Phobia vs Hate

[NQAS]

I gotta get back to work, but this bugs me, so I thought I'd put it down and see the responses, if any.

Why is it that things the RW hates are called phobias? Homophobia and Islamophobia come to mind. The RW may very well be afraid of homosexuals and Muslims, but the reality is that they hate them. Anti-Semitic begins to describe the hatred of Jews, but even that just doesn't seem to cut it. The RW in America today - and probably worldwide throughout history, when you think about it - hates Jews, hates homosexuals, hates Muslims. They want them wiped away, eradicated - frankly, the way these people were eradicated in Hitler's Germany. This is not a phobia. I'm not minimizing phobias. They are serious things, whether it's arachnophobia or agoraphobia or any of scores more. But including the utter hatred and contempt of specific groups doesn't belong on a list of phobias.

How does one describe the kind of hate I'm talking about without resorting to a word ending in phobia? It's almost like an "out" for the those who are phobic. As in, oh sure, we know John over there has a fear of Muslims, but otherwise he's a good guy.

Or, as long as we know what is being talked about when one talks about homophobia and Islamophobia and, for that matter, anti-Semitism, does it matter what the word is as long as we understand the sentiment?

It's been on my mind.

[Claire Oh Nette]

1. Primary vs. secondary emotions

Hate results from fear.
DOn't hate it unless you fear it first.

Watch their use of dehumanizing language (they're like animals...) and pest control (invasion, eradication). IT's classic fascist driven genocide.

Yes, they really do want to kill everyone not like them.

Call it what it is: genocidal fascism.

[DBoon]

2. misogyny hatred of women

so use misoislamic or misohomo ?

I think of a phobia as an individual irrational neurotic fear. People with classic neurotic phobias do not typically try to pass laws against the object of their fears, or steer whole religions against them.

What we see against Islam and the LGTB communities is something broader and more sinister. They are political and religious movements that try to eliminate whole classes of people.

[Ocelot II]

3. Hate and fear are tied together.

Last edited Tue Apr 27, 2021, 01:40 PM - Edit history (1)

People tend to hate what they fear. The fear of "the other" is really the fear that those others will take over or assume influence in some way that changes their lives. Homophobia, for example, might boil down to a fear that gay people will want to have gay sex with them or make their children gay. This is such a disturbing idea to homophobes that the result is hating gay people so much that if they aren't harming them physically they are at least trying to have laws enacted that minimize LGBT people's social influence as much as possible. Islamophobia is both the fear that Islamic terrorists like ISIS will come to their little towns and kill them, along with the even greater fear that Muslims will have the same right to religious freedom as they do - a zero-sum game where giving Muslims that right takes away from the the religious freedom of Christians. It's all really stupid but it's based on fear, and fear breeds hate.

[Martin68]

4. One thing about the "homophobic" label I've always wondered about is whether someone

is homophobic because the thought of performing a homosexual act themselves fills them with revulsion even if they have no problem with other people doing so.

[NQAS]

5. It might have started as fear years ago

But now it’s just hate right from the start. It’s too complicated and time consuming to start at discomfort and then transition to fear before arriving at hate. It has to be exhausting to carry so much hate day in and day out.

Women

Gays

Muslims

Jews

Smart people

Native Americans

Socialists

Black people

Brown people

Asian people

Immigrants

Atheists

Democrats

Democratic veterans

Democratic amputee veterans

Disabled people generally

College educated people

[Behind the Aegis]

6. It is the difference between a psychological term and a sociological term.

The psychological -phobia is used to express a mental condition of irrational fear, sometimes a crippling and debilitating one. The other use, the sociological version, is more of an expression of dislike, discomfort, or sometimes, actual hate. The thing is the two versions can intersect. Interestingly, the term "anti-Semitism" is a result of RW political correctness, as it was coined in order to replace the more harsh, and less socially acceptable, Judenhass or "Jew hate", meaning hate of the Jewish people. When most discussions take place about homophobia, Islamophobia, and the like, it is the sociological version which is being discussed.

I feel it is important to also mention there are various levels of "phobias", including anti-Semitism. Not all of them are extremes, nor are they limited to the right and it has to be acknowledged, or they will never be completely rooted out. I see someone above mentioned the prefix miso- as an alternative. It is possible, somewhere down the line, that such words may be coined, but for now, we are stuck with the versions mentioned in your post.