Oikophobia
Philosopher Roger Scruton, writing about England a few years ago, used the title of this post to describe a certain sort of intellectual (and quite a few pretend-intellectuals) who
have repudiated the national idea. This repudiation is the result of a peculiar frame of mind that has arisen throughout the Western world since the second world war, and which is particularly prevalent among the intellectual and political élites. No adequate word exists for this attitude, though its symptoms are instantly recognised: namely, the disposition, in any conflict, to side with ‘them’ against ‘us’, and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably ‘ours’. Being the opposite of xenophobia I propose to call this state of mind oikophobia, by which I mean (stretching the Greek a little) the repudiation of inheritance and home. Oikophobia is a stage through which the adolescent mind normally passes. But it is a stage in which some people — intellectuals especially — tend to become arrested.
It is no accident that, while most of America toils by the sweat of its brow to make a profit, the faculty lounge and the newsroom seem a world apart from business. So perhaps it is only natural that it is now, when economic conditions are difficult, that the distinctions between the two worlds have become so plain.
70% of Americans don’t want to be ruled by the 30% or so that think they are part of an elite, and it has driven the 30% bonkers. HT: BOTW
August 29th, 2010 at 9:45 am
Can’t we please add an “n” to this brilliant neologism, thus rendering it the more poetic “oinkaphobia” and calling its adherents “oinks.”
August 29th, 2010 at 11:35 am
I’m happy the 30% are being driven bonkers. Wish they could be driven over a cliff. Maybe in November. F
August 29th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
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August 30th, 2010 at 2:05 am
Of that 30% (that are so much more proper and PC than the rest), government employees are maybe 15%. But those “high priests” in the inner sanctum of media and academia are maybe 0.1%?
Many were raised Democrat and taught to hate the evil Republicans. My experience with relatives is that the most bitter clingers are those that sold their soul to Obama and the Democrats. They can only blame Palin or Beck or any of the recalcitrant right, for Obama’s unicorns not arriving on schedule. The hatred of Palin seems to be misplaced anger, as they continue to be slapped in the face by an abusive government.
The bonkers media/academia still wear their robes, as they preach from their ivory minarets to the America that actually gets things done. Their faithful acolytes are fending off a questioning congregation, “bravely” holding the partly line in the face of abject failure. But the curtain that separates these high priests from the proles seems to have been torn from top to bottom, exposing more hammer and sickle than democratic republic. (eg. Obama’s “solidarity” with Chavez and Castro and Zelaya in the Honduras incident)
Beck plus an internet savvy public found Mao lovers and communists and America haters at the head of our government. No wonder the “oh so superior” crowd is losing it, trying to defend the indefensible. Many of these rats may eventually jump ship, but it may be best to let them drown at sea, if our own ship of state is to have a future.