful.
It's OK to be white.
Many contemporary uses of "-phobia" would be more accurately served by "-misia", hatred. If we were still educated.
Educated? I'm afraid that ship sailed long ago.
The Trump campaign successfully used the term "Trump derangement syndrome" - to the extent that they ran commercials patterned after pharmaceuticals here in the US ("Ask your doctor if Independence in right for you"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDEDAWYQJPA
Anti-white, as Torin has noted, is probably the most accepted way of fingering the prejudice of a lot of these folks, but it lacks the pathological angle. "Europhobia" might be confused with the British debate over Brexit, so it is probably a confusing term to use over there. Perhaps leukophobia (derived from the ancient Greek for "white")?
Or to get down to what we are really looking for - which is nothing to do with race (eg hatred of whites) but instead with aversion to science-based inquiry when it threatens ideological purity - perhaps we could use the Greek distinctions for fact/reality (aletheia) vs opinion (doxa). How does doxamania sound to describe those who didn't want to listen to masked vs umasked statistics during Covid? Or alethalergy for those who reject Emil's research on the grounds that it does not accord with their preconceived beliefs? Of course, English already has words for these folks - prejudiced, closed-minded, intolerant, the "True Believers" - but we are looking for something that would equate their views with an illness.
Interesting.
"Anglophobia" works well and on a number of levels. Maybe someone should set up an APPG in Parliament and create an extensive definition for it. (I'm joking, that would be appalling, though I do think that the price of Britain having become "systemically anti-racist" [h/t Ed West] is indeed widespread anglophobia.
In the case of the rise of the term "homophobia", as in its current usage to imply a hatred of homosexuals, I currently believe that the proliferation of this usage was driven by the gay community, itself, and not by the majority heterosexual population. This is because for the most part, heteros have not *feared*, or were afraid of homosexuals, but were, rather, disgusted by their public behavior. Therefore, because there was no real fear, they'd not select a term that was primarily affixed to fear.
From this I think it's reasonable to conclude that homosexuals favored the term because they'd prefer to think that they were feared--carrying with it an appearance of power--rather than accept that the actual public perception was more similar to confronting a dirty diaper. Why else would they hijack an existing term that has historically denoted *only* "fear" when it's pretty clear that heteros have never notably feared them, but have famously been disgusted by them?
At least that's my take on it.
Perhaps homosexuals wanted to foment a connotation of mental disorder rather than repugnance toward homosexuality.
In my opinion, yes, that too.
You can see that if you go along the "phobia" path, it ennobles gays and paints them as victims of unreason.
This is not to claim that that has not been true, often, but in grouping those who might tolerate behavior they consider disgusting, so long as a bit of public restraint is practiced, along with true dyed-in-the-wool irrational haters, they further alienate themselves from the mainstream.
Focusing on the adaptive phobias, in China "frigophobia" exists as a fear of hypothermia. That's not unexpected given that during the last glacial period North China was the coldest of the peri-glacial habitats occupied by humans. In the Amazon forests, a leading cause of death is being crushed by a falling tree. If you spend time there, you will not infrequently hear trees falling, and of course "light gaps" are an important feature in forest ecology. Anthropologists should check for a tree-crushing phobia among the indigenous people. It might be hard to evolve. There may be no rational response to the initial sounds of a nearby falling tree because it may be hard to determine which way to run in the few seconds that a person has to take action.
Maybe phobias about identity groups are primarily about disgust instead of fear or anxiety or hatred.
I asked a white women in her seventies who was racist against blacks back when she was a child in the US and this racism was typical. She reported that the dominant emotion felt was disgust because they were assumed to have contagious disease. Disgust is also the typical emotion felt about homosexuals by those who feel aversion to them, as best I can tell, based on reading their complaints on social media. So we need to be clear about whether disgust counts as a phobia.
If the dominant emotion is disgust, that changes the situation somewhat. Disgust seems more likely to inspire disinfection attempts than fear or anxiety. Regardless of what words we use, if the dominant emotion involved is disgust and we aren't seeing it, we are missing something important.
Chiming in with gregvp and A. Hairyhanded Gent:
I long ago settled on the definition of this weasel-worded sense of “phobia” as: “A defensive euphemism for the word ‘scorn’.”
My favorite example of this misuse is not, however, from specifically left-leaning defensive users, but from the French: “francophobia” (“la francophobie”), which I’ve fairly often seen bandied about over the years. It’s perfectly fitted for the persistent French delusion of geopolitical “grandesse”, now over 200 years out of date and still suffering new assaults from the real world, most recently Africa.
We don’t need a counter-revolution please.
Language is organic and my children use it slightly differently to me.
But as I get older I get tired of keeping up with neologisms and top-down semantic shifts. Leave this stuff alone.
Fortunately, I have a real phobia, so the homo-, islama-, etc. prefixes were obvious lies and the accusations never affected me.
Thanks for the history of the misuse.
I have been aware of the misuse of the word 'phobia' for a long time and have always found it aggravating.
I assume someone has suggested leukophobia