In a message dated 3/8/00 5:21:50 AM Dateline Standard Time,
hadley@reliant.yxi.com writes:
> Given that we can already observe that biological tendencies
> such as xenophobia are successfully treated by education (note
> declines in racism, for example) we can conclude that, indeed,
> the human mind is often capable of overriding certain biological
> programming.
Actually, most people who are victims of racism don't think there has been a
significant decline. Instead, they argue that racism has simply been driven
underground and expresses itself in many other ways aside from overt and
violent ways. After all, for such a decline, racial issues still make for
very powerful political ploys.
>I agree, though, with Cliff's observation that there is probably
>more to homophobia than xenophobia. However, what ties all of
>this in to education is the fact that homophobia is fundamentally
>irrational. Every fear that defines homophobia is ungrounded.
>Education is usually highly effective in treating irrational fears.
I don't agree at all. Education is typically impotent when dealing with
phobias. Pick your phobia. For example, someone with a fear of flying can
be shown all the facts and statistics to show that flying is quite safe. But
such education is useless. To really cure a phobia, the phobic must first
*want* to be cured. They don't get cured by passively absorbing information.
Besides, You may have the horse before the cart. Ungrounded fears may not
be the cause of homophobia; they may be merely expressions of this innate
state.
Although I realize the term 'homphobia' literally means fear of
homosexuality, I think it is a bad term. I don't think it has much to do
with real fear (that's drawing on that outdated Freudian line of thinking).
It's more of a dislike or repulsion that can be expressed with different
intensities from person to person. Perhaps a better term is homodynia.
Mike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Mar 08 2000 - 16:58:34 EST