In his story “Nutcracker.com” from Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris talks about his hatred of computers and how his friends would call him a “technophobe.” He argues against such a label, claiming that just because he hates computers doesn’t mean he’s afraid of them. He writes:

The word “phobic” has its place when properly used, but lately it’s been declawed by the pompous insistence that most animosity is based upon fear rather than loathing. No credit is given for distinguishing between these two very different emotions.

I had to think about this a lot. If someone hates Jews, he’s called anti-semitic, but if someone hates gays, he’s called homophobic. By nomenclature Jews can be hated fully and purely, while we get to condescend to the gay haters by saying those people are really just scared that “the gay” is contagious or something.

I agree that fear and hatred are completely separate things and that “homophobic” is more of an anti-hatred propaganda term than a true expression of the emotion.

On the other hand, I don’t think that fear and hatred are completely unrelated. Mr. Sedaris’s hatred of computers aside, I do think that a great deal of hatred in the form of bigotry arises from a fear of those who are different from us, but it also arises from upbringing, peer pressure, life experiences, ignorance and a total lack of perspective. (I’m sorry, was that “pompous”?)

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 15th, 2007 at 9:10 am and is filed under meanderings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.