shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
> At 03:53 PM 3/1/2009, James Heartfield wrote:
> > My friend Pete Ray wrote this seventeen years ago, arguing that
> > homphobia is itself a myth, because it takes a social force and turns it
> > into a psychological reaction:
>
> yes. thank you. excellent piece! it's my beef, too -- and, shoot, why yes,
> i've seen a violent bigot up close and personal all irrational an' stuph. i
> almost said something but what made me laff more was that the term was
> dropped on top of a claim that suggested a kind of transhistoricality to a
> psychological phenom spanning, at least, two different cultures - and was
> justified by gesture at Foucault of all theorists. I wasn't interested in
> being serious any more. still ain't. Sorry Philip! But it looks like Doss
> is playing -- but for real $! :)
I should have objected to the term also. "Phobias" are actual illnesses, and so-called "homophobia" is clearly socially constructed and obscures the whole issue. Like you, I was focused on the transhistorical nature of the explanation offered.
Oh well. You and James have clarified it. Probably if one wants a single term, "heterosexism" is the best term available.
In another post,
>
> Have I just been accused of transhistoricism by one person and historicism
> by another person?
Yup. And both are correct. Many kinds of error can lead to positing transhistorical explanations, but historicism is one major source of the error.
Carrol
Carrol