Frank’s Case Book

The word and suffix “phobia” derives from the Latin word phobos for fear. In psychiatry, a phobia refers to any irrational fear. [1] Arachnophobia is the irrational fear of spiders. People who fear heights suffer from acrophobia. People who post at political web sites obviously do not suffer from doxophobia or fear of expressing opinions. Recently, a secondary meaning of phobia has fallen into a too common usage. The new definition of phobia includes not only fear, but also aversion and hate. For example, homophobia has come to mean hate of homosexuals, not just fear of the same. Actually there is a double intended meaning here. Certain activists for homosexuals would like people to believe the aversion to homosexuals is borne of a phobia about personal sexuality. There is no use arguing about the new usage of phobia. Changes in usage happen in living languages.

In a recent article in the Weekly Standard, David Brooks argues that we are encountering a new phobia, a phobia characterized more by hatred than by fear. According to Brooks, this “Bourgeoisophobia” explains why European and Arabs have come to hate America and Israel. [2] Brooks recently wrote Bobos in Paradise on how a unique combination of bourgeois and bohemian values and attitudes characterize the new upper class in America. He has thus spent considerable time studying the history and evolution of bourgeois values.

According to Brooks, the attitude of Islamic fundamentalists iseasy to understand. They hate the values of the “meritocratic capitalist society.” They hate highly commercial cultures and what they are based on: individual liberty for the masses, even women. They hate what free cultures produce: everything from popular music to videos. Most of all, Islamic fundamentalists are “inflamed” by “humiliation.” In the 1960’s and 1970’s, some Arab societies attempted to embrace a modern economy, but wouldn’t allow their cultures to adapt. The lingering and unhappy residue of these attempts is a sense of failure and anger. America represents the West with its bourgeois values and Israel is the foothold of the West in the Middle East. Hence, they both evoke a particular animus.

Europeans both love and hate America. The love American popular culture, while showing a distaste for the idea of American exceptionalism. Europeans embrace bourgeois values at least as much as Americans. How then can Bourgeoisophobia explain European anger with the United States? Part of it is a little jealously of American economic success. Some Europeans view Americans as many of us might view a rich uncle who wears checked suits, sports a $5 haircut, and became wealthy by selling brightly colored Cadillacs. We have to acknowledge the monetary success even while our sense of fairness and justice is assaulted because of our conviction that the uncle is our moral and intellectual inferior. Even worse, unlike the uncle, to Europeans Americans possess a blithe, casual, and infuriating certainty in their own goodness.

As Brooks explains:

“No European would ever acknowledge the category, but America and Israel are heroic bourgeois nations. The Israelis are driven by passionate Zionism to build their homeland and make it rich and powerful. Americans are driven by our Puritan sense of calling, the deeply held belief that Americans have a special mission to spread our way of life around the globe. It is precisely this heroic element of ordinary life that Europeans lack and distrust.”

Once Europeans thought themselves to be the economic, cultural, military leaders of the world. Europe had a colonial empire that extended around the globe. Two world wars and their aftermath splintered off what was left of European colonial holdings while dissipating European self-confidence. American hubris reminds them of what they once were and can be no longer. Retaining a sense of moral superiority by creating the myth of the unsophisticated American cowboy blustering unthinking into the world acts as a mild analgesic to European frustration at self-imposed impotence.

1. On-line list of Phobias.
2. Brooks, David, “Among the Bourgeoisophobes,” The Weekly Standard, 20-72, April 15, 2002.

There is something of a global, political, economic, and demographic race on. On one side, we have Western and Western-class countries with their open and transparent societies, ethos of tolerance, respect for individual liberties, adherence to the rule of law, and robust economies. On the other side, are various authoritarian countries, that use ideology or religion as a yoke to control their populations. In terms of wealth, growth, and technological leadership, there is a large gulf between the West and the rest.

However, the fertility rates of Western and Western-class countries are rapidly decreasing. In countries like Italy and Spain fertility is far far less than what is required for replacement. In Western Europe, the fertility rate is about a third less than required for replacement. Residents of the United States are not producing children at a rate necessary for replacement. Were it not for immigration, the population of the United States would be decreasing. Though there are a few countries like China that have used Draconian methods to limit population growth and others that match high birth rates with an AIDS epidemic so pervasive that there is the threat of population decreases, the population in developing countries is growing far more rapidly than in developed countries. Even with an expected drop-off in the fertility in developing countries, the ratio of people living there to those in developed countries will significantly increase this century.

It does not take much of an imagination to realize that unsuccessful leaders in developing countries will find the West convenient targets for demagoguery. The assertion that “We are poor, because the West is rich,” has a saliency in the developing world and insolates local repressive leaders from accountability. Unless developing countries can be rapidly integrated into the world economy and unless living standards begin to approach those of the West, there is a strong potential for political instability and increased terrorism. The race is whether these developing countries can achieve some level of economic prosperity before the developed and undeveloped worlds come into more conflict.

The Middle East, particularly the situation between the Israelis and the Palestinians, is an extreme example of this phenomenon. While Israel is a relatively affluent country, it floats in a sea of despair and economic stagnation. Much of this economic stagnation is a consequence of the authoritarian rule by Palestinian leaders, pervasive corruption, and a consequence of the devotion resources to arms and security as opposed to economic development. This economic despair combined with a culture of misogyny causes birth rates that are so high that it is difficult for any economic development to keep pace. In the West Bank, the Palestinian fertility rate is 5.8 children per woman in a lifetime, far in excess of the 2.1 replacement rate. In the Gaza Strip the rate is an astounding 7.8. It is small wonder that life has become so worthless, that suicide bombers seem to be a renewable resource.

The best foreseeable near-term outcome for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is some sort of agreement where Palestinian leadership, not intent on the destruction of Israel, agrees to live with borders roughly corresponding to the 1967 borders between Jordan and Israel. Even given such an outcome, unless there is very rapid economic development on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the world will be faced with an Israel of modest population density, bordered by high population density areas of relative poverty. No political accommodation can withstand this extreme level of economic disparity. Any honest armistice between the Palestinians and Israelis must be accompanied by intensive economic development. Unfortunately, hopes for the necessary cultural and economic changes are probably more desperate for than those for political change in Palestinian-controlled areas. Without political peace, adoption of a Western economic model, and perhaps massive economic aid to the area, one lap of the world race will likely be lost here.