I'm not an Esperantist, but...
Aug. 1st, 2011 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholm... enough of my avo's sango runs through my veins that I sometimes wish I could take the English language and shake it out like a sheet, or at least straighten its tie when it's on its way to an important meeting. For example...
When we talk about people who "have difficulty" with women, we might say that they are sexist, or we might say that they are misogynist. The two things are connected, and are often found together, but the distinction between them is a useful one. Sexism is public, structural, and may be institutional. Misogyny is personal, psychological, perhaps pathological. Misogyny may underlie institutional sexism, but I at least would hesitate to call an institution misogynistic per se. Similarly, it's possible to say that somebody is being sexist without necessarily accusing them of misogyny as well.
In the area of race, it all gets a bit blurrier. "Racist" does double service, both as a description of what people and institutions say and do, and also of their motivation. Nevertheless, there is a word (if a rather specialized one) that does some of the same semantic work as misogyny - namely "xenophobia". Like "misogyny", "xenophobia" is a diagnosis of motivation rather than a description of action. (There's also the problem that "xenophobia" refers to nationality or culture, rather than to race as such - although to racists this distinction may be less apparent.)
Then there's "homophobia" (and indeed "transphobia", which was coined by analogy). Again you've got that pathology-suggesting suffix, and it's easy to see "homophobia" as doing the same kind of job as "misogyny" and "xenophobia". But where is the equivalent of "sexism" and "racism"? What is the word to use when you want to point out that somebody has just said or done something oppressive or othering or heteronormative or otherwise shitty, but you don't necessarily want to accuse them of being motivated by fear or hatred of homosexuals? How, in short, do you avoid this kind of derailing comment:
I've read on several blogs about racism that one of the things people tend to do when told that they have said something racist is to take offence, or be over-apologetic, or in some other way make it all about them, rather than understanding it as a simple correction from which they can learn and move on. However rare the latter reaction may in fact be it is at least possible, because in saying that an expression is racist you're not necessarily saying that the speaker is a xenophobe through and through and motivated by pathological fear and hatred. But "homophobic" has that accusation built in - especially for those of an etymological cast of mind.
What to do? Do we invent a new word that will have the same relation to homophobia that racism does to xenophobia, and sexism does to misogyny? You can invent till you're blue in the gums, but who will use or even learn it? Or do we continue to let "homophobia" be stretched thinly over a large semantic territory, and trust that usage will sort things out? But how do we avoid the kind of derailing mentioned above while we're waiting?
Where is Ludwig Zamenhof when you need him?
When we talk about people who "have difficulty" with women, we might say that they are sexist, or we might say that they are misogynist. The two things are connected, and are often found together, but the distinction between them is a useful one. Sexism is public, structural, and may be institutional. Misogyny is personal, psychological, perhaps pathological. Misogyny may underlie institutional sexism, but I at least would hesitate to call an institution misogynistic per se. Similarly, it's possible to say that somebody is being sexist without necessarily accusing them of misogyny as well.
In the area of race, it all gets a bit blurrier. "Racist" does double service, both as a description of what people and institutions say and do, and also of their motivation. Nevertheless, there is a word (if a rather specialized one) that does some of the same semantic work as misogyny - namely "xenophobia". Like "misogyny", "xenophobia" is a diagnosis of motivation rather than a description of action. (There's also the problem that "xenophobia" refers to nationality or culture, rather than to race as such - although to racists this distinction may be less apparent.)
Then there's "homophobia" (and indeed "transphobia", which was coined by analogy). Again you've got that pathology-suggesting suffix, and it's easy to see "homophobia" as doing the same kind of job as "misogyny" and "xenophobia". But where is the equivalent of "sexism" and "racism"? What is the word to use when you want to point out that somebody has just said or done something oppressive or othering or heteronormative or otherwise shitty, but you don't necessarily want to accuse them of being motivated by fear or hatred of homosexuals? How, in short, do you avoid this kind of derailing comment:
Dictionary.com defines homophobia as an “intense hatred or fear of homosexuals or homosexuality.” This to me is probably the biggest and most offensive stereotype in your essay. [...] I can give you my word that I do not hate a single person on this earth, and I am certainly not afraid of homosexuals. In fact, I have a cousin who is a lesbian, and I give her a big hug every time I see her and love her just as much as I love any of my cousins. Just because I believe that her actions are immoral definitely does not mean that I love her any differently. [For the context of this comment, see here].
I've read on several blogs about racism that one of the things people tend to do when told that they have said something racist is to take offence, or be over-apologetic, or in some other way make it all about them, rather than understanding it as a simple correction from which they can learn and move on. However rare the latter reaction may in fact be it is at least possible, because in saying that an expression is racist you're not necessarily saying that the speaker is a xenophobe through and through and motivated by pathological fear and hatred. But "homophobic" has that accusation built in - especially for those of an etymological cast of mind.
What to do? Do we invent a new word that will have the same relation to homophobia that racism does to xenophobia, and sexism does to misogyny? You can invent till you're blue in the gums, but who will use or even learn it? Or do we continue to let "homophobia" be stretched thinly over a large semantic territory, and trust that usage will sort things out? But how do we avoid the kind of derailing mentioned above while we're waiting?
Where is Ludwig Zamenhof when you need him?
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 02:09 pm (UTC)I've been mulling similar subjects. I suspect that the right word will come out of entertainment media, as so many do. Sometimes I get impatient, then I think about how GLBTQ characters have slowly not only appeared in various media, but have agency, their lives have an implied continuance when they walk off screen. Not much and not many, but when I was a kid? They did not exist. Erased. Except for a horrifying straw figure or two, put there for laughs or for a villain to knock down.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 02:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 02:31 pm (UTC)In any case, we will probably eventually end up with some DSM/technical term which means actual fear of homosexuals or homosexuality, understanding that the etymological roots of "homophobia" have been lost to the larger cultural use of the term.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 03:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 02:34 pm (UTC)Then there's that interesting word 'immoral'..............
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 03:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 02:46 pm (UTC)I often have the same problem with xenophobia vs. racism:
I wonder at exactly what I am at, this time around? It is, often, a thing mixed; both this and that, needless to point out. And often people don´t even realise what it is, they do say...
Racism often seems to stem from some internal problems, etc. Like what I deducted as drunken...xenophobia emerging, lately but with rather racist flags (clearly visible to me and perhaps only me). Instead of the downright, honest jealousy of another person, I think it really was.
Basically,
I suppose that is the main problem. To sort out what it is. What´s going on? But how: what is it, someone actually says? And then, in case still interested: why do they do it? Did they just miss their goal a bit, or was this their deeper intention...etc.
With anyone who has the least of intellectual ambitions, I do expect them to check on that themselves; by the whole gamut of their means from A to B. But in everyday life it doth get mixed up and a lot at that. Though I sometimes can´t help thinking, simple people with ditto language are a lot more honest about who they are and what they say (one may like it or not).
"Crieff (vb.)
To agree sycophantically with a taxi-driver about immigration."
quote from my fav. dictionary:
The Deeper Meaning of Liff
(A Dictionary Of Things That There Aren´t Any Words For Yet)
by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd
English is only my third language but I don´t think language is the main problem (though it would be nice in said sorting-out process to have a hint of semantic guidance, indeed).
Thinking, however, is.
I think.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-02 09:08 am (UTC)To agree sycophantically with a taxi-driver about immigration."
I laughed at this, then remembered that almost all the taxi drivers I've had in the last five years have been immigrants.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 02:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 04:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 03:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 04:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 03:55 pm (UTC)than for the person who protests he hates nobody but is bound to persecute gays because of something he read in a book.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 04:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 06:31 pm (UTC)They're happy to own their homophobia (or misogyny or racism or transphobia) but not that they're prejudiced. They recognise that prejudice is socially unacceptable. The shy away from the word.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 07:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 08:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 09:45 pm (UTC)In a Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, I'm afraid, but I like to think he would approve of both the essay that prompted this question and your response to it. We could always try the nekyia in Esperanto.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 10:26 pm (UTC)Alas, if he could see what had become of the world and of his children in his absence it might break his heart.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-02 12:41 am (UTC)'Homophobia' was coined in the US in the late sixties by George Weinberg, a psychotherapist. I have never thought the term was particularly helpful. 'Heterosexism' is ideological and social; 'homophobia' pathologises. When people use 'homophobic' it has long seemed to me that they generally mean 'heterosexist'. There may be some people who really are pathologically terrified of encountering/experiencing same-sex desire, but there are far more who manifest anti-gay behaviour as a result of social prejudice, which has, of course, various roots.
Thanks for linking to that blog post; it was interesting to read it. I have a suspicion that one reason why a lot of LGBT activists have preferred to use the language of homophobia rather than heterosexism is precisely because it gets up the noses of people like the commenter you quote. I don't think that is a good reason, and I think the commenter probably has a point when he protests that he doesn't hate gay people. What is obvious, of course, is that like all these 'love the sinner, not the sin' types he is puffed up with delusions of his own superiority.
Delving into the background of the episode mentioned in the post, I have been shocked to find that a reputable English university has a reader in Biblical Law in its law department. Except, perhaps, in a theological context, there is no such thing as Biblical law: the whole concept depends on the superstition that treats the so-called Bible as a unified body of writings.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-02 08:55 am (UTC)And that's the other half of the task at hand, I guess. "Homophobia" and "heterosexist" seem to be more or less coaeval, according to this ngram, but homophobia was quicker out of the gate and has only increased its advantage since. It's also become entrenched as the "official" word used by, say, the police and education authorities. Out of interest I searched both terms in the web site of Stonewall, probably the best known British LGB campaigning group, and got the following hits: "homophobia" (141), "homophobic" (386), "heterosexism" (3), "heterosexist" (0). Stonewall is a highly-assimilationist organization which doesn't at all set out to get up the nose of the establishment, so I doubt whether this huge imbalance can be explained as a polemical tactic.
I for one am going to use the word "heterosexist" whenever and wherever possible from now on.
Just so you know where your tax pounds are going, here's that Reader in Biblical Law explaining that Leviticus is actually all about telling us not to abuse the environment or laugh at people with disabilities (which prohibitions are, apparently, why people today are so cross with it).
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-03 01:52 am (UTC)One of my other theories is that 'homophobia' has become much more popular than 'heterosexism' because people who don't reflect much (or at all) about derivations and connotations have decided that it sounds more impressive.
I have little time for Stonewall, an unrepresentative organisation with no democratic input.
It was interesting to listen to Dr Burnside. I think he is right to draw attention to the fact that when Jesus said 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself' he was directly quoting the Torah. Most people (including many Christians) are lamentably unaware of this.
It was even more interesting, and more enlightening, to read this paper by Dr Burnside on sexual ethics:
I am less bugged about my tax pounds than the degradation of academic discourse: superstitious prejudice and slippery argument masquerading as reasoned analysis and a contribution to social debate. Here is another sample from Dr Burnside's little pamphlet:
Sure, none of us is rooting for people who sacrifice their children to Molech. But move on a few verses, and what do we find?
'A threat to the wider community', eh? 'Boundaries presently lost from sight'?
I think it is sufficiently clear what Dr Burnside is driving at.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-03 08:05 am (UTC)Thanks for the quotations from Dr Burnside. I couldn't get your link to work, but I think, as you say, his meaning is very clear. He's not one to hide his flaming torch under a bushel.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-03 08:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-03 09:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-03 01:33 pm (UTC)I doubt whether Jonathan Burnside is as extreme as this, though I could be wrong. I read him as a conservative evangelical Christian with a social agenda: a modern version of a nineteenth-century type, busily developing a modified lingo in which to wrap up the same old authoritarian, repressive messages.
Among the organisations with which Burnside has affiliations is the Jubilee Centre, which calls itself 'a Christian social reform organisation'. Its website states: 'We believe the Bible describes a coherent vision for society' … This is a claim that defies reason. Outside the bubble these people inhabit, it is not hard to see that the Bible is a collection of disparate texts written in a variety of genres over many centuries by people who were expounding (and exploring) a great diversity of ideas about god, society, individual people, and the right way to live. Because of this, of course, you can find material in the Bible for supporting almost any kind of argument.
The Jubilee Centre website goes on to state: 'At the heart of this social vision is a concern for right relationships.'
The personal is political.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-02 09:43 am (UTC)Except, obviously, when "homophobic" is the appropriate word!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-03 12:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-03 01:26 pm (UTC)I'd heard about the ridiculous reaction to Rebecca Watson's video some while ago, but hadn't realized that Richard Dawkins had jumped in since and made such a public idiot of himself. I think, on the whole, I'd rather see him paired with the Reader in Biblical Law - they deserve each other.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-04 06:13 pm (UTC)A simple correction? In my experience, those who are doing the correcting may be just as narrow and simplistic in their views as the people they are convinced need correcting. In other words, linguistic claims notwithstanding, the accuser is in fact attacking the person, not the language used. The subtext is key.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-04 10:15 pm (UTC)