Oikophobia#Political usage

The English conservative philosopher Roger Scruton first wrote of oikophobia while at Boston University in 1993.{{cite journal |last1=Scruton |first1=Roger |title=Oikophobia |journal=The Journal of Education |date=1993 |volume=175 |issue=2 |pages=96-98 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42742290 |access-date=2 June 2025 |issn=0022-0574}} In his 2004 book England and the Need for Nations, Scruton expanded usage of the word to mean "the repudiation of inheritance and home".Scruton, Roger. 2004. "[http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/cs49-8.pdf Oikophobia]." pp. 33–38 in England and the Need for Nations. London: Civitas. He argues that it is "a stage through which the adolescent mind normally passes",{{cite web |url=http://www.continuumbooks.com/authors/details.aspx?AuthorId=145104&BookId=126311 |title=Continuum - Political Philosophy |last=Scruton |first=Roger |publisher=Continuum Books |access-date=2010-08-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091015184851/http://www.continuumbooks.com/authors/details.aspx?AuthorId=145104&BookId=126311 |archive-date=2009-10-15 |url-status=dead}} but is also a feature of some, typically leftist, political impulses and ideologies which espouse xenophilia, i.e. preference for foreign cultures.Scruton, Roger. "Oikophobia and Xenophilia." pp. 287–92 in Stereotypes and Nations, edited by T. Walas. Krakow International Cultural Center, Poland.

Scruton uses it as the antithesis of xenophobia.Lacroix, Justine, and Kalypso Nicolaīdis. 2011. European Stories: Intellectual Debates on Europe in National Contexts. Oxford University Press. p. 159. In his book Roger Scruton: Philosopher on Dover Beach the Irish journalist Mark Dooley describes oikophobia as centred within the academic establishment of the Western world as part of "both the common culture of the West, and the old educational curriculum that sought to transmit its humane values." This disposition has grown out of, for example, the writings of Jacques Derrida and of Michel Foucault's "assault on 'bourgeois' society result[ing] in an 'anti-culture' that took direct aim at holy and sacred things, condemning and repudiating them as oppressive and power-ridden."Dooley, Mark. 2009. Roger Scruton: Philosopher on Dover Beach. Continuum.{{Rp|78}} He continues:{{Rp|83}}

Derrida is a classic oikophobe in so far as he repudiates the longing for home that the Western theological, legal, and literary traditions satisfy ... Derrida's deconstruction seeks to block the path to this 'core experience' of membership, preferring instead a rootless existence founded 'upon nothing.'

An extreme aversion to the sacred, and the thwarting of the connection of the sacred to the culture of the West is described as the underlying motif of oikophobia; and not the substitution of Christianity by another coherent system of belief. The paradox of the oikophobe seems to be that any opposition directed at the theological and cultural tradition of the West is to be encouraged even if it is "significantly more parochial, exclusivist, patriarchal, or ethnocentric."{{Rp|78}} Scruton describes "a chronic form of oikophobia [which] has spread through the American universities, in the guise of political correctness."{{Rp|37}}

Scruton's usage has been taken up by some American political commentators to refer to what they see as a rejection of traditional American culture by the liberal elite. In August 2010 James Taranto wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal entitled "Oikophobia: Why the liberal elite finds Americans revolting", in which he criticises supporters of the proposed Islamic center in New York as oikophobes who were defending Muslims and aimed to "exploit the 9/11 atrocity."{{cite news |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704147804575455523068802824 |title=Oikophobia: Why the liberal elite finds Americans revolting|last=Taranto|first=James|date=27 August 2010|publisher=Dow Jones & Company, Inc.|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal|department=Best of the Web|access-date=26 June 2016}}

In the Netherlands oikophobia has been adopted by the politician and writer Thierry Baudet, which he describes in his book Oikophobia: The Fear of Home.

In his Letters from England (1808), Robert Southey describes oikophobia as a product of "a certain state of civilisation or luxury." referring to the habit among wealthy people to visit spa towns and seaside resorts in the summer months. He also mentions the fashion for picturesque travel to wild landscapes, such as the Scottish Highlands.Southey, Robert. 1808. Letters from England 1. New York: David Longworth. pp. 157–59.

Southey's link of oikophobia to wealth and the search for new experiences was taken up by other writers, and cited in dictionaries.Black, Richard. 1874. The student's manual complete: an etymological vocabulary of words derived from the Greek and Latin. Oxford. p. 84. A writer in 1829 published an essay about his experience witnessing the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, saying:[Eyewitness]. 1829. "[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b2991723&view=1up&seq=102 Waterloo, the Day After the Battle]." pp. 84–92 in The United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine 1. London: Henry Colburn. p. 84. Retrieved 3 July 2020.

[T]he love of locomotion is so natural to an Englishman, that nothing can chain him home, but the absolute impossibility of living abroad. No such imperious necessity acting upon me, I gave way to my oiko-phobia, and the summer of 1815 found me in Brussels.

• Clientitis
• Cultural cringe
• Wanderlust
• Xenocentrism
• Xenophilia
• Xenophobia

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Category:Political science terminology