this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2024
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the_dunk_tank

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It's the dunk tank.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Read my comment below, the correct original use is akin to hydrophobic. IE, Y can be described as X-phobic if it shows an adverse reaction or rejection of X. It has nothing to do with fear in the psychological sense, which is the colloquial definition that you are attacking.

Describing reactionaries who don’t like gay rights as “homophobic” is 100% correct and accurate and has nothing to do with baggage you are bringing in about fear or morals

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I see. "Aversion to gay people" and "fear of gay people" is a distinction without a difference imo but whatever. I still don't like the parallel this jargon implies between panic disorders and persecution. They are nothing alike so our language should reflect that.

(also who cares what the original use is if people don't mean it like that. Also also I'm not talking about morality? Kinda feels like you're reading things into my comments that I did not say)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Your original comment was talking about morality when your issue with the term is that it ‘absolves homophobes’. Absolution is a moral term related to sin.

Framing it as fear absolves people of their active and purposeful involvement

You take issue with their term because of a moral stance. You don’t like the term homophobia because it is amoral when you want it to be moralized and loaded with moral sentiment.

You should care about the original definition, because the original definition derived from Marxist analysis of societal factions. That’s like saying “who cares what MLK or Lenin or Marx actually said and meant, what matters of how modern pop-culture understands their theories” which is obviously stupid and wrong

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I meant absolve as in excuses/removes culpability. The same way you wouldn't be too hard on a claustrophobic person for panicking in a small room.

It makes it sound like homophobes have a mental illness and it's that illness which is the cause of their actions. But bigotry phobias aren't at all comparable to fear phobias so we should use different words to describe them. That's what I'm saying and that's what the OP was saying too, I'm pretty sure.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I meant absolve as in excuses/removes culpability

Culpability in what? An immoral act or sin. Again you are upset that the term isn’t moralistically loaded. You want it to aggressively impose guilt, this is a moral position and not a descriptive one.

The same way you wouldn't be too hard on a claustrophobic person for panicking in a small room.

Claustrophobia relates to psychological fears. Homophobia comes from a different source, from sociology and scientific descriptions of reactions between two parties. You are again using the incorrect definition, again in relation to how much moral blame to assign.

This is a fundamentally flawed way of analyzing society

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What? I don't know what to say to you anymore. Goodnight dude

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

You know the scientific terms hydrophobic and hydrophilic used to describe various kinds of mechanical and chemical interactions? That is how sociology used the term “homophobic” when it created the term, describing that a certain group is anti-homosexuality.

What you are doing is akin to going up to a chemist and saying “I don’t like how the term hydrophobic lets phospholipids off the hook for their bigotry”. It’s adding morality into what should be a cold mechanical description of forces