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Maybe I put my comment poorly because what I wrote 4 years ago is still in my head. I had had a working hypothesis that xenophilia is antifascistic. (how about comedy? Fascism produced "Lili Marleen", but did it produce any comedians?)

My big Q was: if Pound was such a xenophile (as I had thought) when young, why did he turn to Fascism when older?

TIL that he wasn't ever xenophilic; he only dealt with the other once it had been transmuted into the familiar and he could work it on his own terms. (thus restoring my working hypothesis)

Does that make more sense?

Thanks for your answer!

As to his potential conclusion that fascism ("tomorrow belongs to me") was the answer to "western decline", see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24696859

Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yybY0QeZdro

[soundnote]

I don't know if that works out: A lot of people on the right I know are quite xenophilic in the sense of having a deep interest in other cultures etc, though not indiscriminately so.

The difference between them and much of the left is that they've come to reject oikophobia as wrong and are consciously oikophilic when it comes to their own culture and ethnicity, while the leftist configuration is oikophobic/xenophilic.

(Not to say there aren't oikophilic/xenophobic people, but I feel like that's more often an unthinking stance)

[dri_ft]

I was just working on a comment featuring the word oikophilic when I had to go to bed, so it's nice to see that one managed to get written anyway.

[aebtebeten]

Sleep well; happy to hear from you tomorrow!

(note that it's not always easy being parochially oikophilic if your sympatriots[0] sometimes say things like "no, where are you really from?". Oἶκος strictly speaking referred to the family[1]; some people consider their οἶκος[2] to be less, others, more, inclusive)

[0] did latin pick up patria from greek or are they cognate?

[1] so pedantically "home ec" should be unmarked and "national economy" the marked term.

[2] presumably "kith and kin" is not redundant; which class is larger?

> Men are cruel, but man is kind —RT

Lagniappe: https://xkcd.com/2608/

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That's an interesting hypothesis; what would be some examples of oikophobia?

[soundnote]

Sorry to have taken so long:

There's a lot - all the "Death to America" rhetoric, white liberals being okay with other ethnicities openly advocating for their interests but whites doing so being gigabad. Generally refusing to act in the best interests of existing citizens vs. even illegal immigrants, or refusing to uphold laws out of care for the supposedly downtrodden with the result that cities turn into shitholes. celebrating old achievements of their own civilization being cringe, while celebrating those of other cultures' being lauded.

This does not mean the white liberals don't act in their own interest - their policies wrt eg. black schooling are some of the most heinous works of sabotage you could imagine, but the cloak it as compassion. More graduations and admissions, but less people able to actually read or do math.

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Do you have any examples that are not strawmen? (I mean, they may not be strawmen to you, but they're not at all credible to me; surely we can find something which we both agree is an actual thing?)

[dri_ft]

Seeing that this discussion is still going on (I'm impressed!) I shall provide an example which I believe fits the bill. Around the time you first asked the question I learnt that the BBC are currently re-airing a classic documentary series of theirs, Civilisation, by Kenneth Clarke. This is essentially a history of post-classical European civilisation from the end of the dark ages to the present day. The programme is what we would now call eurocentric in its focus, and it does celebrate that european culture, but it certainly doesn't denigrate any other, or claim that that of Europe is greater than any other. Nonetheless the BBC felt it necessary in rebroadcasting it to prepend a warning that the programme reflects the 'standards and attitudes of its time'[0]. What views are these which the BBC feels it necessary to disclaim? One can only assume it is the attitude of celebrating rather than denigrating western culture and history. The programme must not go out without warnings lest anyone get the impression that we appreciate our own civilisation! I believe that that can fairly be called oikophobia.

[0] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-is-the-bbc-censuring... They also commissioned a ten-minute preface talk by Mary Beard but as I couldn't watch this myself (it's only on the BBC iplayer for which I will not sign up) I shall refrain from comment.

As a lagniappe (not a word we have in my country, by the way), I share this rather cruel Pound story which may nonetheless, as it did me, amuse you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auberon_Waugh#Waugh.27s_views (2nd paragraph, or look for 'Pound')

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Thanks! I have Civilisation in hardcopy, so that sounds like a perfect example. (unfortunately I'm on holiday atm so my reply will come much later)

Bron's father's prose from Brideshead rather sums up (with the necessary change in brackets) why I may come across as oikophobic at times:

> ...we had been through it together, the [Old Country] and I ... until now, when nothing remained to us except the chill bonds of law and duty and custom. I had played every scene in the domestic tragedy, had found the early tiffs become more frequent, the tears less affecting, the reconciliations less sweet, till they engendered a mood of aloofness and cool criticism, and the growing conviction that it was not myself but the loved one who was at fault. I caught the false notes in her voice and learned to listen for them apprehensively ... I learned ... the routine and mechanism of her charm, her jealousy and self-seeking, and her nervous trick with the fingers when she was lying.

(it is reassuring to see in WP that the elder Waugh's second marriage, like his second confession —despite Vatican II?—, stuck for life)

EDIT: looks like many "BBC Four Classic Documentaries Collection" programs of the last century get the same treatment, from:

(1961) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00lgzyl

to:

(1995) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05tjt61

> Programmes are selected, in part, for their historical context and reflect the broadcast standards and attitudes of their time, which may not accord to some current BBC editorial guidelines. We aim to select programmes which can be shown in their entirety but in some cases edits are required.

I'd assume nudity wouldn't be a problem in context, either then or now, but transverberation content like The Ecstasy of St. Teresa may run afoul of contemporary self-harm guidelines?

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Come to think of it: I don't happen to believe "cities turn into shitholes"* but for the sake of argument, let's stipulate it.

What would be oikophobic if people in cities were to do their own shithole urban thing, and you all were to do your own non-shithole non-urban thing?

* https://www.theonion.com/relatives-acting-like-they-ll-be-as...

Lagniappes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYNSSkOOTBk & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MoIGGIK8XY

[djeastm]

I think there's a distinction to be made between having an interest in other cultures and being accepting of other cultures. Not sure if oikophilia is defined that precisely or not.

Seeing other cultures as something to be studied or understood is something even the xenophobic can be drawn to, if nothing else to size up the enemy (see all of the "studies" done by the Nazis on the "untermenschen")

[soundnote]

That is sort of what I mean: They care first and foremost for their own, but do not really hate different people: They just want their own place, for themselves, and used to have that but mass immigration policies in effect destroy that, and the rhetoric to justify them in effect say they don't have a right to their own place.

So they are self-first, but interested in and appreciative of those who are different. They just wish to stay themselves, as well. You can see it in eg. the architecture accounts on Twitter: They'll readily post Islamic architecture, Asian architecture and those people's local solutions to their environmental issues, but they also insist European solutions and culture be accorded at least equal value. And a lot of the people running them certainly don't want millions of Islamists on their shores, their appreciation is less for modern Islam and more for the old golden ages when they were a center of high civilization.

The left doesn't think the first desire of their own place as it used to be is valid, of caring for themselves first is valid, but they do like other cultures (or at least the injection of foreign influences into their own, which they have a dim view of). The left, while it accords primacy to the other over what's traditionally their people's, don't really look up to foreign cultures in some ways - they do try to change them to be western woke leftist in character in their interactions, even if they hold them in higher regard than the culture of the leftists' native countries.

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How does staying oneself have anything to do with what other people do?

(I'm failing to see the how we get to "in effect say they don't have a right to their own place". My understanding of the leftist position is that everyone has a right to their own place.)

(I'm all in favour of people's freedom to swing their fists about, as long as they're avoiding other peoples' faces)

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At least JBS Haldane, and his less famous colleagues, did their physiologic limit experimenting on themselves.