Free Republic

Oikophobia -- fear and hatred of one's own culture and people. It has brought down civilizations since there have been civilizations. And now we're infected, too.

I love watching Glenn Beck on TV. Day winding down, he makes so many good points. As someone who has spent a lifetime studying history, been there in government and politics, I find it great to watch Beck’s particular insistence on educating Americans about real history that has gone missing. Having long ago learned first hand the progressive-race connection, for example, by having lived for a couple years in Woodrow Wilson’s hometown, I am stunned to see someone have the wit and the chops to detail this particularly disturbing history of America’s “progressive” president on popular television. Bravo. So I...

"The British philosopher Roger Scruton has coined a term to describe this attitude: oikophobia. Xenophobia is fear of the alien; oikophobia is fear of the familiar: "the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours.' " What a perfect description of the pro-mosque left. "Scruton was writing in 2004, and his focus was on Britain and Europe, not America. But his warning about the danger of oikophobes--whom he amusingly dubs "oiks"--is very pertinent on this side of the Atlantic today, and it illuminates...

I came across a new term yesterday which I hadn't heard before, but I thought you might be interested in. Oikophobia/Oikophobes. It's from Roger Scruton, a British political philosopher: This repudiation is the result of a peculiar frame of mind that has arisen throughout the Western world since the second world war, and which is particularly prevalent among the intellectual and political élites. No adequate word exists for this attitude, though its symptoms are instantly recognised: namely, the disposition, in any conflict, to side with ‘them’ against ‘us’, and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that...